Downtown Denver to Capitol Hill: A Self-Guided Walking

Denver sits exactly one mile above sea level, and nearly everything about it reflects that outsized ambition. On this self-guided walking tour, you'll trace the city's arc from silver boom to civic grandeur, hearing stories of con men, socialites, heist masterminds, and the unlikely figures who shaped a metropolis at the edge of the wilderness. The tour starts at the Denver Pavilions on the 16th Street Mall and quickly leads you to the Brown Palace Hotel, the city's most storied address, where presidents, royalty, and the Beatles have all checked in - and at least one guest has never quite checked out. Along the way, you'll walk through Civic Center Park - a grand neoclassical showpiece built by a mayor obsessed with Paris - and past the U.S. Mint, where a brazen 1922 armed robbery left one man dead, $200,000 missing, and a frozen corpse in a nearby garage. The tour ends on the west steps of the State Capitol, where you'll look out over Civic Center Park and the Rocky Mountains.