Term Paper on "Historic Preservation"

Term Paper 3 pages (1053 words) Sources: 1 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Historic Preservation in the West

Historic Preservation in Albuquerque, Denver, & Seattle

Along with the cities of Albuquerque, New Mexico and Seattle, Washington, the city of Denver, Colorado has gone through many phases and many changes in its history. In 1858, Denver was just a settlement in Colorado with no name and not much else except three town sites that had been staked out. But that was soon to change when a man named General William Larimer from Leavenworth, Kansas arrived to a place near where Cherry Creek meets the South Platte River, looking for gold. He took one of the sites and "named his town after James Denver, governor of the Kansas Territory" (Morley, 44) author Judy Mattivi Morley writes in her book, Historic Preservation and the Imagined West: Albuquerque, Denver and Seattle.

And as for the main street of that early town of Denver, General Larimer named it after himself. When the mining region of Pikes Peak became a bustling place for speculators from around the country, Larimer Street "grew into the commercial heart of the city," Morley explains on page 44. But several events proved tough on Larimer Street; they were the silver crash of 1893, World War I at the beginning of the 20th Century, and the Dust Bowl in the 1930s, and "economic hardship changed the demographics of Larimer Street," and in fact it turned into a depressed area where "men down on their luck" and recent struggling immigrants lived.

But as many modern cities will do, Denver decided to clean up its act; the city appropriated money and resources into what became "Larimer Square" in 1967. Bond issue money and the energetic preservationist advocacy of Dana Crawford turned Larimer Square into a thriving commercial zone. Basically, Larimer Square was purchased by a for-profit corporation and the Larimer Square Historic District became official on June 21, 1971.

Crawford understood that Larimer Square had to appeal to visitors, so she convinced the city to market the square (and they did); and after being sold twice, by the late 1990s Larimer Square became the cool place to be "frequently surpassing the Denver Mint and Buffalo Bill's Grave" as attractions for tourists. Today, it is both a noted historic portion of a thriving city, and a popular attraction for locals and tourists (Morley 65). When the Denver Broncos won two straight Super Bowls in the late 1990s, Larimer Square was where the city's celebrations took place.

The creation and fine-tuning of historic districts in cities have proven, in many cases, as a way to revitalize old crumbling areas of urban blight and also to jumpstart the image of a city in terms of a welcoming destination for travelers. Pioneer Square in Seattle is another classic example where city leaders and business interests worked together to create a worthy downtown venue for locals and visitors. The city was born in 1852, boomed because of saw mills, mostly burned down in the great fire of 1889 and then the Klondike gold rush of 1897 brought a lot of people into the area (miners, merchants, adventurers) (Morley, 69).

But during the Great Depression the square fell into… READ MORE

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