Now it is huge!
*****
Around 1870 for us. My great-grandparents were married in 1889.
My family lived in Swansea-Elyria-Globeville-Commerce City. They even lived in Auraria at one point. My great-grandfather had a feed and hay place near Colfax and Speer. And house where the US Mint sits today.
My dad and I visited the family house/homestead(still there) and noted the tree in front of the house — it is around 12 feet across at the base. It is the same tree in the picture shot about 1905 and it was only a sapling then. It was tree that my great-grandparents picked up Arbor day in 1905? and planted in the front of the house(there is a picture of my grandfather sitting in a buckboard with saplings in the back; was clipped from the newspaper). That tree was 107 years old at the time!
Family mythology goes that my great grandfather owned Red Rocks and let it go for taxes. I have the original deed and checked it with an expert and it is a couple of miles from Red Rocks. Actually, it is a plot of land near where HW285 enters the mountains.
Lots of family stories of early Denver.
Wow, that is all really neat and thank you for sharing.
My great grandparents settled in Salida after coming from Ohio. He was a Railroad conductor once the RR came into the area. People asked how a RR conductor could afford to send a son to law school. He had invested in some gold mines and did pretty well.
Maybe our ancestors rubbed elbows some time along the way.
Merry Christmas.