Denver, the capital of Colorado

A capital in three towns

When Congress created the Colorado Territory in 1861, Denver was already the largest town, a supply center for the gold camps in the mountains. The first territorial legislature met there in the fall of 1861, but it named a different town as the capital: Colorado City, near Pikes Peak, today part of Colorado Springs.

That choice did not last. When the legislature gathered in Colorado City in July 1862, it stayed only five days, from July 7 to 11, before adjourning and going back to Denver. Lawmakers then made Golden, a mining town in the foothills west of Denver, the territorial capital.

Golden held the title for five years, but in practice the government kept drifting back to Denver. The territorial governor’s office stayed in Denver, and several sessions opened in Golden only to adjourn to Denver. On December 9, 1867, the seventh territorial assembly, sitting in Golden, passed the act that made Denver the capital.

Made permanent by voters

Colorado became a state in 1876 with Denver as its seat of government, but the state constitution left the permanent location to the voters. In 1881 Coloradans chose Denver over Pueblo, Colorado Springs, Cañon City and Salida, settling the question for good.

The site for the Capitol had been promised years earlier. Henry C. Brown, a Denver businessman, donated ten acres on a hill east of downtown, and the territorial Capitol Commission accepted his gift in January 1868, a month after Denver became the capital.

The Capitol

The Colorado State Capitol was designed by the architect Elijah E. Myers, who also designed the capitols of Michigan and Texas, and it is loosely modeled on the US Capitol in Washington. Work began in 1886, the cornerstone was laid in 1890, and the building opened in November 1894.

Colorado built it from its own stone. The walls are Colorado white granite. The floors are white Yule marble, the same stone later used for the Lincoln Memorial. The wainscoting is Colorado rose onyx from a quarry near Beulah, and the Capitol’s history office says the building used what is thought to be the entire known supply of that stone. The dome rises about 180 feet above the entrance hall.

The dome was not gold at first. Its copper panels were covered with Colorado gold leaf in 1908, to honor the miners who had founded the state. It has been regilded several times since.

Three mile-high steps

The Capitol’s west steps hold Denver’s best-known landmark. The fifteenth step was engraved “One Mile Above Sea Level,” marking the point 5,280 feet up. Later surveys did not agree. A 1969 resurvey placed the mile-high point on the eighteenth step, and a more precise survey in 2003 put it on the thirteenth. All three markers are there, so visitors can stand a mile high three times.

Denver today

Denver had about 741,000 residents in 2025, the largest city in Colorado, ahead of Colorado Springs and Aurora. It is one of 17 state capitals that are also their state’s largest city. Golden, the old territorial capital, is now a small city best known for the Colorado School of Mines.

Visiting

The Capitol is open to the public, with free tours. See the Colorado State Capitol website for hours.