Excerpt from the book:

In 1859 seekers and searchers, promoters and planters, miners and merchants, doctors and teachers came together on the banks of Cherry Creek at the Platte River to make a new life for themselves. This fertile soil was the stuff that would make Denver the “Queen City of the Plains.” They came to build a community based on the kind of independence produced by business enterprise. With income, their vision widened. It was said that the first thing a rich man did was to build a safe in his home for his mining records and then build a theater. Grand mansions went up and the middle class had far finer homes than they had left behind. Mining and farming interests required lumber, hoists, wagon wheels, dynamite, plows, and other rudimentary equipment. The people of a growing town demanded amusement to distract them from the struggling and sweating that would lead the way to a better life.

Even before Denver became enough of a community to claim cityhood, the people saw the beginnings of theater, educational facilities, and church life. In 1859, its founding year, the Charles Thorne Theater Company arrived, and from then on there was a steady stream of plays; a favored recreation. Because actors could ride into town on a wagon, with a blanket for a curtain, and a kitchen chair as a prop, Denver quickly became known as a theater town.