Historical Studies Journal

Displaced Roots: The Lost Neighborhood of Auraria and its Legacy of Activism, 1969-2024

By: Sophia Imperioli

November 4, 1969, was the culmination of months of fighting between disparate Auraria neighborhood activists and the Denver Urban Renewal Authority (DURA). City officials and education advocacy groups wanted to construct a tri-institutional campus where the historical neighborhood had stood for over 100 years. Campus construction proponents affirmed the project would bring much needed educational resources to the heart of downtown Denver. They won residents over with their optimistic views. When confronted with the realities of displacement, they placated critics with promises of making every attempt to move residents to better housing. DURA promised to provide personal assistance to every family and business, pay for moving and relocation expenses with federal funds, give property owners fair market value for their properties, and provide additional relocation funds in cases of hardship.^[1] On November 4, 1969, Denver residents approved a $6 million bond issue to construct the Auraria campus in the heart of downtown Denver. The vote was 52% in favor. The Auraria neighborhood was doomed to demolition.

Today, the Auraria campus sits on the former site of Denver’s Old Westside, a residential and commercial neighborhood that housed more than three hundred families and over one hundred businesses. By the early 1920s, the neighborhood evolved into a distinctly Hispanic neighborhood. Residents formed a vibrant, tight-knit community around the area’s three Catholic churches, where children attended school and many members of the community celebrated holidays and major events. Over time, Auraria’s prominence as an industrial center—home to breweries, mills, warehouses, and more— declined, and the neighborhood faced economic challenges.^[2] By the 1940s, the City of Denver labeled the area as “blighted” because of its deteriorating infrastructure and declining property values. A particularly devastating flood in 1965 further contributed to the deterioration of structures in the area.^[3]

Scholarly analysis of the displacement of neighborhoods to make way for universities forms a growing body of literature, but Chicano-centered displacement narratives are still sparse. Universities have historically shaped urban landscapes, often displacing or expanding into neighborhoods at the cost of marginalized communities. Many pieces of literature that deal with universities’ recognition of their corrupt histories focus on them in relation to enslaved people and convict labor.^[4] Other neighborhood displacement literature tends to focus on urban renewal projects that made way for public infrastructure.^[5]

Most discussions of the Auraria neighborhood that existed before the campus focus on the ineffective, incohesive resistance the neighborhood mounted when faced with displacement. The natural conclusion to most of these renditions is the passage of the bond vote and the displacement of families and businesses from the area. Historians have largely overlooked the displaced Chicano community’s activism in the wake of losing their neighborhood.^[6]

Denver’s urban renewal efforts took root in 1947 during Mayor Quigg Newton’s term in office when he asked the Denver Housing Office to partner with the Denver Planning Office to survey housing conditions in the city. The results of the survey showed that 23.9% of homes in Denver were considered substandard by exhibiting deteriorated or dilapidated conditions, and of those, the majority housed Chicano families.^[7] As part of a larger urban renewal movement, Denver’s Urban Renewal Authority (DURA) initiated a campaign to remove West Side residents and build a university campus, with their efforts culminating in a $6 million bond vote to fund campus construction on November 4, 1969. Auraria residents struggled to mount an effective opposition to DURA’s plans prior to the bond vote. Except for the neighborhood’s historic churches and 14 homes on Historic 9th Street Park, the City of Denver demolished the entire West Side neighborhood. Residents were compensated for the values of their homes, though the fairness of those values is still debated today. Residents were also prohibited from giving input on campus construction plans. Campus representatives made promises to displaced Aurarians that the educational center would pave the way to gain access to education on the campus, and in some cases, the schools could provide funding for displaced Aurarian attendance.^[8] Officials failed to deliver on those promises for decades after the removal.

By the time the City of Denver began evicting West Side residents from their homes, community members accepted that they were losing the fight to save their neighborhood. However, the supportive culture of the community did allow members to band together to fight continued marginalization. This led to the creation of a scholarship fund, the Displaced Aurarian Scholarship, which covers the full tuition for both displaced Aurarians and their descendants. More recently, the campus passed a resolution allowing former residents direct oversight over Historic 9th Street Park and Saint Cajetan’s Church. In this paper, I argue that frustrated neighborhood preservation efforts and lack of acknowledgement on the downtown Denver campus led the Auraria Chicano community to band together after displacement to advocate for their needs, and later, to commemorate their lost community. It was only after the passage of the bond vote—when the neighborhood was slated for demolition and residents began to be removed—that the community successfully united to fight for their rights and push for recognition.

To explore the evolution of activism within the Auraria community, I examine its activism at three stages in the neighborhood’s history: first in disparate neighborhood activists and advocacy groups’ use of local publications to make the rest of Denver aware of their struggle with city urban renewal authorities; then immediately after the passage of the bond vote as the city removed residents from the neighborhood; and finally, in the years after displacement with continued, unrelenting resident self-advocacy that has persisted to this day.

The Auraria Project Versus the Auraria Neighborhood

The Metropolitan State College (MSC, now Metropolitan State University) was established by Colorado House Bill No 349 on May 5, 1963. Enrollment quickly grew, necessitating the construction of a larger campus. According to a Metropolitan State College Site Selection Survey published in 1968, the site selection process for a new campus began in mid-1966 in order “to be readily accessible to [a] metropolitan population” and “to be responsive to community needs.” The school’s hired firm, Albert C. Martin and Associates of Los Angeles, chose 19 potential sites that met MSC’s aforementioned goals. The firm then graded all of the sites against a series of factors the school deemed most important to future prospective students and faculty. This resulted in three sites being of heightened interest: Auraria, Civic Center, and North Stadium. The latter two sites came with a large caveat: only one-third of each site would qualify as an urban renewal project, which would necessitate the school’s procurement of two-thirds of each location’s value for purchase. This would be in addition to paying half of the urban renewal costs themselves. On the basis of obtaining an area for the school’s future location that would provide the urban renewal funds and thus limit the school’s spending, officials selected Auraria as the “most desirable.”^[9]

Once DURA members and school representatives had selected their ideal site, the issue became a matter of funding. DURA applied for federal funding with the promise that it would procure funds from within the City. The best method, it determined, was through a $6 million bond proposal that required a majority vote in favor from city residents. November 4, 1969 would be the day Denver residents decided the fate of Auraria.^[10]

Just before the bond issue vote, Auraria advocates vocalized their dissatisfaction with the work city officials had done in the neighborhood in local newspapers to publicize their plight of impending displacement. The West Side Recorder was a residential newspaper in Denver published by West Side residents and community leaders. The paper often posted activist and community-driven pieces for the predominantly Chicano community of the Auraria neighborhood. An article published on October 1, 1969—one month before the bond issue vote—expressed the frustrations West Siders felt at the intrusion and accompanying lack of action on the part of DURA representatives. According to the article, representatives of the Denver Urban Renewal Authority, Denver Model Cities, and the City Planning Office had spent many hours visiting the West Side neighborhood to speak with community members. The paper asserted, “nothing has come out of all these visits to the West Side by city officials except frustration for West Siders…no plans, no action, nothing concrete.” The article captured West Siders’ discouragement on the matter of the campus’s construction where the author lamented, “Nobody has asked the Auraria or West Side residents what they want and how they feel about the proposals.”^[11]

In another West Side Recorder article published in that same issue on October 1, 1969, West Side resident Waldo Benavidez composed an article addressing many of the same qualms the community had with the campus’ construction. Benavidez, the Chairman of the Committee to Preserve the West Side Community, stated his view of Auraria’s selection as the site of the new tri-college campus. He wrote, “Once again the poor are asked to make just one more sacrifice for the benefit of mankind.” Benavidez also corrected the misinformation DURA had been spreading about the number of people that displacement would affect. According to DURA reports, only 100 families numbering 400 people would be forced out. He and many other community members believed there were many more than that. Using voter registration records, Benavidez estimated there were 300 families and 800 to 1,000 residents in the neighborhood. Benavidez especially evinced fervor amongst Auraria residents when he ended the article with an imagined take from DURA’s perspective: “After all, we can’t stop progress.”^[12]

Residents feared that their displacement would pave the way for gentrification of the area leading to a steep increase in prices, which would effectively cut off their access to the campus. In 1969, the Colorado Daily published an article that directly contradicted the Denver Model City program’s claim that the construction of a central campus would allow men and women from low-income families who could not afford to travel to other institutions a chance to attend a campus that was more geographically and physically accessible. West Side citizens groups asserted that when moved from the area, they would be unable to attend the colleges because of distance. Additionally, the “skyrocketing” rents that accompanied students of higher learning institutions would prevent them from being able to find a new place to live that was close to the campus.^[13] In creating a central place for students to attend school, the surrounding neighborhoods would become financially inaccessible to displaced Aurarians, thus pushing them farther from the institutions they might wish to attend, even after relinquishing their own neighborhood to make way for its creation. Or, in Waldo Benavidez’s opinion, it was possible for the college to institute a “closed-door policy” with no repercussions, effectively barring former residents from attending.^[14] Modern scholars have indeed cited the neighborhood’s removal as the starting point of an ongoing, long-term process of gentrification in downtown Denver.^[15]

Neighborhood activists were continually let down by various authorities’ and media outlets’ misinformation, lack of action, or unwillingness to support them. On October 28, 1969, a few short days before the bond vote, The Rocky Mountain News published a four-page section dedicated to the “problem” posed by the Westside neighborhood in fighting to keep their neighborhood intact. The article broadly describes the character of the neighborhood in a contrived and derogatory way:

“People aren’t very happy here. A lot of them are hungry, and a lot of them have bottom rung jobs, or else no jobs at all. A lot of them seem to get in trouble with the police, or the housing authority or the social workers, and a lot of them seem to be sad and angry about something most of the time.”^[16]

With such grievances and a supposedly bleak outlook on life, how could anyone desire to stay in a blighted slum like Auraria? How could a neighborhood like that be worth saving to not only the neighborhood’s residents but also to the larger community of Denver? As J. Robert Cameron, DURA’s Executive Director, put it, Auraria’s “blighted character” was in no way an “asset” to a city like Denver that prided itself on its “attractiveness.”^[17]

Many groups wished to see the school campus built. Those who supported the bond issue mounted a cohesive effort from the start led by DURA’s executive director, Downtown Denver Inc., the city Mayor’s office, and Metro State students.^[18] A Colorado Daily article from 1969 listed the numerous organizations and local entities that supported the campus’ construction: officials at Metro State College, Denver Community College, the University’s Denver center, students at Metro, and several Denver civic groups.^[19] The West Side Improvement Association (WSIA) was one of the many community groups that existed during the time of the campus’ planning and eventual construction. In a 1968 West Side Recorder article, the WSIA seriously objected to the selection of the Civic Center as a potential site of the campus due to the “effect of displacing such a large number of middle- and low-income tenants and property owners.” Instead, the Association recommended Auraria because it was an area with a much smaller residential population and a “generally deteriorating neighborhood.”^[20] In that same newspaper edition, the West Side Recorder published the front-page article “College Important: West Side Efforts Should Continue.” In this article, the writer pointed out the ongoing efforts of residents working with the WSIA and commended them. Such efforts would ensure residents would be eligible for support from DURA. In return for the support, the West Side Improvement Association expected the State’s renewed attention be given to the subject of providing education to low-income earners in Denver.^[21]

Literature was an effective tool of pro-campus advocates that eroded the anti-displacement cause. The Citizens for Auraria, a Denver community group in favor of the campus, published a brochure in 1969 to persuade voters to vote in favor of the bond issue. The pamphlet’s cover provided an enticing view of educational progress with an illustration of two students, books in hand, strolling on a modern campus. The large title read “Vote For Auraria Nov. 4,” and a small subtitle at the bottom claimed it would be “Denver’s #1 Goal for Greatness.” The brochure painted the new college campus as a godsend for all of Denver’s urban problems of the day—poverty, unemployment, and poor housing. The Citizens for Auraria used emphatic language to garner voter support with descriptions of the project that included words like “essential” and “unique.” On the other hand, the problem of not having the campus already in a city of Denver’s size was considered “tragic.” To vote no on the bond proposal was billed as a potential “opportunity lost to Denver forever.”^[22]

The cause was further weakened by an issue that split Denver’s Hispanic population in two—access to education. Auraria residents and Westside organizers fought against the campus taking their neighborhood while the universities promised better access to higher education for Hispanic residents around Denver.^[23] People of the Mexican-American community from around the city also voted in favor of the bond issue, believing that the construction of the campus would allow them greater accessibility to higher education. According to the author’s recounting of the results of the bond issue, Denver’s District 7—the smallest district in the city that included the Auraria neighborhood itself—voted 690 to 678 in favor of building the campus. Two Denver legislators of Hispanic descent endorsed the campus’s construction, Senator Roger Cisneros and Representative Paco Sanchez. Representative Sanchez also served on the 11-member DURA board, calling the project “a tremendous opportunity for [his] people.”^[24]

The bond issue vote also came down to the intervention of religious authorities, which sparked a vehement activist response amongst Auraria community members. The Archbishop of Denver, James V. Casey, told city residents to vote in favor of the Auraria bond proposal because of the opportunities higher education brought for Denver residents, especially minorities. In response, the majority of Auraria’s Catholic residents felt betrayed. Westside churches held two scheduled meetings as open forums on successive nights, and both meetings recorded “outbursts of anger and resentment.” At least 20 people staged a walkout of St. Cajetan’s Catholic Church.^[25]

Community members mounted more cohesive forms of resistance as the bond election neared, but these efforts were not enough to garner much of a response and save the neighborhood. In a last ditch effort to preserve their neighborhood, Chicano community leaders brought a petition containing 2,000 signatures in opposition to the Auraria project to Colorado Lieutenant Governor Mark Hogan, who the Colorado Daily described as “neutral on the subject.” The State Governor, John Love, had also remained carefully silent on the matter.^[26] Auraria residents and group organizers wrote into the newspapers, called public meetings, and reached out to local, state, and national politicians. Their efforts were fierce but somewhat disjointed, operating under the banner of several different organizations.^[27] A 1972 article from the Metro State publication The Paper looked back on the residents’ distinct lack of knowledge of the plan to demolish their neighborhood, which prevented a concerted effort to battle the bond vote on November 4, 1969. The writer attributed this outcome to the “relatively disjointed and politically unorganized nature” of Auraria residents, but modern urban geographers Brian Page and Eric Ross conversely attribute the lack of Auraria community action against the bond issue to a “high degree of insularity” in the city’s creation of its urban renewal plan. The first signs of resistance came 3 years after Auraria was first identified as a possible campus site and two months before the bond issue election.^[28]

The introduction of the Auraria issue had since caused almost every organization in the neighborhood to band together to create the highly vocal and influential Westside Coalition (WSC), but unfortunately, this was not done until the eve of the election. The resulting vote was only 37 more votes against the bond in the Westside neighborhood itself and an overwhelming majority in favor in southeast Denver.^[29] Organizers were unable to mount significant support for the plan in time to save Auraria.^[30]

The Bond Vote’s Aftermath

From the smoking embers of the effort to save Auraria came a much more unified front of residents who worked together to ensure the terms of their removal met their standards. According to Jodi Summers, a historian of the displacement, they had “lost their battle” with the forces of urban renewal, but they had also let politicians know they were not going to “simply give up” on their “deteriorated” neighborhood.^[31]

Auraria neighborhood advocacy groups joined together to form the WSC just before the bond issue had passed, which served to unite the efforts of residents and students alike as well as advocate for residents who would be displaced. Two MSC students, Richard and Virginia Castro, originally organized the WSC when the school announced the Auraria project, but now the Coalition oversaw efforts to make life in the preserved part of the Westside neighborhood nicer. It collected funds to create a neighborhood health clinic, build low-income housing, subsidize home purchases, and rehabilitate dilapidated homes. It criticized and successfully beat back the city’s plan to route a high-traffic corridor through the heart of the neighborhood.^[32] The WSC worked alongside the Auraria Residents Organization (ARO)—another community advocacy organization— to seek legal action to receive fair compensation during the displacement. The case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, but it ultimately failed.^[33]

Auraria residents refused to accept any DURA offerings that did not meet their own standards for the removal. In an edition of The Paper from Metro State on April 12, 1972, student Leann Kolva wrote an article titled “Aurarians Spurn $ Offers.” In it, she detailed Auraria residents’ ire at what they considered to be the pittances DURA offered them for their homes. DURA had sent out price offers to seven homeowners and three renters, and their reactions were equally caustic. In Kolva’s words, residents were “disgusted” by the offers, and members of the ARO were considering taking the issue to court. ARO’s coordinator, Toni Taylor, affirmed that residents were refusing to accept the offers because they were “much too low” when compared to property tax assessments. Residents called the efforts of DURA’s relocation director, Paul Cormier, just a bunch of “PR jive.”^[34]

Residents and businesses began to move out of the area with relocation payments, but some community members employed different methods to combat the displacement. Originally formed to campaign against the bond issue, the Citizens for Efficient Education (CEE) was a group of business owners in the Auraria neighborhood that brought a lawsuit against the City of Denver for the “illegal confiscation” of their property. Judge George M. McNamara dismissed the case after finding the legal grounds insufficient, but the business owner’s lawyer, Mr. George Creamer, appealed the dismissal to the State Supreme Court.^[35] Internally, DURA members scrambled to bring as swift an end to the court case as possible. J. Robert Cameron penned an internal memorandum titled, “Problems and Recommended Actions to be Taken” in response to the court case and a slew of other problems the organization had encountered with the Auraria Project thus far. He noted the court case’s potential to “tie up” the sale of any Auraria bonds, and this could jeopardize Denver’s acquisition of federal funding if the City failed to meet the federal government’s summer 1971 deadline for procurement of funds. Because the City’s original cost projections for the project did not factor in the loss of federal funds, Cameron’s memorandum carries a frenetic tone in urging DURA members and City entities to get things done “as soon as possible.” According to Cameron, all involved institutions were “prepared to do anything necessary to expedite the situation.”^[36]

Community members also eventually partnered with student advocates when students changed their viewpoints toward the project. University of Colorado Denver’s Fourth Estate was a student-run publication produced between 1968 and 1977, and student writers used it to publicize changing attitudes toward the Auraria Project. In its January 20, 1971, edition, student author Annette Chandler wrote a piece called, “Students Form Coalition to Alter Auraria Project.” In it, she described the actions of students from Denver Center and Metropolitan State College who had formed the Auraria Student Coalition in order to change the Auraria Higher Education Complex (AHEC). In the students’ words—delivered in a press conference held on January 14, 1971—they wanted to encourage the Auraria project’s positive potential and prevent it from becoming a nightmare. One of the reasons cited for believing the project could quickly become the most “‘disastrous mistake for higher education in Colorado'” was the difficulty in rehousing Auraria residents. In fact, Dave Ball, who was a pivotal player in the Metro State student body and had helped pass the bond issue, reversed his opinion to now oppose the project in light of the mistreatment of Auraria residents. Ball stated that “‘unless the individuals living on the Auraria site are relocated into safe, decent, and adequate housing,'” he would remain against it. Students from the Denver Center insisted that construction could not start until all of the residents’ demands for land use (zoning) and housing could be met with satisfaction.^[37]

Because of all of the organizing and protesting, residents were able to make some headway years after the bond issue. Father Peter Garcia worked with Auraria resident activists to create the ARO before the bond vote, but it became much more effective in its efforts after the passage of the bond vote. In 1970, the organization put forth the idea to purchase 45 acres on the proposed campus site to house displaced residents.^[38] Father Garcia also attempted to gain a seat on the Interim Policy Board as the chairman of the ARO, but he was denied. According to one board member, Mrs. William B. (Betty) Naugle, the Board was strictly an academic entity and had nothing to do with the relocation. His request to join arose when another entity, AHEC’s Community Involvement Committee had stonewalled Father Garcia from participating, which deliberately failed to meet the federal requirements of “widespread resident participation” in an urban renewal project. The Interim Policy Board received much pushback on preventing Father Garcia from joining, even from within its own ranks. The Board decided to table the issue to its February 9th meeting.^[39] Because of the ARO’s persistence, Father Garcia was also eventually admitted to AHEC’s Community Involvement Committee.^[40]

The most effective resistance came in the form of historic preservation. Local parishioners refused to lose their place of worship at St. Cajetan’s Catholic Church, and they campaigned to spare the building from demolition. Father Pete Garcia, still the ARO’s acting leader in 1970, delivered a persuasive and emphatic speech to the Denver Landmark Commission outlining the social and religious regions for the preservation of the holy building.^[41] Though it could no longer serve as a place of worship, activists successfully got the building added to the National Register of Historic Landmarks and the Denver Landmark Preservation Commission. Historic Denver, Inc. saved the 9th Street Historic Park, a one-block row of houses that stood in the former neighborhood.^[42]

In the wake of the passage of the $6 million bond proposal, Auraria resident organizations galvanized their efforts to promote their interests during the displacement. They became much more cohesive than prior to the bond issue and began to see some parts of the Auraria project turn towards their favor. Unfortunately, the need for advocacy only rose after they moved away from the neighborhood.

The Need for Activism

The effects of Auraria’s displacement are still keenly felt to this day, especially when community members and their descendants recall the events surrounding the campus’s construction. Urban geographers Brian Page and Eric Ross discuss the lasting legacy of the Auraria community that came in the wake of losing the battle with DURA and the campus. Their legacies “served to extend community organization and collective action in Westside Hispanic neighborhoods…set in motion shifts in urban renewal practice that dramatically altered DURA’s role in Denver’s planning process….[and] establish historic preservation as a permanent feature of Denver redevelopment.”^[43] Denverite is a member-supported news organization that bills itself as “for the curious and concerned in our ever-changing city.” On November 5, 2018, one of its staff writers, Donna Bryson, wrote a piece titled, “In the ’60s, Denver decided to replace this community with the Auraria campus. Here’s what it lost.” The author interviewed several people with deep personal connections to the Auraria neighborhood and the campus. The article showed how people have helped to bridge the gap between displacement and activism today. One interviewee, Gregorio Alcaro, is a descendant of the family that owned Casa Mayan, a well-known restaurant and social hub for the Chicano community in Denver. Alcaro admits DURA paid his family for their home (Casa Mayan), but money could “never replace a community,” one that prided itself on being “supportive” to one another. He also describes how he believed the rest of Denver looked at Aurarians as a bunch of “lazy, stupid, dirty Mexicans, criminals.” Looking back with 50 years’ removal from the events, one interviewee in the Denverite article, Luis Torres, a professor of Chicano studies at Metro State, asserts that families were not fairly compensated for their homes because “pro-campus forces” believed they were just, “Latinos,” and “they [couldn’t] really fight.”^[44]

Lack of acknowledgement and continued failure to deliver on handshake agreements between displaced residents and the schools in the succeeding decades prompted the need for modern activism. Taylor Perez retells the story of the displaced Aurarians in a journal article through a restorative justice lens, where she titles a section of her paper, “Promises Made, Lackluster Remedial Attempts, and the Enduring Effects of Displacement.” Although there is no formal documentation of it, displaced Aurarians insisted the schools promised scholarships for residents who lived in the displaced neighborhood from 1955 to 1973, but those scholarships never materialized. Along the same vein, a promised cultural center for former residents never manifested either. Perez chronicles the schools only offering the scholarship two decades after displacement when activists “pushed for them.” In 1994, the three schools further agreed to allow displaced residents of the Auraria neighborhood, their children, and their grandchildren scholarships.^[45]

As for the campus itself, there are very few indicators of the neighborhood that existed prior to its construction. Despite the rich economic, social, and cultural history of the area, historian and University of Colorado student Jodi Summers felt that “very few” of the people who walk the sidewalks of the campus every day were even “aware” of how the neighborhood was displaced.^[46] Modern scholars of the Auraria campus’s history insist its layout “does little” to help its visitors learn about or remember the systematic removal of residents that “eradicated” the original neighborhood. Campus officials as well as the urban landscape itself keep the process of urban renewal “hidden from view.”^[47]

Written and visual accounts of the campus’s construction in the decades following the displacement outright lied about its social impact. Eight years after the bond issue, the Journal of Housing published an article in 1977 titled, “New College Facilities, New In-Town Vitality Gained via Denver’s Almost-Complete Auraria Project.” On the article’s third page—which had given glowing reviews of the Auraria project and the work that was wrapping up—the authors took a moment to acknowledge (in one paragraph) the trauma the experience brought upon Auraria residents. They conceded that “[r]elocation can be a traumatic experience” unless relocating authorities took pains to ensure they were sensitive to the needs of displaced families and individuals. In fact, the authors cited two separate surveys carried out by Denver’s local television stations in 1975 that were meant to ascertain former residents’ attitudes toward the displacement. They found that although a few of the displaced people were “unhappy,” “the vast majority” of those displaced by the project were “pleased” with their new housing outside of the old “blighted” neighborhood.^[48] The article’s two authors were J. Robert Cameron and DURA’s Architect and Project Coordinator, Galen G. McFadyen.

Other accounts of the origins of the Auraria campus glossed over the events surrounding the displacement or didn’t mention it at all. A 1996 promotional video produced for the Auraria Higher Education Center featured an interview with Dr. Thomas A. Noel, a notable Denver historian and professor known as “Dr. Colorado.” Dr. Noel was also a professor in the history department at CU Denver, one of the institutions on the Auraria campus. In his interview, he described the campus as having a “past as rich as its present.” The video was meant to create a sense of tradition on a campus that had just opened 21 years before. Despite alluding to a fascinating multicultural past, Dr. Noel glossed over the magnitude of the displacement by describing the campus’ construction as a simple urban renewal project in which 170 acres were “set aside” to become the largest higher education institution in Colorado.^[49] Even today, the schools share almost willfully vague stories of the origins of the campus. In describing the reason for its construction, Metro State University’s own website insists that the three schools were all “in desperate need of larger, permanent homes.” The idea of a tri-university campus in the heart of downtown was a “pragmatic” and “innovative” way to meet the needs of all three institutions. It is the school’s opinion on why the creation of the campus was necessary and why it was ultimately a success.^[50]

Modern student movements have coupled with newer iterations of displaced Auraria advocacy groups to push their agenda of memorializing the neighborhood ahead. The Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan arose as a means to educate those who wanted to learn the history of the area. They still exist on the Auraria campus today and continue to work closely with neighborhood programs like the West-Side Outreach Center. In the early 2000s, the West-Side Outreach Center was heavily involved with people who had once lived in the neighborhood. It also maintained an active role in campus politics. Displaced Aurarians, their descendants, and their supporters formed the Auraria Historical Advocacy Council (AHAC) in 2022 as a vehicle for ongoing advocacy. Because of their continued efforts of asking to be involved in campus operations and commemoration of the neighborhood, displaced Aurarians and their descendants secured the majority of seats on the committee that governs Ninth Street Historic Park in June 2024. This new nine-member committee will oversee all planning and use of the historic park from art installations to commemorative signage to a healing garden.^[51]

The after effects of the displacement were devastating to the residents of Auraria. No research exists to document the impact of displacement on the families and businesses of Auraria. Oral histories captured in the decades after displacement convey the “clear sense of grief for the loss of their homes and neighborhood” that displaced Auraria residents felt. The interviews make reference to larger social studies conducted from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s in which researchers looked at the social, economic, and psychological effects of urban renewal. Many people were left financially worse off, forced to pay higher rents for newer housing or were moved to different areas that were also considered slums or blighted. These people also “struggled” emotionally and socially with the idea of “losing” their community and the “support” it provided.^[52] This sentiment reflects the sense of loss echoed in Magdalena Gallegos’ interviews of Auraria residents in the 1980s and 1990s.^[53] Loss is also a theme reflected in the oral history interviews conducted by History Colorado with former Auraria residents and their descendants in 2023.^[54]

The displacement contributed to a galvanization of Chicano identity within the Auraria neighborhood that led residents and their supporters to fight for ongoing support and commemoration. According to some historians, this was a point in Denver’s urban renewal history, and Auraria activism caused a fundamental change in local urban planning practices at DURA. Recently, CU Denver proposed an expansion of the campus’s current boundaries to allow for a new student housing project. This proposal outraged the school’s students, displaced Aurarians, and the West-Side Outreach Program. The housing proposal ultimately failed, but the survival of these groups into the modern day demonstrates the power urban renewal had upon them.^[55] Even after fifty years have passed, those affected are committed to preventing the campus from expanding into new places in the city and displacing more residents.

Notes

1. Citizens for Auraria, “Vote for Auraria, Nov. 4,” Denver, Colorado, 1969. ↑

2. Donna McEnroe and Dick Johnston, Denver Renewed: A History of the Denver Urban Renewal Authority, Denver, Colo: The Denver Foundation and Alex B. Holland Memorial Fund, 1992, 492-493. ↑

3. “Financial Interests Backed Site,” The Paper – Metro State, January 12, 1972. ↑

4. Rhondda Robinson Thomas, Call My Name, Clemson: Documenting the Black Experience in an American University Community (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2020). ↑

5. Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker : Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (New York: Knopf, 1974). Dolores Hayden, The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1995). Cathy Stanton, The Lowell Experiment: Public History in a Postindustrial City (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2006). Ronald Rudin, Kouchibouguac: Removal, Resistance, and Remembrance at a Canadian National Park (Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 2016), Davarian L. Baldwin, In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities are Plundering Our Cities (New York: Hachette Book Group, 2024). ↑

6. See for example Brian Page and Eric Ross, “Legacies of a Contested Campus: Urban Renewal, Community Resistance, and the Origins of Gentrification in Denver,” Urban Geography 38, no. 9 (2016), or Taylor Perez, “Displaced Promises: The History of Colorado’s Auraria Campus and the Shortcomings of Its Remedial Measures,” Deleted Journal 48, no. 2 (January 1, 2024): 535-565. ↑

7. Donna McEnroe and Dick Johnston, Denver Renewed, 16. ↑

8. Page and Ross, “Legacies of a Contested Campus.” 1293–1328 ↑

9. Albert C. Martin and Associates of Los Angeles, “Metropolitan State College Site Selection Study,” Denver, Colorado, 1968. ↑

10. McEnroe & Johnston, Denver Renewed, 478-481. ↑

11. “What About West Side?” West Side Recorder, October 1, 1969. ↑

12. Waldo Benavidez, “Auraria Campus: Bad for West Side,” West Side Recorder, October 1, 1969. ↑

13. Frank Bell, “Million Denver Bond Proposal: Dispute Hits Auraria Super-School,” Colorado Daily – University of Colorado Boulder, October 31, 1969. ↑

14. Benavidez, “Auraria Campus: Bad for West Side.” ↑

15. Page and Ross, “Legacies of a Contested Campus.” 1293–1328. ↑

16. “Denver’s West Side: What Gives?” The Rocky Mountain News Daily, October 28, 1969. ↑

17. J. Robert Cameron & Galen G. McFayden, “New College Facilities, New In-Town Vitality Gained via Denver’s Almost-Complete Auraria Project,” Journal of Housing (March 1977): 126. ↑

18. Page and Ross, “Legacies of a Contested Campus.” 1293–1328. ↑

19. Bell, “Million Denver Bond Proposal.” ↑

20. Wilma J. Dabrowski, “Letter from the West Side Improvement Association to the Colorado Commission on Higher Education,” March 21, 1968. ↑

21. “College Important: West Side Efforts Should Continue,” West Side Recorder, March 1, 1968. ↑

22. Citizens for Auraria, “Vote for Auraria, Nov. 4.” ↑

23. Page and Ross, “Legacies of a Contested Campus.” 1293–1328. ↑

24. McEnroe & Johnston, Denver Renewed, 496. ↑

25. McEnroe & Johnston, Denver Renewed, 485-6. ↑

26. Bell, “Million Denver Bond Proposal.” ↑

27. Page and Ross, “Legacies of a Contested Campus.” 1293–1328. ↑

28. Page and Ross, “Legacies of a Contested Campus.” 1293–1328. ↑

29. “Progress v. People.” The Paper – Metro State. January 12, 1972. ↑

30. Page and Ross, “Legacies of a Contested Campus.” 1293–1328. ↑

31. Jodi Summers, “Auraria: From Neighborhood to Campus,” University of Colorado Boulder, 2003. 53. ↑

32. Page and Ross, “Legacies of a Contested Campus.” 1293–1328. ↑

33. Alfredo Luis Calvo, “The Hole in the Heart of the City: The Story of Denver’s Urban Renewal,” Medium.com, April 20, 2018, https://medium.com/@alfredoluiscalvo/the-hole-in-the-heart-of-the-city-8231d163411f. ↑

34. “Aurarians Spurn $ Offers,” The Paper – Metro State, April 12, 1972. ↑

35. McEnroe & Johnston, Denver Renewed, 500. ↑

36. J. Robert Cameron, “Problems and Recommended Actions to be Taken,” 1970, Denver Urban Renewal Authority Records, Denver Public Library Archives Collection, Box 4, Folder 7. ↑

37. Annette Chandler, “Students Form Coalition to Alter Auraria Project,” Fourth Estate – University of Colorado Denver, January 20, 1971. ↑

38. Annette Chandler, “Auraria Opposition Continues,” Fourth Estate – University of Colorado Denver, September 23, 1970. ↑

39. Annette Chandler, “Auraria Planners Delay Decision to Seat Residents,” Fourth Estate – University of Colorado Denver, January 20, 1971. Father Peter Garcia left the Catholic church to become a Chicano activist after the events of Auraria. ↑

40. Auraria Higher Education Center Sub-Committee on Community Involvement, Meeting Minutes, March 1970, Auraria Higher Education Center Records, Auraria Library Speciall Collections, Denver. ↑

41. Matthew T. Downey and William B. Taylor, “St. Cajetan’s Church as an Historical Landmark: A Statement Presented to the Denver Landmark Commission,”Denver, Colo., 1970. ↑

42. Summers, “Auraria: From Neighborhood to Campus,” 53-4. ↑

43. Page and Ross, “Legacies of a Contested Campus.” 1293–1328. ↑

44. Donna Bryson, “In the ’60s, Denver decided to replace this community with the Auraria campus. Here’s what it lost,” Denverite, November 5, 2018. ↑

45. Taylor Perez, “Displaced Promises: The History of Colorado’s Auraria Campus and the Shortcomings of Its Remedial Measures,” Deleted Journal 48, no. 2 (January 1, 2024): 559, https://doi.org/10.60095/nxgc3282. ↑

46. Summers, “Auraria: From Neighborhood to Campus,” 2. ↑

47. Page and Ross, “Legacies of a Contested Campus.” 1293–1328. ↑

48. J. Robert Cameron & Galen G. McFayden, “New College Facilities,” 124-127. ↑

49. Auraria Higher Education Center, Auraria, (Denver, Colorado) Auraria Higher Education Center, 1996. ↑

50. “Our History,” Metropolitan State University of Denver, 2024, https://www.msudenver.edu/our-past/our-history/. ↑

51. Elizabeth Hernandez, “Denver tore down their homes to build the Auraria Campus. Now they finally get a say in what’s left of their neighborhood,” Denver Post, June 27, 2024. ↑

52. Page and Ross, “Legacies of a Contested Campus.” 1293–1328. ↑

53. Magdalena Gallegos, “Auraria Remembered,” (1995), C MSS OH500, Magdalena Gallegos Collection Denver Public Library, Denver, Colo. ↑

54. “Displaced Aurarians Neighborhood Memory Project,” (2023), “I Am Auraria” Collection, History Colorado, Denver, Colo. ↑

55. Summers, “Auraria: From Neighborhood to Campus,” 58-9. ↑