Decatur-Federal Station to Auraria West Station

Lakewood Gulch at the Decatur-Federal Station has grown to quite a respectable stream.

The sound of water rushing over rocks is nice. Those rocks, of course, were placed there to break the force of the water and reduce erosion. I see many places here along the gulch where the mud is wet and slippery. It's evident that the stream has been out of its banks recently. Flash floods have occurred in this section, but the valley here is deep.

The light rail station here can be busy since it offers access to both the Department of Human Services offices and recreation like Empower football stadium and the Meow Wolf Art Exhibit.

Lakewood Gulch Trail is right on the edge of downtown Denver here.

Despite the urban setting, the South Platte

River draws water fowl. Here at the confluence of Lakewood Gulch and the South Platte River, things happen. The river has grown to a respectable size (see other photos of the South Platte in these blogs) and mixing of shallower waters carry pollutants but they also pour nutrients into the river and oxygenate it's waters. This egret seems to be looking for minnows.

After I reached the river, I had a tangle of highways to deal with, Interstates 25 and 70, Colfax Avenue and Old West Colfax Avenue, Walnut Street, First Street, Auraria Parkway, Fifth Street, the light rail and train yards, and the river. They all come together and try not to collide right here. Plus, the football stadium and Meow Wolf is tucked in amongst it all.

Meow Wolf is an interactive art exhibit in Denver run by a company in Santa Fe, New Mexico. They have other exhibits there and in Las Vegas. For the curious, the name was drawn at random from a container of slips of paper with words on them.

Denver, or the settlements that were to become Denver, was built around the promise of gold, a promise that soon played out with little result. What saved the town was a branch of the railroad that dropped down from Wyoming. Denver became associated with culture, cattle, and the railroad.

The railroad is still prominent here. It runs between Meow Wolf and much of it's parking area, so I waited awhile with several customers trying to get back to their vehicles while a long, slow train moved through.

The last stop on my itinerary was the Auraria campus, shared by Community College of Denver, Metropolitan State University of Denver, and the University of Colorado in Denver. I've been here before (Auraria West to Osage, November 10, 2018 blog) but there were parts of the campus I didn't see until I visited it with a friend a couple of weeks ago.

The campus is a mix of old (some of the oldest parts of Denver) and very new (the campus was built in 1973) architecture, and the old and still operating, Tivoli brewery serves as the student union.

The lynx is the official mascot of the University of Colorado in Denver.

For a major hub of the light rail system (the W Line branches off the rails to Union Station here), there is surprisingly little art here. As the train pulls into the station from points to the south and west, a mural appears on the side of one of the campus' administrative buildings. I say "appears" because the building is blocky and the mural is split between several walls that can only be seen as an unbroken whole from one direction.

This completes my exploration of the RTD W Line and the land (physical and cultural) surrounding it. I didn't include a lot. I passed through a major art district that offered much more than I had space to describe. The geology is complex and fascinating and I will have to revisit it. The cultures range from wealthy to the tent cities of Denver's homeless population (which is distressingly large and trapped in their circumstances.) The history spans the earliest native inhabitants to contemporary Denver.

Paths offer unique opportunities to learn from your surrounding. Following a railway, or a highway, or a stream can provide adventure and many learning opportunities.

What's in your world?

--- Auraria West to Osage ---

This was a very short hike. The light rail station is just at the very edge of Auraria campus near Colfax. The Domo is on the first block across Colfax, and the 10th Street and Osage Station is just a few blocks further. All in all, I doubt if Auraria West Station is two miles from 10th Street and Osage, but this hike is packed with interesting places.

Auraria West Station is my last station-to-station hike for a while. Next month, I start exploring the light rail termini. Alameda is the last station to transfer to other lines to the north and east. Auraria West is on the line that continues to Union Station and it is also where the W Line, which heads west to Golden, splits off.

As mentioned above, it is right on the border of the Auraria campus, which is shared by three colleges: Community College of Denver, Metropolitan State University of Denver, and the University of Colorado - Denver.

                                                              [Auraria West Station]

I've been through Auraria West Station several times. It's on the way to the Human Services offices in the Castro Building and the W Line serves the Golden area.

Frankly, the area isn't that impressive from the station, but there are some suggestive sights. I've heard of and seen the back of the Domo Restaurant from the light rail. It doesn't look like much from the back of the building but it has a good reputation. I can also see this building from the station - it looks like an old Spanish mission.

                                                      [Saint Cajetan's from the station]

As I walk around the parking area, I realize that it is on the Auraria Campus. Reaching Colfax, I saw a trail heading back onto the campus and I took that and am almost immediately at the Ninth Street Historic Park.

When the early settlers moved up stream from the short lived Montana City, they established a settlement called "Auraria". The name made plain the people's interest - gold.  It was founded in 1858, three weeks before William Larimer staked out the future Denver City across Cherry Creek. The settlers, lead by William Greeneberry Russell, was a group from Georgia, and the town was named after Auraria, Georgia.

I keep finding ties back to my homeland. Before I retired, I had left the Southeastern United States exactly four time, once on a construction ministry trip to Great Falls, Montana, and three times to Denver. I guess it was only natural that I would end up in Denver, and I keep finding all these links back to Georgia and Alabama.

The Ninth Street Historic Park has preserved a section of old Auraria - a row of houses that now serve as administrative buildings and museums for the Auraria Campus. The buildings display a variety of styles from the late 1800s and early 1900s and each has a plaque out front that provides a little of the history. Here are pictures of some of the buildings.

                                                        [Ninth Street Historic Park]

After wandering around the park a while, I made a beeline for the big Spanish style building and found that it was, indeed, an old church, built in 1920, which is now a part of the college campus. On the day I visited, they were having a blood drive but the registration crew told me quite a lot about the building. There are some interesting stained glass windows there.

                                                              [Saint Cajetan's]

They also told me a little about the chapel across the way, which was my next stop.

                                                            [Emmanuel Gallery]

The oldest religious structure still standing in Denver, the Emmanuel Chapel was built in 1876. First an Episcopal chapel, the building later became a Jewish synagogue, as indicated by the inscription now over the door, and is now an art gallery. It was hosting an exhibition by the German artist Aram Bartholl on the day of my visit.

His work is very modernistic and strikingly "clean". The gallery was spacious, white, and neon. He's worth looking up (hint: there's a Wikipedia article.)

Locals make great tour guides if you know how to talk to them. The folks at the art gallery directed me toward the student union building, an old, massive brewery called "Tivoli". The Tivoli Brewing Company, still in operation, was founded in 1859 in this huge brick building that looks like something right out of a Charles Dickens novel.

                                                           [Tivoli Brewing Company]

After another pass through the Ninth Street Historic Park, I left the campus, crossed Colfax, and walked to the Domo Japanese Restaurant, which is a reconstruction of a Japanese farmhouse. Restaurant, museum, gardens, and cultural center, it was an experience meal. The authentic Japanese food was served in an authentic manner in an authentic setting complete with tree stumps for seats. It made me happy.

                                                   [The Domo Japanese Restaurant]

After a big bowl of ramen and three sides (I don't know what they were, and I didn't ask. They were tasty.), I looked around the gardens, made a donation for the Myamar refuges, and headed down Osage toward Lincoln Park, a large green with a water park (closed for the winter) and a mural by Emanuel Martinez, that contains both modern and ancient symbols. It's called "La Alma" (The Soul, painted in 1978.

                                                                         [La Alma]

10th Street and Osage Station was close by. On the way back to University Station, I took the opportunity of taking pictures of the light rail reflected in upper stories of buildings as it passed on the elevated track just south of Broadway Station.

                                                               [Reflected train]

Does your town have any old buildings open to the public? One of my past hometowns, Selma, Alabama, had over 1000 antebellum structures. Old homes are great places to get in touch with past cultures.

I'll probably be making more trips to old Auraria. College campuses have always attracted me - they're like sprawling indoor-outdoor museums providing exhibitions in just about every field of interest, events, and many peoplewatching opportunities.