GCPK40 Denver Stones Capitol EarthCache
Type: Earth | Size: Other | Difficulty: | Terrain:
By: cmclelland @ | Hide Date: 07/05/2005 | Status: Available
Country: United States | State: Colorado
Coordinates: N39° 44.397 W104° 59.536 | Last updated: 08/30/2019 | Fav points: 63

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This is a walking building stone tour of the Civic Park area of Denver, CO. There is also a second tour of lower downtown (GCN6PW). Be careful, sometimes GPS units get interference amongst the buildings, although I didn't seem to have trouble when I made the EarthCache. Answer questions for credit.

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US Mint in Denver N39 44.397 W104 59.536
Construction of this historical landmark began in 1897 with Cotopaxi granite, a fine-grained gray granite which also used for part of the City and County Building nearby. At some point the builder switched to a granite from near Loveland, CO. The building also extends three stories beneath the ground. An addition in 1936 used Vermont and Maine Granite. Tennessee marble is in window trim, and Vermont marble is in the interior. The interior of the Mint is currently closed to daily walk-up tours; you need to make an appointment. The exterior fence was added later, made from a nice coarse-grained pink Pikes Peak Granite.

Denver City and County Building - 1437 Bannock Street N39 44.356 W104 59.442
Built in 1932, this Greek Revival building is made of blocks of fine-grained Colorado Cotopaxi gray granite with some marble detailing. This granite ran out, however, so the upper levels and the 50-foot exterior columns are made of Georgia granite with pink Tennessee marble, Fleur de Peche, as decorative insets. Inside, pink Tennessee marble also covers the floors and stairs and contains stylolites. The interior has eleven different marble varieties (pinkish gray from Tennessee, white from Vermont and Colorado, red, white, and black from Italy, etc.)! A travertine from Colorado lines one of the interior lobby areas. Since this is the home of Denver’s city and county court rooms, executive offices and City Council Chambers, you will have to go through a metal detector to get inside.

Wellington E. Webb Municipal Office Bldg – 201 West Colfax Avenue N39 44.419 W104 59.414
This new, 12-story, 600,000-square-foot new construction incorporates the renovated Annex One structure. One of the most striking features you will notice is the marble face sculpture at the entrance. The beautifully foliated marble is Carrera marble from Italy. The building doesn’t seem to contain any local Colorado materials, but the designers chose to expand the natural elements to the interior materials by developing the "changing of seasons" as an interiors concept. The entrance lobby has several polished and unpolished granites. The design in the granite floor is a street grid map of Civic Center. The black granite is from Zimbabwe, and is also used in the bust of Denver Mayor Wellington Webb and in the base of the exterior sculpture above. The coarse-grained greenish gray granite is the Kenoran Sage from the Forgotten Lake Quarry near Kenora, Canada. The finer-grained white/gray granite (unpolished) is Sierra White, from California. On some of the larger walls (below) in the lobby area you will see a beige oolitic limestone. Oolites are small, round or ovaloid accretions formed of calcium carbonate. The material usually develops in successive concentric layers around a nucleus such as a shell fragment or sand grain. This is a limestone from the Evans Limestone Co. in Bedford, IN, is called simply the Indiana Oolitic Limestone, and it is about 300 million years old. The elevators have a beautiful black gabbro, called Absolute Black from Zambia, Africa.

Civic Center Park - Colfax/14th and Broadway/Bannock N39 44.272 W104 59.305
In this area are the Voorhies Memorial (N) and the Greek Amphitheater (S). They are both made from light gray Turkey Creek sandstone from near Pueblo. This rock has “well-defined sedimentary structures with patterns of deposition and truncation by subsequent erosion”. Apparently, parts of the balusters (upright rail supports) in the Greek Amphitheater were replaced with Salem Limestone (same as outside the library and which contains some fossils) in the 1980s.

Denver Public Library – 14th & Broadway N39 44.245 W104 59.335
The Denver Public Library (Central) was finished in 1995 and designed by Michael Graves. The main Schlessman Hall has two nice limestones. The fine-grained tan limestone on the floor (and on some exterior walls) is from Solnhofen, near Eichstatt, Bavaria. This is referred to as Jura marble, and originated as limy mud in shallow lagoons. It contains wonderful 150-million year old fossil ammonites. (See question #1 below for logging cache.) The green limestone with it is from near Frankfurt, Germany, and contains fossil belemnites. Ammonites and belemnites were soft-bodies mollusks that lived, respectively, in coiled and chambered or bullet-shaped shells. The exterior of the library has natural and man-made stone. Along the base of the buildings and some columns is the Stony Creek Granite from New Haven County, Massachusetts. This lovely, polished granite is actually a granite gneiss, Proterozoic age, containing large orthoclase feldspar crystals, biotite and white quartz. As you look around you will see fragments of dark-colored bedrock within the gneiss! Another trim material is a fine-grained green ‘granite’, quite striking in appearance, reportedly from Austria. There is also a light gray Salem Limestone from Indiana covering parts of the exterior structure.

First Baptist Church – 14th Avenue & Grant Street N 39° 44.310 W 104° 59.030
A bit of a hike up 14th is this gorgeous American Colonial-style church especially, which stands out due to its incredible red granite columns. Polished to a high gloss, they are made from Colorado Red Granite from Pinewood Springs in Larimer. Feldspars of varying sizes make this a dramatic granite. See question #2 below to log this find. Other stone used on the exterior is Indiana Salem Limestone on the tower and trim and some pink Tennessee marble around the main entrance.

First Church of Christ, Scientist – 14th Avenue and Logan Street N39 44.309 W104 58.948
The most striking rock in this church is a unique ash flow tuff with small crystals of biotite and quartz, and grains of dark volcanic rock. The tuff, which makes up the columns and walls, represents an ancient volcanic eruption in the Oligocene of the Arkansas River Valley near Howard in Fremont County (Kerr Gulch). The building was constructed between 1901-1906. The cornerstone, laid in 1902, is made of a light gray granite with muscovite and biotite from Concord, NH, home of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Christian Science church.

Colorado State Capitol – Sherman Street and East Colfax Avenue N39 44.353 W104 59.122
The exterior building material of the state capitol, including the western steps with the “ONE MILE ABOVE SEA LEVEL” notation, is a gray granite from the Aberdeen quarry in South Beaver Creek, Gunnison County. The remote location of the quarry made it difficult and expensive to transport the 280,000 cubic feet of granite to the Capitol. Don’t forget to turn around and see the magnificent view of the city and mountains here. The most famous rock in the State Capitol is the Beulah Red “marble” that covers much of the first floor interior walls and posts. All of this formation, from near Beulah in Pueblo County, was used in the capitol, and therefore can be found nowhere else on Earth. This unique rock has swirls of red, cream and gray, and is renowned for the faces and shapes it is said to hold (i.e., W.C. Fields). The rock has beautiful, iron-stained sedimentary structures and is really a very complex Mississippian limestone, not a marble or onyx. Its colors and textures are unique in the world. There is real marble on the floor of the Capitol, mostly from Vermont since the marble quarries of Colorado were closed at the time. The marble is a lovely white and gray.

To LOG this cache provide the following information to the owner:
#1: Enter the library from the west side, and shortly after, take the stairway down on the RIGHT side. turn around and look under the top lip of the first stair. Identify the distinctive ammonite (don't know what an ammonite is? See http://www.discoveringfossils.co.uk/Ammonites.htm). There is also one near the escalator as you come in. Indicate the shape of the fossil and approximately how large it is (inches or cm). Central Library hours are: Mon-Tues : 10 a.m. - 8 p.m. Wed - Fri: 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. Sat : 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. Sun : 1 - 5 p.m. or check them at http://denverlibrary.org/locations_hours/index.html

#2: Give the range of sizes (inches or cms) of the pink feldspars (the rectangular pinkish minerals) in the columns of the First Baptist Church.

Without the answers to these queries your log will be deleted from this EC.

References: The geologic information on most of these stops comes from two sources: "Geology Tour of Denver's Buildings and Monuments" by Jack Murphy,1995, published by Historic Denver, Inc., 821 17th St., Suite 500, Denver, Colorado 80202 in cooperation with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, 2001 Colorado Blvd., Denver, Colorado, 80205; and "Rock Around the Clock: A Geologic Walking Tour of Downtown Denver, Colorado," by Barbara J. Fillmore and Jane A. Dianich, 1992, prepared under the supervision of Peter J. Modreski, United States Geological Survey, Geologic Division.

06/15/2019 By SpanDino
0108p , fs 2.0 ; interesting building tour identifying building stones.

05/14/2019 By Diz&Dave
Greetings from the UK?. We are on our holidays!!! We are on a 12-day road trip around Colorado, Utah and Wyoming (a geocaching road trip from Denver to Yellowstone and back again), staying in Air BnB’s en route. Day 1: One cache near the first Air BnB to get us started Day 2: Morning caching around Denver and then headed out on the Mount Evans scenic route ?Day 3: Denver to Colorado Springs, collecting a few caches en-route. Made a snap decision to head out to collect some earthcaches , discovered the amazing Garden of the Gods , Manitou Springs, and the lovely Memorial park. Day 4: A trip up to Pike’s Peak and then a slow cache and dash to Glenwood Springs ? . Day 5: Cached to Vernal via Craig and a scenic drive through the National Dinosaur Monument to Harper’s corner . Day 6: Set off from Vernal, visited the brilliant National Dinosaur Monument , then drove the scenic roadway to Rock Springs, more caching en-route. Day 7: Today was Wildlife Day! Rock Springs to Jackson, and the Teton National park. We saw: Pronged antelope, 2 Moose(s), Bighorn Mountain, Elk herds , an osprey . Day 8: The day we saw three bears !! to West Yellowstone, collected a cache in Idaho. Arrived Yellowstone late morning and had a fantastic time in Yellowstone , amongst the Bison. We had a lot of snow showers???. We watched Old Faithful and did lots of of geography homework earthcaches and virtuals . Day 9: A great morning exploring Yellowstone Park -tastic and loved the stroll around the mud pots. On the long, slow drive to Lander, were we spotted Pronghorns and Mountain Sheep – in the road! We did some caching en-oute, as well as stopping for some chocolates from the Cowboy Chocolatier in Meeteetse. Day 10: Today we met up with a local cacher, who had kindly offered to show us the sights/caches of Lander. And… had an amazing day, not only did we pick up some fun caches, we walked some beautiful trails, in great company and learnt a lot about the local history. Original Wildman was incredibly generous with his time and his hospitality. Day 11. A cache and dash to Cheyenne via Laramie, saw lots of Pronghorns and Jack rabbits , collected 23 caches and spotted some very large cowboy boots in downtown Cheyenne.
Day 12: Our penultimate day, and last full day started with a great breakfast at Epic Egg ,we then started the drive to Denver, with a final epic days caching as we had several challenge caches to pick up (with great D/T ratings) and some by Egreog, as his came recommended by the Original Wildman .
Day 13, and 1/2 day in and around Denver prior to flying home to blighty. Leisurely start with breakfast at Pete's Kitchen, then a trip around the Denver Art Museum, a walk around downtown (bit of shopping). Still time to keep the find streak up, so 1 virtual, 1 earthcache, 1 traditional (fill in a D/T line) and a TB hotel en route to the airport.

Nice walk around Denver, in the hot lunchtime sun. Answers emailed to the CO.

TFTC ?

04/16/2019 By jax-man
Got to Denver a day before i needed to start the setup for the big volleyball tournament so of course I needed to go caching.

I sent my answers.

I enjoyed my walk around downtown.

TFTC

04/02/2019 By Kilauea-Hualalai
First day in Colorado and after a long, long trip from Germany to Denver yesterday, this day was nearly as hard as yesterday. Start in the morning to look for some Bisons at Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, then Denver Museum of Nature & Science, more sightseeing in Downtown, Firefighter Museum, Denver Mint and a lot more. And at the end a hockey game between Avalanche against Edmonton. And on the way we had a little bit time to search a few boxes and for the answers from some earthcaches and Virtuals. A long day but with lot of fun.

Of course thanks to all the owners of the caches for the caches and the work behind. And sorry that we have not the time for individual logs.
Greetings from Duesseldorf – Gerresheim / Germany

03/31/2019 By bunnywatson12
Super tour! Thanks 1 million. Also I appreciate your providing the references to the two guides you used. I am going to look him up!

10/15/2018 By caverdon
Our family is on vacation in Colorado. This morning we stopped briefly in downtown Denver to walk around and check out the sights. I noticed this EC, and it was a good opportunity to see some things we might have missed!

We stopped at the requested locations and I quickly got the answers. At the library I had a good conversation with one of the security guards when she noticed my southern accent. She was from near Paducah Kentucky, while I'm from near Nashville Tennessee. We enjoyed the time talking about the charm of small southern towns.

Many thanks for this great EC! I saw & learned more from our downtown visit than I would have experienced otherwise.

10/13/2018 By dustyriver
A "find" with BriGuy - My claim to history: My first (only) ride on a Denver streetcar on the last day of service. From the area of this cache to Golden. Photo of Golden end of the line.

10/13/2018 By oz8118
I just got back to town last night from a week long geo-vacation. But then I get a notification that today is International EarthCache day, whoop - and I get a shiny new souvenir for logging one. So even though I'm tired, I get back in the geo-vehicle and head for downtown to do some walking around Civic Center to grab this EarthCache. I saw tourists, urban campers, and demonstrators along the way. Of course, I got to see most of these buildings that I've been in before or driven by in a new way. There was lots of really distinct marble and granite! I really appreciated learning more about these different types that decorate our major city landmark buildings.
This cache also fills another hole for my Jasmer matrix challenge - awesome!

10/13/2018 By _BriGuy_
Thanks for the knowledgeable tour!
Enjoyed this cache with dustyriver.
Answers sent.
Happy Caching!

09/24/2018 By Hippie Kidz
Great Earthcache! I had to sweet talk the security guard at the library because he didn't want me going down the stairs but I finially convinced him. Such a beautiful City with cool buildings. Thanks for your teachings and greetings from Canada!

Hippie Kidz

09/11/2018 By GeologyJohn
It was a hot day walking around Denver, but the rocks were worth it. I was grateful for the air conditioning in the library. Thanks for the earthcache.

08/15/2018 By Raeuberlein
We enjoyed walking around in denver. it took us some time to walk from union station to the capitol building. little one found some squirrels in the parks around and took lots of pictures. she also liked the childrens book section in the library. it's huge compared with our local library. we spend there some time too. tftc and greetings from the netherlands

08/02/2018 By Gamer4985
Had a really nice walk around town while in Denver for a conference!
GCPK40

07/08/2018 By SafariBabe
Today was the first day of my week long adventure in Colorado. Of course the first 2 days will mostly be spent in seminars, but the. I’m headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park to catch up with a geocaching friend from Chicago and tackle the 2017 & 2018 Across the Divide Geotour I’m planning to cap the trip off by visiting Pitkin, Colorado — a town named after one of my distant relatives. I didn’t make it there during GeoWoodstock XIV, but I plan to make it there this time around. I’m also shooting to find all of my hidden creatures in Colorado. At least that’s the plan. So after leaving Chicago on very little sleep today at 6am two flights landed me in Denver at at my hotel by 11. Thankfully the hotel had a room ready and I was able to take a short nap - I am long past being able to get thru the day on 2 hours sleep and some catnaps on a plane. After my nap,I headed out to grab some caches before going over to the Capitol for the event I had arranged. Today was seriously hot!! And Denver does not have a lot of natural shade the way NYC does - the buildings aren’t very tall and the streets are very wide. All in I crushed over 7 miles of walking today. It wasn’t a high cache yield but I did tackle an earth cache and, my personal favorite, the urban nano. It was enough to earn me Bigfoot and Fairy.

I enjoyed wandering around the Capitol area even though it was hot as anything and the sun was brutal. When I got to the Public Library, of course I went in the wrong side. So when I corrected that error and got myself headed in the right direction, the security person, at first, wouldn’t let me go down the stairs. When I told her that I was interested in the fossils, she started pointing them out to me first in the floor then eventually on the stairway. So I hope I got the right fossil! Then it was off to the next stop where I had to resort to body parts to take the requisite measurements. Answers sent. TFTC!!

PS I know this is an earthcache, but I just loved the horse on a high chair!!

GCPK40

07/06/2018 By shell1fish
mdawaffe and I focused our tourist and caching activities around Civic Park and Capitol Hill today, and we enjoyed the chance to look at the impressive buildings from another perspective as we learned about the building materials. Unfortunately, the Mint wasn't open, but the views from the Capitol Dome were wonderful! We appreciated not being overwhelmed with questions as we explored, and our answers have been sent. Thanks so much for the interesting tour and earthcache!
shell1fish & mdawaffe at Mile High State Capitol

06/28/2018 By kaulilux
I was for a few days on visit in the Denver and this Eartcache helped me a lot to see the most interesting places. I enjoyed the walk through the city, searching for the ammonites in the library, founding one mile above sea level mark and many other places. Thanks for all information. E-mail with answers is on the way. Greetings from the Czechia. Thanks for the Earthcache!
Denver - One mile above sea level

06/18/2018 By schnuckel1
Today was our second day in Denver and we wanted to visit the US mint. Unfortuantely we were too late to get some tickets so we decided to have a look at this EC. The different places were quite interesting and we spent some more time in the State Capitol were we joined a guided tour. We got lots of information and there and had a beautiful view over the city. We visited also the librar and the first baptist church to get the answers to the questions. Weather was perfect today and we enjoyed our walk through the city.
We give the cache a favourite point.

TFTC
schnuckel1
[#11787]

Outside the library

05/25/2018 By LaPalmaFan
This year our vacation starts in Denver, a relaxed and nice city with really a lot of outdoor restaurants. We took the EC as our guide through the city, and to enlighten us about the buildings, and this ws a really good decision! Learned a lot and and had much fun...
ThanX!!

Answers have been mailed...

05/19/2018 By Team sissifalke

Midwest Tour through America

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After arriving at Cincinnati airport, we‘ve started out trip through mid-west USA
Our first stop was at Louisville before we continued towards Evansville, Saint-Louis, Kansas City all the way to Denver- Skyline of the Rocky Mountains.
We’ve stayed in Colorado for a couple of days and drove to the Rocky Mountains to Mount Evans and past the beautiful Echo lake.
We took the historic steam train in Georgetown to explore the Rocky Mountains – what an unforgettable experience.
We’ve visited the open air arena in Red Rock Park and have informed ourselves about the historic and musical past of this area.
We soon had to leave beautiful Denver to continue further towards the north Via Golden, Fort Collins, Cheyenne. We’ve took a bit of time to hike through the Toadstoll Geological Park- beautiful hiking destination.
We’ve crossed the border to South Dakota and visited the many sights along the way - Hot Springs in the Black Hills, Wind Cave NP, Jewel NP, Grazy Horse NP, Custer-State-Park – we were even able to spot some wild bison’s there.
We’ve then continued our tour towards Sylvan lake along the panorama road -“Needles Highway”. This windy road leads to needles past the many pine forests along the way.
Continuing further towards the Rushmore National Memorial.
We then weren’t far away from rapid city or the city of the presidents where we took part of an impressive sightseeing tour where we got to see 43 bronze statues of all of the US former presidents.
We took a quick detour to South Dakota before we continued towards the south towards the Badlands NP – a plateau with edged mountains, deep canyons and steep cliffs – impressive to look at.
After we have left the Badlands, we continued towards Mitchell along the Highway 90. We visited the corn place with its special artefacts and paintings made out of corn.
The next days are leading us back again towards the east towards Sioux Falls.
We saw many sights here for example the Sioux Waterfalls, Old Courthouse etc
We went shopping at Spirit lakes before continuing towards Minnesota. We also went shopping in the Bloomington Mall of America.
We went for a city stroll in Minneapolis visiting the many parks near the Saint Anthony Falls and the Washburn A Mill.
We have visited the cathedral of Saint Paul and the Minnesota State Capitol.
We left Minnesota after Saint Paul and have crossed the border to WISCONSIN continuing towards Madison to see the State Capital.
We have visited the famous Harley-Davidson-Museum in Milwaukee.
We collected a number of Petoskey stones while strolling around north Michigan Lake. These stones are unique to this region.
We are now continuing towards Chicago where we will spend a couple of days as well.
We’ve done a bit of shopping and got to know about the skyscraper history.
The first skyscrapers were built in the 80s and 90s. One of the most impressive ones is the trump tower directly at the Chicago River. The facade mirrors the Wrigley Building and the Chicago Tribune Tower.
We then had to say bye to Chicago after a couple of days. We then continued towards Gary (INDIANA) and New Buffalo (Michigan). We have covered 3 states: Eck Michigan, Indiana and Ohio
We now have to go back towards Indianapolis where the legendary race took place. We have also planned a visit to the Hall of Fame Museum before going back to Cincinnati.
Going to the GIGA event:
We have met many friendly cachers and we have talked about our mutual hobbies and our trip in and around Cincinnati.
We have covered approx. 4000 miles and have experienced a lot. Everyone was very welcoming and helpful as well.
Thank you to all the owners for placing and maintaining the caches.
Best greetings from Bavaria Team sissifalke

Photo

04/14/2018 By happyfeet614
This was a great cache, we learned a lot and enjoyed the tour.

TFTC.

04/14/2018 By SphynxMoms
This was a very interesting and educational cache. I work in the Webb building so it is extremely relevant. Thank you for taking us some new things, found with happyfeet614 and AAM86.

04/11/2018 By BigJake44
I had a nice time walking and seeing these historic locations, thanks once again! TFTC