Welcome To Denver SAFeDATA

The US Census Bureau estimates that, in 2006, the populus of the City and County of Denver was 566,974, making it the 26th most thickly settled U.S. city. The Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Statistical Area had an estimated 2006 populus of 2,408,750 and ranked as the 21st most thickly settled U.S. metropolitan statistical area, and the bigger Denver-Aurora-Boulder Combined Statistical Area had an estimated 2006 populus of 2,927,911 and ranked as the 17th most thickly settled U.S. metropolitan area. The city claims to have the 10th largest downtown in the US.

On Nov 22, 1858, General William Larimer, a land speculator from eastern Kansas, placed cottonwood logs to stake a claim on the hill overlooking the confluence of the South Platte River and Cherry Creek, across the creek from the existing mining settlement of Auraria. Larimer named the town site Denver City to curry favor with Kansas Territorial Governor James W. Denver. Larimer hoped that the town`s name would help make it the county seat of Arapaho County, but ironically Governor Denver had already resigned from office. The location was accessible to existing trails and was across the South Platte River from the site of seasonal encampments of the Cheyenne and Arapaho. The site of these first towns is now the site of Confluence Park in downtown Denver. Larimer, along with associates in the St. Charles City Land Company, sold parcels in the town to merchants and miners, with the intention of generating a major city that would cater to new emigrants. Denver City was a frontier town, with an economy based on servicing local miners with gambling, saloons, livestock and goods trading. In the early years, land parcels were often traded for grubstakes or gambled away by miners in Auraria.

In 1901 the Colorado General Assembly voted to split Arapahoe County into three parts: a new consolidated City and County of Denver, a new Adams County, and the remainder of the Arapahoe County to be renamed South Arapahoe County. A ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court, subsequent legislation, and a referendum delayed the creation of the City and County of Denver until 1902-11-15. Denver hosted the 1908 Democratic National Convention to promote the city`s status on the national political and socio-economic stage.

Beat icon Neal Cassady was raised on Larimer Street in Denver, and a portion of Jack Kerouac`s beat masterpiece On the Road takes place in the city, and is based on the beat`s actual experiences in Denver during a road trip. Beat poet Allen Ginsberg stayed for a time in a basement apartment on Grant Street (no longer standing), and Kerouac briefly owned a home in the Denver suburb of Lakewood in the late spring and summer of 1949. In addition, Ginsberg helped found the "Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa," in nearby Boulder at the Buddhist college Naropa University, then Naropa Institute.

Denver has also been known historically as the Queen City of the Plains because of its important role in the agricultural industry of the plains regions along the foothills of the Colorado Front Range. Several US Navy ships have been named USS Denver in honor of the city.

The avg temperature in Denver is 50.1 °F (10.1 °C), and the avg yearly precipitation is 15.81 inches (40.2 cm). The season`s first snowfall generally occurs around October 19, and the last snowfall is about April 27, averaging 54.9 inches (156 cm) of seasonal accumulation. Although Denver`s Convention and Visitor Bureau claims Denver receives over 300 sunny days a year, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration places that figure at slightly above 250 days of sunshine a year.