|
Clark and Gruber Mint - #1
16th and Market Streets
|
||
|
Architectural style: Nineteenth-Century Commercial Built: 1860 Architect: Unknown Cost: $5,000 |
||
|
The parking lot across 16th Street from the RTD turnaround station, and across Market Street from the office supply store, was from 1860 to 1906 the site of Denver's first official mint. On January 18, 1860, the Denver Town Company granted the deed to three lots in Denver City for $600 to Clark, Gruber & Company. The building included a basement at ground level at the rear of the lot, which contained all the minting machinery and apparatus. The first floor contained the banking facilities, which included a circular oak counter and four desks. An engine house was located to the rear of the main building. Opened in July 1860, these facilities remained in operation, conducting banking and producing hefty $10 and $20 gold pieces, until the minting function was sold to the U.S. government in April 1863. This was one of the few times and places in U.S. history that a financial institution simultaneously conducted commercial banking and gold coin minting operations. After acquiring the building, the U.S. Mint chose never to mint coins on this site, and in 1906, moved to its present location at 320 West Colfax Avenue. The reorganized banking operations of Clark & Company moved to 1405 15th Street and received a national bank charter on May 10, 1865, under the name of First National Bank of Denver. |
||
|
|
||
