Denver grew out of a gold rush camp in 1858, and a surprising amount of that early city still stands between the river and Civic Center. This guide follows six places that tell the story of how Denver was founded, got rich and built itself up: Confluence Park, Larimer Square, the Daniels & Fisher Tower, the Brown Palace Hotel, the Central Library and the Denver Mint. If you have already walked from Coors Field to the Capitol, this is the second half of the city.
Confluence Park
Denver's story starts where Cherry Creek flows into the South Platte River. In May 1858 a party of prospectors led by William Greeneberry Russell began panning for gold at this confluence. They found little here, but their finds a few miles upstream helped set off the Colorado Gold Rush, and the camps that grew up along the creek became Denver.
Today the meeting of the two waters is Confluence Park, a green space on the edge of Lower Downtown, the district everyone calls LoDo. On warm days people sit on the banks, cyclists pass along the riverside trails, and kayakers practise on a run built into the South Platte.
- The two pedestrian bridges, one over the South Platte and one over Cherry Creek, which give the best view of where the rivers join.
Larimer Square
Larimer Square is the 1400 block of Larimer Street, laid out in 1858 by William E. Larimer, whose name it carries. It is the oldest surviving commercial block in Denver, lined with brick and stone buildings from the 1870s to the 1890s, two to four storeys tall, with decorative cornices and tall shop windows. In the 1960s much of the old centre was being cleared, and this block was expected to go the same way.
It survived thanks to the preservationist Dana Crawford, who began buying and restoring the buildings in the 1960s and filled them with shops and restaurants instead of tearing them down. In 1971 Larimer Square became Denver's first officially designated historic district, and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. It is a stop on our scavenger hunt, and it is at its liveliest in the evening, when the restaurants fill up.
- The upper floors and cornices, where the Victorian brickwork is best preserved above the modern shopfronts.
Daniels & Fisher Tower
The tall, slender clock tower on the 16th Street Mall at Arapahoe Street is all that is left of the Daniels & Fisher department store. It was completed in 1910 to a design by Frederick Sterner, who based it on the Campanile of St Mark's in Venice. At 325 feet it was said to be the tallest building between the Mississippi and California, and it stayed the tallest in Denver until 1957.
The May Company bought the store in 1958, the store building was demolished around 1971, but the tower was saved. In 1981 it was converted into offices and flats, and its basement now holds a cabaret venue. It stands in Skyline Park, a few minutes from Larimer Square.
- The four clock faces near the top, and, if you are close by on the hour, the large bell that still rings.
Brown Palace Hotel
The Brown Palace opened in 1892, built of red granite and sandstone to a design by Frank Edbrooke, and it was Denver's tallest building when it was finished. It is named after its first owner, Henry C. Brown, who had homesteaded the land that became Capitol Hill. The building fills a triangular plot, so it has a sharp, flatiron-like corner on 17th Street, and inside it is one of the first hotels built around a central atrium.
Its guest list reads like a history of the 20th century. Theodore Roosevelt stayed in 1905, the first sitting president to visit, and Dwight D. Eisenhower came so often that the hotel was nicknamed the Western White House. The Beatles stayed here, and in 1997 world leaders met in its rooms during the G8 summit. It is not a scavenger hunt stop, but you can walk into the lobby to look up at the atrium.
- The atrium lobby, an early example of a layout that was still rare in 1892: step inside and look straight up.
- The triangular shape seen from the corner on 17th Street, which gives the building its unusual wedge shape.
Central Library
Denver's Central Library sits on Broadway at 14th Avenue, next to the Denver Art Museum. The older part, designed by Burnham Hoyt with the firm Fisher & Fisher, opened in 1956. In 1995 a much larger extension by Michael Graves and the Denver firm Klipp Colussy Jenks DuBois opened alongside it, a seven-storey group of shapes in limestone and pre-cast concrete with copper details.
Inside, the Western History and Genealogy collection on the fifth floor is a major archive on the American West, with hundreds of thousands of photographs and paintings by artists such as Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran. The library is not a scavenger hunt stop.
- The fossils set into the floor of Schlessman Hall, and murals by Edward Ruscha inside the building.
Denver Mint
The Denver Mint began in 1863 as an assay office in the former premises of Clark, Gruber and Company at 16th and Market Streets. The present building on West Colfax Avenue, a short walk from Civic Center Park, was modelled on the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi in Florence and designed by the New York firm Tracy and Swartwout. Coins were first struck there on 1 February 1906.
Every coin made here carries a small D as its mint mark, so you have probably held its work in your hand. The Mint is a working federal building, not a museum, so check the official website before you go if you want to join a public tour. It is not a scavenger hunt stop.
- The ground floor in granite from Pikes Peak, grey granite above, and the tiled roof: a Renaissance palace for making money.
How to see them in one walk
Start at Confluence Park and walk through LoDo towards Union Station, then on to Larimer Square. From there it is a short walk to the Daniels & Fisher Tower on the 16th Street Mall. Follow the mall south-east and turn along 17th Street to the Brown Palace Hotel, then continue towards Civic Center Park. The Central Library stands next to the Denver Art Museum, and the Denver Mint is a few blocks further along Colfax Avenue.
See Denver with World City Trail
Our Denver scavenger hunt turns downtown into a game you play on your phone. The route links 10 stops, from Coors Field to the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, and Larimer Square is one of them, along with Union Station, the 16th Street Mall, the Denver Performing Arts Complex, Civic Center Park, the Denver Art Museum, the Colorado State Capitol and the Molly Brown House Museum. At each stop you solve a puzzle and learn a story, at your own pace.
There is also a self-guided walking tour and an outdoor escape game in Denver, for people who prefer a different format.
Play the Denver scavenger hunt →
Take the self-guided walking tour of Denver →
Play the outdoor escape game in Denver →
Facts checked in October 2026.