Downtown Denver Historic District Photo Galleries
Not to be confused with the Lower Downtown Historic District, the Downtown Denver Historic District was created in 2000 by the City of Denver as a non-contiguous historic district within the core Downtown area consisting of 43 buildings identified as architecturally or historically significant and worthy of preservation.
While Lower Downtown’s buildings were built primarily in the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s as warehouse or mercantile buildings, many of the buildings in the Downtown Denver Historic District were built in the first few decades of the 1900s and feature more elaborate designs reflective of their original uses as banks, hotels, and office buildings. These 43 historic buildings create a beautiful contrast to the modern skyscrapers that surround them, serve as the foundation of the Downtown urban fabric, and greatly enrich the pedestrian and cultural experience of the central business district.
The photographs in the galleries below were taken in 2006 and some of them were featured on the original DenverInfill website. In these DenverUrbanism galleries, we present all of the images we took of each structure at that time. Our architectural and historical descriptions of each building were gleaned primarily from the Guide to Denver Architecture by the Denver Architecture Foundation and Mary Voelz Chandler; and Directory of Colorado State Register of Historic Properties by History Colorado.
The gallery links below are presented in alphabetical order by building name, which is typically the name given to the building at the time of its construction or used for an extended period during the building’s history.
For a geographic perspective, see the map at the bottom of the page for the location of the 43 buildings in the Downtown Denver Historic District. Click on a building’s map placemark to reveal a link to that building’s photo gallery page.