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Market Street

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  • (Damie Stillman)
  • (Damie Stillman)
  • (Damie Stillman)
  • (Damie Stillman)

Between the 1870s and 1912, Market Street was Denver's red-light district. Today many of the old taverns, whorehouses, and warehouses have been rehabilitated. The Colorado Bakery and Saloon ( DV058.1; 1866, Frederick C. Eberley; 1890; 1989 restoration, Larry Nelson), 1440–1444 Market, is a particularly fine restoration of a very early storefront. The tall, arched, second-story windows, cast iron fronts, and bracketed metal cornice typify the first generation of Denver's brick business buildings. Next door at 15th and Market is the Wells Fargo Depot ( DV058.2; c. 1870). The much-altered one-story red brick building on a rough-faced rhyolite foundation has unusual pointed-arch windows. A row of buildings, Market Center ( DV058.3; 1890s; 1980s restoration) in the 1600 block of Market Street, has been recycled for retail and office use, providing a striking masonry foreground for high-rise glass and concrete towers. One former brothel, the Mattie Silks Building ( DV058.4; 1886), 2009 Market, commemorates Colorado's most notorious madam in a two-story Italianate house now converted to other business.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Thomas J. Noel

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