Denver

Denver is named after a man who never set foot in it. In 1858, a land speculator named William Larimer founded a settlement where Cherry Creek meets the South Platte River and named it after James Denver, the governor of Kansas Territory, hoping to win political favor.

The man whose name the city borrowed never once visited the place.

The whole settlement started on a rumor. Prospectors found only a few ounces of gold near the site in 1858, but word of "gold in the Rockies" was enough to launch a stampede.

By spring 1859, the Pike's Peak Gold Rush was on, and roughly 100,000 fortune seekers poured toward the mountains. They came on foot, on horseback, and pushing wheelbarrows, many with "Pikes Peak or Bust" painted on their wagons.

Then Denver almost died. In 1869, the first transcontinental railroad took an easier route through Cheyenne, Wyoming, and skipped the city entirely. A town with no railroad had no future.

So Denver's business leaders raised the money and built their own. The Denver Pacific line connected to Cheyenne in 1870, tied the city back into the country, and saved it.

Denver became the capital of Colorado, which reached statehood in 1876.

It earned its nickname the hard way. Denver sits exactly one mile above sea level, 1,609 meters, and a step on the State Capitol is engraved to mark the spot.

Stand on that mile-high step and look west at the Rockies. Tour the U.S. Mint, which stamps out billions of circulating coins every year.

Explore the dinosaur skeletons and planetarium at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Catch a concert or just climb the steps at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, a stage carved between giant sandstone formations outside the city.

Eat a burrito smothered in green chile, a Colorado obsession, and try a bison burger, leaner than beef. In late summer, finish with a Palisade peach from the state's western slope.