15th / Wazee Street

15th, also, Wazee Street. , At the very heart of Denver’s rough beginnings, Fifteenth Street actually followed the old military trails from Santa Fe, Fort Union and trading posts north and south of Denver. It was here that General Larimer expropriated the one “cabin” claim of the St. Charles Township on the block between Blake, Wazee, 14th and 15th streets, and founded Denver City. In the wild days before the railroads came, this area was alive with stables, entrepreneurial ventures, nearby Indian encampments on Cherry Creek, and the comings and goings of thousands of gold-seekers. The great fire of 1863, which began in the rear of the Cherokee House Hotel at Blake and 15th streets on the night of April 19th, destroyed most of the wooden structures in the area. Rebuilding quickly commenced under new city regulations requiring brick construction. The row of buildings lining the southeast side of the 1500 block of Wazee Street represents this first wave of commercial brick buildings built after the fire. Merchants wanted to carve a name for themselves in the Queen City. Some of the earliest buildings in the row were the M.S. Brown and Brother Mercantile Grocery, Barteldes Feed, Hay Grain and Seed Co., and Lindner Meat Packing Warehouse. John Moore came to Colorado with almost no money and 50 years of living under his belt, and opened his John Moore Hardware Company at the corner of 15th and Wazee Streets in the early 1870’s. Moore built a business which survived until 1955. Trappers and frontiersmen who strode down 15th on the Military Trail and merchants and traders who put down roots on Wazee made this one of Denver’s busiest intersections.