 Hey everyone, Adam Shaw here from Riverow Media Company. I just want to apologize again that I haven't uploaded a video in a long time. I was in the process of moving from New Jersey back up to New England and I really owe it to you guys to upload videos consistently. I just want to apologize but I just want to say that I'm back and better than ever and we have another vintage map for you guys. This is a map of Denver, Colorado that was originally produced in 1887. As you can see, it is a bird's-eye perspective map displaying the various building architecture changes in landscape and really you get to see a three-dimensional perspective of Denver. Before we dive in and zoom in and explore this map, I'm going to give you a brief history of Denver, Colorado. Denver, Colorado was originally founded in 1858 as a gold mining town after a short amount of time. The gold deposits were really fully extracted from the ground and the town really had to adapt to a new economic style. So what they did was they actually became a supply and distribution hub for the surrounding gold mines in the area. As you know, Denver eventually grew to become the capital of Colorado but there were many factors that contributed to its growth and it wasn't only the city supplying to the various gold mining operations and also was a great transportation hub. It had a rail line that extended from Cheyenne, Wyoming all the way down to Western Kansas and it was kind of a central location in the Western United States. The city also had a great ability to process and ship minerals and ranch products. So I mean, as we can see, the city grew into the capital because you had the gold rush going on, you had a great transportation hub and you had infrastructure that could process and ship materials to the various mining operations and or ranches. So a lot of activity going on. What was interesting about the naming of Denver, this was just fascinating to me, the naming of the city. In 1858, a group of gold prospectors from Lawrence, Kansas arrived on the banks of the South Palate River. They named the city originally Montana City, which what we know as downtown Denver. But that site was actually abandoned. It was abandoned because, as we said before, they started mining it and they couldn't find any more gold. So they completely abandoned that site. Then in November, a few months later, in November of 1858, General William Laramir and land speculator from Kansas placed logs to stake a square mile claim. It was also known as the St. Charles claim and it was a claim that was owned by other people. And he was able to obtain this claim by essentially bribing these representatives with whisky and promises. They also gave them death threats. And so he got this St. Charles claim, was able to take it from these representatives and he renamed this location Denver City after the infamous Kansas Territorial Governor James W. Denver. And he did this in an attempt to make Denver a county seat of Arapfo County, Kansas, essentially part of Kansas. My guess is that he tried to extend the territory of Kansas and by naming this governor James W. Denver that after that, you know, he was naming it after to extend the city limits into and extend the territory of Kansas. So what was interesting about this was what we know as Kansas today does not include Denver. And what's interesting is that Laramir essentially named the town when the governor, right as the governor resigned from his office seat as a territorial governor. So maybe that's the reason why Denver is not part of Kansas today. So I thought that was quite interesting that from the research that I looked up. So, you know, maybe that's the reason why Denver is part of Colorado today. Very, very fascinating to me that a territorial governor of Kansas resigned literally the day of being named after a city. Interesting. So we're going to dive right in. Let's zoom into this map. I've looked at various aspects of this map birds eye view of Denver, 1887. As you can see here, here's the capital right here of Denver. We go a little bit to right this section right here. We've got to County Courthouse, very close by this 19. I've looked this up already. This is the City Hall. This is the Chamber of Commerce. I thought there was this was interesting this melting plants. Right here. They're all grouped together. And if you notice this, the rail lines are right next to the smelting plants, obviously to transport melted materials and minerals and put them on to trains. As we said before in the description of Denver, they were a great city. It was a great city for processing minerals and shipping them. I mean, it was a big transportation hub in the Western United States. So I thought that was quite interesting that we could locate that on this map. 16. Let's look up 16. That's a hotel. OK, it's a Windsor hotel. I also found this interesting. I didn't know how to interpret this number 11. You see that right there? Battle of Gettysburg. My guess is that was a civil war museum. And this is this maps 1887. So this is only a couple of years later, a couple of decades later, the American Civil War. So my guess is that's the Battle of Gettysburg Museum out in the Western United States. So I think that's interesting. 12, 13, 14 right here grouped. That's post office in an opera house. 12 is the opera house. 13 is the post office. There's the opera house. There is the post office. As you can see, the post office very closely in proximity to City Hall and the Chamber of Commerce right here. Right here, this is cool. This is Union Depot. And if you look at the rail lines, they all converge to this one big building. And they just converge all the way down there. I thought that was quite interesting. And the smelting plants right here. I mean, the history speaks for itself. Big transportation hub in the Western United States, mining minerals and processing minerals. I mean, that's what led to its growth. And I fully believe that. So this gives us a nice perspective on what Denver looked like back in the 1880s. So great, great, great map that we have. I love doing these birds eye perspective. I even love the details. Like if you look down here, you can see people right across from the Capitol building. You see a guy and a horse. It's just the little stuff that make these maps so great and building location. Here's three. What's three? I just located that. That's Metropole Hotel. Interesting. So you're always discovering new things with these maps. Six, what's six? That's high school. Right there. So I mean, just a wonderful map that we have right here. So I hope you've learned something from this video presentation and this map. Please subscribe to us. We do videos like these all the time where we explore old maps. We talk about history. We talk about historical events. If you like history and you like maps, definitely subscribe to us. We upload videos. We try to all the time and we're going to get more consistent. That's for sure. My channel is getting a lot, lot bigger. We're at 650 subscribers right now. So we're always growing. Definitely subscribe to us. Like this video, share this video and I will see you guys soon. Okay, take care. All right, bye.