Why Denver Exists Where No Railroad Wanted to Go

Denver makes no sense. A mile up, no navigable river, no port, no pass, and the railroad across America went about 100 miles north. So Denver paid for its own. It exists because it kept buying the connection geography refused to give. From the 1858 gold rush on Cherry Creek to the fire of 1863, the flood of 1864, the Union Pacific snub, the Denver Pacific built with half a million dollars in county bonds, the silver boom and the Moffat Tunnel through the Continental Divide. This is the case of Denver. Chapters 0:00 The Case 1:48 The Wrong Place 4:08 The Rush 6:33 The Bad Years 9:02 The Snub 11:21 The Bet 14:11 The Hub 17:07 The Tunnel 20:26 The Verdict Every city is a case. Sources Colorado Encyclopedia, Denver: https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/arti... Colorado Encyclopedia, Colorado Gold Rush: https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/arti... Denver Public Library, Great Fire of 1863: https://history.denverlibrary.org/new... CPR, Denver's first deadly flood (1864): https://www.cpr.org/2014/05/16/denver... WyoHistory, Cheyenne: Magic City of the Plains: https://www.wyohistory.org/encycloped... Crofutt's Overland Tours (1888), Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcmassb... Utahrails, Denver Pacific: https://utahrails.net/up/denver-pacif... Colorado Encyclopedia, John Evans: https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/arti... U.S. Census Bureau, 1920 bulletin, Colorado: https://www2.census.gov/library/publi... History Colorado, Railroads in Colorado 1858 to 1948: https://www.historycolorado.org/railr... Colorado Encyclopedia, Leadville: https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/arti... History Colorado, Colorado and the Silver Crash: https://www.historycolorado.org/story... Colorado Encyclopedia, David H. Moffat: https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/arti... Denver Water, How the Moffat Tunnel conquered the Great Divide: https://www.denverwater.org/tap/how-m... ASCE, Moffat Tunnel landmark: https://www.asce.org/about-civil-engi... Colorado Governor's Office, Moffat Tunnel lease: https://www.colorado.gov/governor/new... Denver Water, Where does your water come from?: https://www.denverwater.org/tap/where... Credits Photos and footage under Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY): Google Earth, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... trailsoffroad.com, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Bryan Aspenson, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Jeffrey Beall, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Jeffrey Beall, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Jeffrey Beall, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Jeffrey Beall, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... PEO ACWA, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Jasen Miller from Colorado Springs, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... David Herrera, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Public domain: Library of Congress; New York Public Library; Denver Public Library; DeGolyer Library, SMU (Robert Benecke, Andrew J. Russell); William Henry Jackson and other 19th century Denver photographers via Wikimedia Commons; Newberry Library; DPLA; NASA (JSC, SVS); National Park Service; U.S. GSA; USGS; Prelinger Archives via Internet Archive; Crofutt's Overland Tours (1888) via Internet Archive. CC0: photo by Thomson200, via Wikimedia Commons. Music: "La montagne" by Komiku, CC0. Maps and graphics: Map Noir.