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Could a new Denver Broncos stadium make history here? Colorado Department of Transportation
Since Burnham Yard ceased operations as a railyard in 2016, people have been considering what the future might hold for this 58-acre property in central Denver, including a possible new Broncos stadium.
But one group is just as concerned about its past.
According to Historic Denver CEO John Deffenbaugh, a handful of historic buildings on the site could be at risk as the Colorado Department of Transportation looks to sell the land it purchased in 2021. Even before the Denver Broncos were linked to several real estate purchases in the Burnham Yard area last month, Historic Denver — a nonprofit that works to preserve Denver history — was sharing the storied past of Burnham Yard.
Over the years, Burnham Yard serviced trains for many rail lines, including the California Zephyr line and the Winter Park Ski Train (before either line came under Amtrak's purview).
Today, the former railyard is an Environmental Protection Agency Brownfield site, requiring cleanup and remediation before any future use because of its past use. But during its time as a railyard, Burnham Yard helped build Denver into the city it is today.
“Burnham Yard is one of the most important industrial sites in the city, if not the state,” Deffenbaugh says. “It's key to the existence of Denver. …It's a really important space that tells the story of our city's growth, of some of the unique things that happened in the city over the years.”
click to enlarge map of yard
A map of Burnham Yard.
Early Years at Burnham Yard
Burnham Yard existed as a railyard before Colorado even became a state, established in 1871 by the Denver & Rio Grande rail company. The land had been purchased the year before by the railroad from former territorial governor Alexander Cameron Hunt; Hunt would later establish a neighborhood right next to the industrial site that today is part of La Alma/Lincoln.
According to a 2017 research report compiled by Square Moon Consultants at the request of Historic Denver, by 1917 the railroad served by Burnham Yard spanned 2,489 miles of track. They ran west from Denver to Grand Junction through the Moffat Tunnel before extending to Salt Lake City, Utah; to the south, the tracks went through Colorado Springs and Pueblo before covering Alamosa, Antonito and Durango. One branch connected Pueblo and Dotsero by way of Leadville and the Royal Gorge. At first, the tracks were narrow-gauge lines in order to save money; that changed over the decades.
At Burnham Yard, workers built and repaired almost all of the locomotives for the Denver & Rio Grande until 1988.
The railyard is named after George Burnham, who was the chief financial officer of Baldwin Locomotive Works of Philadelphia. That company gave Denver & Rio Grande its first seven steam locomotives; historians believe that Baldwin may have considered those locomotives an investment “rather than a straight cash sale.” As a result, the Historic Denver report concluded it's possible that the railyard was named Burnham at the bidding of William Jackson Palmer, head of the Denver & Rio Grande, as a way of showing appreciation.
The original Burnham complex covered sixteen acres, spreading out from West Eighth Avenue and Navajo Street, and centered by a two-story depot and office building. The railroad built a blacksmith shop, roundhouses for locomotives, a wood car shop and a carpenter shop, which have all been destroyed. Still standing today are the coach shop and roundhouse foreman’s office, which were built before 1910.
Hunt’s Addition, a residential subdivision north of Sixth Avenue, opened in February 1874 as a place for workers to live. Sumner’s Addition also opened during that early period in what is now the Baker neighborhood.
“By the early 20th century, these neighborhoods were largely built out with modest-scale single-family and multi-family worker housing,” the report found. “Most residents chose to build brick homes on the subdivisions’ small lots, creating a tight-knit neighborhood with rows of homes built close to one another, and residents living and working in close proximity.”
The neighborhoods held European and Russian immigrants in addition to Mexicans fleeing the revolution of 1910, according to the report.
“City directories in the 1920s show Latinos and Anglos living side by side in Hunt’s Addition, with most residents working at D&RG or nearby manufacturing plants, or in the service industry, working as waiters, bakers and brewers,” the report added.
Burnham employed as many as a thousand workers in the late 1800s, who would install brakes, wash locomotives, assemble locomotives, build wheels and even make the nuts and bolts that held railroad vehicles together.
Though the report noted that Burnham was generally considered a good place to work, the railyard experienced a few strikes in its history. One occurred in 1884 when financial troubles caused by reduced mining revenues across Colorado led to cost-cutting at Burnham. Between 400 and 500 Denver workers walked off the job in protest.
But they didn’t stay off the job for long, and Burnham continued on its path to becoming a powerful railyard with the Utah end of the system upgraded to standard gauge tracks by 1890.
According to historic photographs, the workforce at Burnham was racially integrated by the early 1900s, something that was rare in America at that time.
old train
A locomotive at Burnham Yard in 1955.
Several Bankruptcies Didn't Stop Progress at Denver Railyard
In 1918, the Denver & Rio Grande collapsed financially, causing the federal government to take over the railyard during the bankruptcy proceedings as part of an effort to nationalize the country’s railroads during World War I. That takeover lasted fewer than three years: The Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad was established in 1921, taking Burnham back from federal control.
But the organization still wasn’t stable, resulting in worker layoffs and a second major strike in 1922, causing the railroad to bring as many as 500 strike breakers to Burnham. There are still two union halls in La Alma/Lincoln Park and one in Baker, evidencing strong labor roots in the area.
After those difficult years, the Denver & Rio Grande Western began making improvements at Burnham, with reports indicating the railroad would spend $973,000 on shop upgrades — the modern-day equivalent of an approximately $18 million investment. According to the Historic Denver study, any area not taken up by existing buildings or tracks was filled during this time.
The investments ended around 1930 when the Denver & Rio Grande Western acquired the Denver & Salt Lake railroad owned by David Moffat, who had opened the Moffat Tunnel in 1928, allowing his railroad routes to outpace the Denver & Rio Grande Western by cutting through the mountains.
Instead of eliminating competition, though, the purchase hamstrung the Denver & Rio Grande Western financially and forced the company to consolidate after landing in bankruptcy again. But that consolidation actually made Burnham Yard even busier, because the railyard took over projects for smaller shops that were discontinued.
“A 1936 newspaper article spoke of an uptick in the construction of railroad cars, including a plan for building ‘additional air-conditioned coaches, lounge-observation cars, and dining cars’ at Burnham, requiring the employment of 908 men,” the report noted.
In 1937, Denver built the Eighth Avenue Viaduct over the tracks, followed by the 16th Avenue Viaduct in 1956.
old brick buildings
The women's locker room and hospital building at Burnham Yard in Denver.
World War II was another significant period for Burnham Yard, as women took on mechanical and scientific jobs in place of men who had gone to war. In 1943, the railroad built a women’s locker room and hospital to accommodate the new workforce.
“Likewise, in 1944 Burnham Shops added a wing to the 1906 Roundhouse Foreman’s Office (formerly the Boiler House) as the ‘Colored Men’s Locker Room,’ indicating a substantial expansion of African Americans in the wartime workforce as well, mirroring national hiring trends that would ultimately reshape the second half of the 20th century,” the report found.
During and after the war, Burnham switched to diesel locomotives from steam, building or updating facilities to maintain a diesel fleet and demolishing some old structures to make room. The last year the Denver & Rio Grande Western ran a steam locomotive was 1956.
“By 1966 Burnham Yards took on most of its current (2017) appearance,” according to the report. “In 1988 D&RGW became part of the Southern Pacific (SP) Railroad through the merging of lines owned by Denver tycoon Philip Anschutz.”
In 1996, the SP merged with Union Pacific Railroad before shuttering twenty years later when the UP no longer needed to haul coal to Wyoming, its primary use for Burnham Yard.
Operations there officially concluded in February 2016. The Colorado Department of Transportation purchased the land in 2021 from Union Pacific for $50 million in partnership with the state’s High Performance Transit Enterprise and Office of Economic and International Trade, which each kicked in $7.5 million. CDOT funded the rest of the purchase using a bank loan.
“CDOT anticipates using around seventeen acres of the rail yard to relocate train tracks, allowing for improvements to I-25 through central Denver, while simultaneously reserving right of way for Front Range Passenger Rail and for an expansion of congested RTD light rail lines,” CDOT said at the time.
But neither of those plans came to fruition after CDOT commissioned several studies of the area, and now the state transportation department is looking for a buyer.
Historic Denver worries that CDOT may destroy five buildings and one piece of historic infrastructure left behind by the railroads to make the property more attractive to a buyer.
Historic Buildings at Risk of Demolition
“Sometimes in building preservation it's very tempting to focus on the biggest building, or the most glamorous building, or one building singularly, and highlight that, ‘Yup, this is the one,’” Deffenbaugh says. “But Burnham Yard has such a unique social history to it that we felt the need to not just look at the largest structure.”
The largest remaining structure is the locomotive shop, which was built in 1924 and is still well-preserved, according to the Historic Denver report. Deffenbaugh says that while CDOT has proposed retaining the locomotive shop in future redevelopment, it has not done so for the rest of the structures Historic Denver identified as important: the roundhouse foreman’s office, women’s locker room, coach shop, testing laboratory, steel car shop and turntable pit.
click to enlarge map of historic structures
This maps shows the positions of important historic structures at Burnham Yard.
“They may seem, at first sight, much less glamorous and worthy buildings of saving, but, actually, the story that each of them tells is so integral to the overarching story of Burnham Yard,” Deffenbaugh says. “These buildings collectively tell a big chunk of the story that needs to live on.”
The foreman’s office was built in 1906 and had various uses over Burnham Yard’s history, including serving as the African-American shop workers’ locker room during World War II. The women’s locker room built during that time also still stands.
“The fact that there's a building which people of color utilized on this site, which women utilized on this site, we're so lucky to have those buildings,” Deffenbaugh says. “It's really telling that social story of what happened on that site and its importance and how unusual that was. It talks about women's workplace history. It talks about racial equality. It speaks to industrial history.”
The other buildings at risk are the 1901 coach shop, which is the oldest remaining structure on the site, the 1937 testing laboratory and the 1924 steel car shop. Historic Denver also wants to preserve the turntable pit: While not a structure, the pit used to hold a giant turntable used to move locomotives from one shop to another. The turntable itself is now owned by the Illinois Railroad Museum.
The pit could be integrated into a new development, Deffenbaugh suggests. “Retaining a piece like that further sets this site apart,” he says. “It not only continues to identify the site as a former railyard, and one of the most important railyards at that, but it adds visual interest. It adds a point of difference. It adds a unique selling point.”
The idea that the remaining buildings could form the base of an entertainment district as part of a future development appeals to Historic Denver. They are fairly close together, so the organization believes such a district could add character without inhibiting development. “These buildings could anchor whatever is located there,” Deffenbaugh says. “Older buildings give people comfort, reassurance. They're visually exciting. The contrast between the old and the new can be a really wonderful thing….We have this amazing site which has a limited number of buildings on it which could be retained to continue to tell the story of the past. By making those decisions now, these buildings can be integrated into the future of the site.”
Even a new football stadium could benefit from preserving historic structures, Deffenbaugh suggests, citing how Coors Field is close to many historic buildings in Denver.
“I do think it's exciting that such a beloved Denver institution and sports team could be located on this site,” he adds. “I'd hope that there would be an appetite amongst the ownership team to retain these buildings that tell such a key story about the city that the Broncos represent.”
Through a spokesperson, the Broncos say the team is conducting due diligence on several options for a future stadium and no determination has been made; the team's lease on nearby Empower Field at Mile High ends in 2031. The 58-acre Burnham Yard likely isn't big enough to host a new stadium on its own, as Empower Field sits on 95 acres including parking lots. However, with the team connected to other land purchases in the area and newer stadiums being developed with fewer parking lots, Burnham is a strong possibility.
The suburb of Lone Tree has also emerged as an option for the team, owing to a large amount of empty land near highways and other high-traffic roads. Other spots in Aurora and by the Denver International Airport have been considered. “We have thoroughly researched the potential sites to understand their unique histories and future opportunities,” the team says.
The Colorado Transportation Investment Office, part of CDOT, is overseeing the sale and is currently responsible for the historic buildings on the site.
“CTIO is following the state historic preservation process as we prepare the site for sale,” says spokesperson Tim Hoover. “Any eventual owners of the site will follow the determinations from that process, and we are committed to ensuring that the history of the site will be prominent in its redevelopment.”
As state enterprises are exempt from Denver’s zoning laws, the usual process by which Historic Denver or other preservation-minded groups in the city can protest the demolition of Burnham Yard buildings may not apply.
Denver’s historic preservation guidelines flag any building over fifty years that is up for demolition in order to give people a chance to object and explain why the building should be preserved. No such system exists in the state historic preservation process, which leaves it up to owners to nominate their property to be part of the Colorado State Register of Historic Properties, administered within History Colorado.
Even being on the state register does not prevent demolition. Rather, that ensures the building will be catalogued and recorded. Buildings included on the register can access some grants and tax incentives for preservation, however.
“It's the collective responsibility of all of us involved in conversations about the future of the site, particularly the key players like the ownership team, the potential purchasing team, to recognize the value of these buildings and the story that they tell,” Deffenbaugh concludes. “Whatever goes on this site, the contrast between the modern architecture and these older structures could be really exhilarating.”