Two Rival Towns Become One

Denver did not start as a single settlement. In the autumn of eighteen fifty-eight, two competing camps appeared on opposite banks of Cherry Creek. On the west bank, a group of Georgia prospectors led by Green Russell founded Auraria in October.

The name came from a gold mining town in Georgia, derived from the Latin word for gold. About six weeks later, on the east bank, a Kansas Territory land speculator named William Larimer staked out Denver City. He named it after James Denver, the recently resigned governor of the Kansas Territory, hoping the gesture would win political favor.

Denver had no idea a city was being named for him. The two camps competed hard, chasing businesses, residents, and any advantage that might tip the balance. A frontiersman named Richens Wooton reportedly helped ease the tension on Christmas Day of eighteen fifty-eight, when he knocked open a barrel of whiskey at Auraria.

Word spread quickly across the creek, and the two sets of rivals spent the holiday drinking together. The formal merger came in eighteen sixty, consolidating both towns under the Denver name. Auraria did not vanish entirely.

The name survives as the Auraria Campus, home to several Denver colleges and universities, sitting on roughly the same ground where the original rival settlement once stood.