Hotel Denver

Hotel Denver. . In the late 1800's to the early 1900's, saloons, restaurants, and rooming houses occupied this block. In 1904, Frank Walter constructed two buildings - one three-story - in the block. Walter leased the ground floor of the three-story building (406 Seventh Street) to McKissack's Grocery. Shortly thereafter, he leased the second and third floors to Art Kendrick. It is here that Kendrick established the 17 unit Denver Rooms., From 1913 to 1930, Art Kendrick began making purchases to expand his business. He first bought the building he had been leasing from Frank Walter. Then he purchased two lots east of his building; one was the site of the Ryan Restaurant, which had been destroyed by fire. When prohibition was enacted in Colorado in 1916, he purchased James Sheridan's Senate Bar and Mike DeMaestri's Columbus Saloon properties to the west. He also purchased a part of the small commercial block of the Cooper and Seventh Street. Mr. Kendrick remodeled all of his structures between 1920 and 1922 to have a uniform appearance. His Denver Rooms had grown to become the Hotel Denver., In 1938, Mike Bosco, owner of adjacent Star Hotel, who was doing identical expansions to the east on the block, purchased the Hotel Denver from Art Kendrick.