AURARIA VICTORIAN HISTORY AT HOME ON NINTH STREET BY APRIL DIERKING

AURARIA VICTORIAN HISTORY AT HOME ON NINTH STREET BY APRIL DIERKING - First published in The Metropolitan on February 28, 1992

They were farmers from Georgia and immigrants from Ireland and Germany, building a town along the southwest bank of Cherry Creek in 1858.

The town was Auraria, named by William Green Russell after his hometown in Georgia.

"Testimonials from Cherry Creek described Auraria as 'surrounded by rich gold mines,'" Stephen J. Leonard, chair of the history department at MSCD,
quoted in his and Thomas J. Noel's book Denver: Mining Camp to Metropolis.

A bitter rivalry between Auraria and Denver began when Denver started to prosper and grow. Before the Colorado Territory was created, the two towns ended their feud by consolidating.

On a moonlit night, April 6, 1860, a ceremony was held on Larimer Street bridge to end the "separate existence of Auraria," which in turn became Denver's first permanent settlement, as stated in Leonard and Noel's book.

The first settlers in the area, which is now called the Ninth Street Historic Park, located on the Auraria Campus, were middle-class working families.

After the turn-of-the-century, Jewish and Mexican-American families moved into the area.

The fourteen structures located on Ninth Street were built between 1872 and 1906.

Rosemary Fetter, publications coordinator for the Auraria Higher Education Center, said restoration of the houses included authentic Victorian colors on the exterior and remodeling some of the interior of several houses for a cost of $900,000.

Fetter, who has a vast knowledge of the Auraria Campus, said that the restoration of almost every structure was done "accurately to the period" of the houses.

Historic Denver Inc. wanted to save the structures and successfully raised the money to do so.

Since 1974, the Ninth Street Historic Park has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Other Auraria Campus structures on the register are the Tivoli Union Brewery (1890), the Emmanuel Chapel (1876 -- the oldest standing church in Denver -- and St. Elizabeth's Church (1896).

While St. Cajetan's Church (1926) is a notable piece of architectural history, it is not on the register.

The Mercantile (1906), last of the houses to be restored, was completed in the early 1970s.

The Golda Meir house was moved to the campus from several different locations. Its final resting place, a few doors away from St. Cajetan's, came in September 1988.

In 1969, voters passed a $6 million bond to build the Auraria Higher Education Center. Three institutions of higher learning went up on the 171 acres of land called Auraria.

The historic houses on Ninth Street are now being used by all three schools as office space for a variety of services.

Auraria has been a constant in Denver's history, bringing gold mines, prairies and hopes the the "oldest permanent settlement in the city," Fetter said.