Denver
Mining Camp to Metropolis
By Stephen J. Leonard and Thomas J. Noel
University Press of Colorado
This lively best seller by leading Colorado historians Steve Leonard and Tom Noel is the most comprehensive survey ever written of the Mile High metropolis. Informative and richly illustrated, Denver covers the developing region from the mountain towns of Boulder and Jefferson counties to the High Plains settlements of Adams and Arapahoe counties, with more than two-thirds of the book devoted to the burgeoning five-county region since 1900.
In retelling the tale of conquest and city building, the authors explore the role of previously neglected peoples--notably women, ethnic minorities, and the working class--while weaving several key themes throughout the book: Denver's persistent reliance on natural resources, the important role of transportation to overcome the city's isolation, and the city's emphasis on privatization rather than on the public, common good. Denver: Mining Camp to Metropolis will fascinate and educated students and scholars, as well as all readers curious about the boom-and-bust metropolis of the Rockies.
... [E]ngaging history of one of America's most interesting cities. The authors, both academic historians, have written an unusually engaging work in which they explore the role of women, ethnics, and the working class in the growth of the city, its reliance on natural resources, and they examine how transportation played a key role in the city's development.'
- Steve Goddard's History Wire
Thomas J. Noel, also known as "Dr. Colorado", teaches history at the University of Colorado at Denver where he is the director of Public History, Preservation & Colorado Studies, and is a columnist for the Denver Post. He has served as a Denver Landmark Commissioner and chair during the 1970s and 1980s and is a National Register Reviewer for Colorado. He is the author or coauthor of forty-one books on Colorado. Stephen J. Leonard is professor and chair of the Department of History at Metropolitan State College.
