The Highland region originates when Denver founder William H. Larimer, Jr., wades across the Platte River to stake out high ground on the bluffs northwest of Denver. Sunnyside is formed as one of Denver’s original neighborhoods – including Berkeley Lake, Potter Highlands, Sloan’s Lake, and West Highlands.
Large numbers of Irish immigrants move to Highlands. Many are drawn by both the locale and the employment opportunities in the nearby rail yards and smelters.
Colorado becomes the 38th state of the Union.
Nathanial P. Hill moves the Boston & Colorado Smelter to the Village of Argo – east of present day Pecos. The smelter is situated on the line of the Colorado Central Railroad.
Street Car Service connects Denver to downtown.
A large influx of Italian immigrants – primarily from Southern Italy – come to Highlands to work in the railroad. Many purchase land in the area for a nominal price and establish large gardens. Vegetables grown in these gardens are sold throughout the city, and peddled door to door in North Denver. “Little Italy” was full of small, one-room brick cottages along Osage, Navajo, Mariposa, Lipan and Inca. One early mercantile business was located along W 38th Ave at Jason.
The Silver Panic happens and the city of Denver slips into a depression.
After years of trying to remain independent, Highlands is annexed to the city of Denver.
The Denver Post reports that the trip from North Denver into downtown via horse car takes about an hour.
Sugar beets are introduced in Colorado as the solution to an ailing economy, and the sugar companies begin recruiting laborers from the southwest and Mexico. Hispanics slowly began to replace the Italian residents.
Smedley Public School is built at 43rd and Shoshone was named for Dr. William Smedley, a dentist and Quaker who came to Denver in 1870 for health reasons. He is active in educational circles and served on the school board.
In the years following Annexation, efforts are made to standardize the naming and the numbering of Denver Streets. Throughout Highlands, streets were given alphabetical Indian names, as well as chronological numbers.
The Missionary sisters of the Sacred Heart open the Queen of Heaven Orphanage designed by Mother Cabrini at 48th and Federal. Until 1967, it was home to hundreds of girls each year before foster care replaced the orphanage. Also by this time, a number of street car routes are present throughout the Highlands neighborhood. No location in the neighborhood is more than three blocks from one of the trolley routes.
The Argo smelter burns down and is never re-opened.