Denver's Sixteenth Street

The beloved thoroughfare at the heart of Denver, Sixteenth Street has always been the Mile-High City's "Main Street." Sixteenth Street got its jump start in 1879 when Leadville's Silver King and Colorado's richest man, Horace Austin Warner Tabor, came to town and built the city's first five-story skyscraper at the corner of Sixteenth and Larimer Streets. In coming years, Sixteenth Street became Denver's main retail center as shopkeepers and department store owners constructed ever-more impressive palaces, culminating in the Daniels and Fisher Tower—the city's tallest building for five decades and the symbol of the city. In the second half of the 20th century, Sixteenth Street saw major changes, including the creation of one of the most successful pedestrian malls in the country, an archetype of the power of great urban places and an inspiration to other cities, large and small.