Spanning dozens of urban parks and thousands of acres of trails and open space across the city, plus another 14,000 acres of mountain parks stretching to the peak of Mount Evans, Denver's park system is one of the oldest and most extensive in the intermountain West.

What began in 1868 with a canny developer's donation of a single vacant block to the city — Curtis Park — soon grew to an impressive inventory of greenways and groomed parks, aided by the farsighted investments of the City Beautiful movement, which introduced many of the neoclassical monuments, pavilions and promenades to City Park, Cheesman and other mainstays.