Shoshone, and other western wonders . nehundred dwellings, several new business blocks,and thirty-five miscellaneous buildings wereerected. The total value of improvements inthe city proper was $2,971,770, and for Denverand its suburbs was nearly $5,000,000. It would be untrue to say of Denver that itwas literary to the core, or that it was the* Athens of the West. So far as I know, itnever claimed such distinction. It is not a lit-erary centre, and yet it does not want for litera-ture. A lecture on Burns might not proveso attractive as one on Our Mines or OurCommerce; but because this is so t
Shoshone, and other western wonders . nehundred dwellings, several new business blocks,and thirty-five miscellaneous buildings wereerected. The total value of improvements inthe city proper was $2,971,770, and for Denverand its suburbs was nearly $5,000,000. It would be untrue to say of Denver that itwas literary to the core, or that it was the* Athens of the West. So far as I know, itnever claimed such distinction. It is not a lit-erary centre, and yet it does not want for litera-ture. A lecture on Burns might not proveso attractive as one on Our Mines or OurCommerce; but because this is so the infer-ence need not be drawn that a Denverite never THE CITY OF DENVER 37 reads, or that he does not know who BobbyBurns was. The people of Denver have not yetgotten over being practical. There never hasbeen a Browning craze, and Oscar Wilde wascaricatured in the streets. There are ripe schol-ars and diligent readers in Denver, as in otherplaces of equal size. Indeed, the claim is madethat there are more resident college graduates. mjjtj ^\ip-(;, ]^4jji l^M ^•?^-ikS-i THE STATE CAPITOL. than in any other city of the same number ofpeople. Therefore one may be safe in believingthat the literary sense is keener than would casu-ally appear to be the case. And yet in the 38 SHOSHONE. sense that Boston is literary Denver is in the daily papers there is evidence attimes of a lack of careful attention to when it comes to news-gathering, let thejournals of the East beware. The history of theworlds doings is laid beside the plate of everyDenverite in the morning, and no question of theday is too profound for the editor to discuss. Denver has not yet become so literary as towarrant the establishment of large publishinghouses, but there are several wholesale and re-tail bookstores, and in one is a list of books aslarge as may be found in any New York book-store. This fact is not, perhaps, important initself, but as evidence of the moral and intel-lectual growth
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