Life In The Queen City Of The Plains
Whiz-bang Historians Steve Leonard and Tom Noel Get Short And Sweet With Denver
By Cara DeGette, GPHN Editor
For his 50th book, Tom Noel, the noted Colorado historian, teamed up with his longtime colleague and coauthor Steve Leonard, to provide an update on the colorful, at-times randy history of the Queen City of the Plains.
A Short History of Denver (University of Nevada Press) has all the modern updates – brew pubs, recreational pot and, of course, Broncomania. It’s not an academic tome. It’s not a boosterism tool. Rather it’s a highly readable, 192-page updated version of the complete history of Denver that Noel and Leonard collaborated on more than a quarter century ago.
A Short History of Denver is designed, the authors say, for students who have groaned that the long version was too dense with detail. It’s for teachers, newcomers to Denver, as well as pioneers who are in need of a quick refresher on the past.
Leonard, the longtime former Dean of the History Department at MSU Denver, has lived in Park Hill for many years. Noel is a professor of history and the Director of Public History, Preservation & Colorado Studies at the University of Colorado Denver. He lives in the Montclair neighborhood, which is not in Park Hill, but close.
The authors recently sat down for some banter about their continuous exploration of Denver’s past.
A Short History of Denver hits on major events and characters that have made their mark on the Mile High City: Gold strikes (and misses), competition between the first settlements of Auraria and Denver (Denver won), the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s, gambling, prostitution, grande dames, notable scoundrels and ruffians, the Depression, women’s suffrage, Chicanos and the Crusade for Justice, lynchings, segregation, discrimination, politics, sports, go-getters and gamblers.
“Tom is really good at getting in fun little stories,” Leonard says, like the legend of Soapy Smith (“the slipperiest of the knights of the green cloth [who] flimflammed Leadville before unpacking his carpetbag on Denver’s Larimer Street in 1883”).
Noel says it’s easy for readers to discern which parts of the book are written by him (the short sentences), and which parts are written by Leonard (the not-short sentences).
“Steve thinks he’s James Joyce,” Noel says. “He’s a literary type; I’m more of a journalistic hack.”
Says Leonard, “Great writers can control their grammar and syntax, so they can write great, long, sentences.”
Their styles blend perfectly.
With limited space, the authors had to make some tough decisions about which characters to include – and which had to be sacrificed for space. One of the criteria was, are they still around? Prominent in the minds of the people? And so, Horace and Baby Doe Tabor and Frederick Bonfils and William Speer and Molly Brown and Buffalo Bill made it in. Others were not so lucky.
Take, for example, Myron Winslow Reed. He was a celebrated preacher and Christian socialist who devoted his life to fighting for justice for Native Americans, women’s suffrage and helping the poor.
“He was a good guy, who deserved to be remembered, but he’s not remembered, so he’s a loser – he’s fired,” Leonard joked. “Maybe if he would have murdered someone . . . .”
The authors devote much space to many of Denver’s mayors – especially Robert W. Speer, who led the city from 1904 to 1912, and again from 1916 to 1918. Speer worked to transform Denver from a drab, ugly place to a city of beauty, with parks and parkways.
“Speer is a hero, but he’s also a villain,” Noel says. He was a progressive, who embraced the City Beautiful movement. But he angered others by tolerating the underworld of gambling, prostitution and saloons. “But those people delivered votes!”
A number of buildings and institutions are lost forever. The demolition of the once commanding Tabor Grand Opera House downtown, built in 1881 and destroyed in 1964, still pains Noel. He considers the demise of the Rocky Mountain News seven years ago, one of Denver’s greatest losses.
After revisiting all their historic Denver haunts, are there any periods of time in which the authors would want to live?
“The more you study the past, the less you romanticize it,” Noel says.
Says Leonard: “I wouldn’t want to go back at all, because I’d catch some horrible disease and die.”
Come To The Party
Tom Noel (aka “Dr. Colorado”) and co-author Steve Leonard will be sharing stories about Denver’s up and down history at the Tattered Cover Book Store, at East Colfax and Josephine Street, on Friday, Nov. 4 at 7 p.m.
They will be signing their new book, A Short History of Denver, the most up to date history of the Metro area. This is the 50th book Noel has authored or coauthored.
The party is free and everyone is welcome.