DENVER

Welcome to Denver, the mile high city and the largest city and the capital of Colorado.  This past February, 2017 I had an “accidental day” in Denver while on a stop over to see my daughter , Kaitlyn who lives there.  We decided to spend our day doing the capitol.  It was a gloriously sunny 60 degree day in February in Denver at the foot of the Rocky Mountains.     

As I said Denver is renowned as the mile high city because it is lies one mile above sea level.  There is a marker which says “5280 feel above sea level” embedded in the granite steps leading to the building.

 The original marker was installed on the 15th step.  But in 1969 engineering students from CSU detrmined that it should actually be placed on the 18th step and moved it there.  Then in 2003, with even better instruments it was found that the marker should really be on the 13th step which is where you will find it now!

The most distinctive feature of the Colorado capital is , I think, the dome.  There are actually two domes.  The inside rotunda dome and the outside gold gilded dome. The gold coating on the outside dome was replaced in 2013 with gold from Colorado gold mines.  The entire job required only 64.5 ounces of gold.  That doesn’t seem like much to me  considering how big the dome is.