Page 224 - WINE DINE AND TRAVEL FALL 2021 DISCOVERING SANTA FE

At its peak more than a century ago, 80 passen-
ger trains a day – from six different railroads –
rumbled through Denver’s Union Station. In mod-
ern parlance, it was a happenin’ place.
Likewise, the area surrounding the neighbor-
hood that’s now known as LoDo – for Lower
Downtown – also hummed with activity. It was
filled with attractive brick mercantile buildings,
warehouses, offices, restaurants, hotels and other
businesses catering to workers, shoppers, busi-
nessmen and those traveling by train.
As airplane travel began to dominate the Ameri-
can transportation scene in the 1950s, however,
the neighborhood was all but abandoned.
“It became pretty much a skid row,” Denver his-
torian Rich Grant told me on a recent walking tour
of LoDo.
By the 1970s, only two Amtrak trains used Den-
ver’s Union Station, leaving it empty the majority

of the day, added Grant, who looked like a cowboy
straight out of central casting during our stroll.
Fast forward to 2021 and Union Station has
been lovingly restored and is now filled with
stores, great restaurants, two bars and the luxuri-
ous, 112-room Crawford Hotel. It’s popular lobby
has been dubbed “Denver’s living room” and is the
meeting place for everything from drinks to dates
to business meetings to families grabbing an ice
cream cone at the Milkbox Ice Creamery, in a cor-
ner of the depot where barbers once clipped trav-
elers’ hair.
Moreover, Union Station has been transformed
into an urban transit center serving not only Am-

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