Dr. Colorado's Top Ten Reading List of Books About Denver and Colorado

1. Arps, Louisa Ward. Denver in Slices. Denver: Sage Books, 1959 (1983, 1998 reprints by Swallow Press with intro. by Tom Noel).
   
   Delicious slices of Denver's past including the mint, drinking water, City Ditch, Cherry Creek, the South Platte River, Tabor ghosts, the Windsor Hotel, the Baron of Montclair, Overland Park, Buffalo Bill, Elitch Gardens and Eugene Field. A delightfully written and diligently researched appetizer.



2. Fowler, Eugene. Timber Line: A Story of Bonfils and Tammen. N.Y.: Covici, Friede, 1933. (many reprints).
   
   A gossipy, not always true, account of the adolescence of The Denver Post, written with as much zest and a shade more accuracy than the former con-man Bonfils and former bartender Tammen ever mustered for their outrageously sensational (and profitable) newspaper.



3. Iversen, Kristen. Molly Brown: Unraveling the Myth. Boulder: Johnson Books, 1999.
   
   Far from the comic nouveau riche character she has been cast as, Maggie was a feminist, labor sympathizer and role model for rising minorities, according to this revisionist biography.



4. Leonard, Stephen J. and Thomas J. Noel. Denver: From Mining Camp to Metropolis. Niwot: University Press of Colorado, 1990, 1994 paperback.
   
   The most comprehensive urban biography of the Mile High City offers separate chapters on the suburban counties



5. Lindsey, Benjamin Barr and Harvey J. O'Higgins. The Beast. Garden City: Doubleday, 1911.
   
   Chilling exposé by the celebrated Juvenile Court judge and muckraking reformer who blackens Denver's power elite-Evans, Moffat, Hughes, Cheesman, and-sparing not even the clergy-Rev./Gov. Henry Buchtel. The trail of the Beast in Denver led, according to Lindsey, "step by step, from the dives to the police board, from the police board to the lower courts, from the courts to the political leaders to the corporation magnates who ruled all. The trail leads from the offices of the corporations to the doors of the Capitol, it ascends the steps of the State House; it enters the sacred precinct of the Supreme Court itself." A fast cure for any nostalgic soul who is hungry for the good old days when politicians were supposedly honest and democracy supposedly pure.



6. Noel, Thomas J. The City and the Saloon: Denver, 1858-1916. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982/1984; Bison Book paperback, 1996; University Press of Colorado reprint.
   
   A liquid history of Denver's founding, politics, ethnic groups, and social fragmentation.



7. Norgren, Barbara S. and Thomas J. Noel. Denver: The City Beautiful and Its Architects. Denver: Historic Denver, Inc., 1987/1993 reprint.



8. Perkin, Robert L. The First Years: An Informal History of Denver and the Rocky Mountain News, 1859-1959. N.Y.: Doubleday, 1959.
   
   This witty, highly readable history of the Rocky Mountain Snooze and Denver is a splendid complement to the less-reliable Timberline by Gene Fowler who wrote the introduction to this treasure chest of knowledge and trivia.



9. Smiley, Jerome C. History of Denver. Denver: Western Pub. Co., 1978 (Reprint of original 1901edition).
   
   Centuries from now, Smiley will probably still be the definitive and the longest-winded biographer of 19th-century Denver. A booster history written with amazing grace, wit, and insight. Crackerjack 37-page index.



10. West, Elliott. The Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers and the Rush to Colorado. Topeka: University Press of Kansas, 1998.
    
    A major re-interpretation, eloquently written by one of the best and brightest Colorado historians.


These books are available at area book stores, or from any Denver Public Library location.

Bluemel, Elinor. Florence Sabin: Colorado Woman of the Century. Boulder: Univ. Press of Colorado, 1959; index, bibliography of the publications of Florence Sabin, illus.

Bluemel, Elinor. The Golden Opportunity: The Story of the Unique Emily Griffith Opportunity School of Denver. Boulder: Johnson Pub. Co., 1965; bib.,index.

Coel, Margaret. Chief Left Hand: Southern Arapaho. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1981; illus., maps, notes, bib., index.

A fascinating, sad look at one of the original Denver natives.

Dunning, John. Denver. N.Y.: Times Books, 1980.

A lusty historical novel that vividly portrays Denver journalism, politics, and the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s.

French, Emily. Emily: The Diary of A Hard-Worked Woman. ed. by Janet Lecompte. Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1987; index, epilogue, notes.

This extraordinary insight into the life of a divorced lower-class woman will dispel any romantic notions about "the good old days."

Goldberg, Robert Alan. Hooded Empire: The Ku Klux Klan in Colorado. Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1981; index, endnotes, bibliography.

The best study of the 1920s KKK nightmare in Colorado comes to some surprising conclusions.

Noel, Thomas J. The City and the Saloon: Denver, 1858-1916. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982/1984 Bison Book paperback/1996 University Press of Colorado reprint; illus., maps, notes, bib., index. cloth and paper. NW

A liquid history of Denver's politics, ethnic groups, and social fragmentation.

Parkhill, Forbes. Mister Barney Ford: A Portrait in Bistre. Denver: Sage Books, 1963; index, bibliography, illustrations, 9" x 6" hardback, $4.50

Sanford, Mollie Dorsey. Mollie: The Journal of Mollie Dorsey Sanford.... Intro. and notes by Donald F. Danker. Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1959.

Uchill, Ida Libert. Pioneers, Peddlers and Tsadikim. Denver: Sage Books, 1957; notes, bib., index.

Splendid history of Jews in Colorado.

 Secrest, Clark. Hell's Belles: Denver’s Brides of the Multitudes with attention to Various Gamblers, Scoundrels, and Mountebanks and a Biography of Sam Howe, Frontier Lawman. Aurora: Hindsight Historical Publications, 1996; index, bib, endnotes, photos, drawings, appendices.

Varnell, Jeanne. Women of Consequence: The Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame. Boulder: Johnson Books, 1999;

index, bib., illus.

The newest anthology of Denver’s most influential women.

Vigil, Ernesto B. The Crusade for Justice. Madison: The University of Wisconsin, 1999; index, endnotes.

An insider’s view of the emergence of the Chicano Movement in Denver.