Martin Luther King Jr. visited the DU campus twice, first in 1964 and later in 1967. In 1964 he spoke before a crowd of 600 in the old Student Union Building (now the south end of the Driscoll Student Center) in an appearance sponsored by the local Shorter Community AME […]
Winter Carnival is a favorite Pioneers tradition. The first Winter Carnival was held the weekend of Jan. 13, 1961, and was sponsored by the Pioneer Ski Club. Although that weekend included a Friday the 13th, the date was selected because it coincided with NCAA skiing finals competition at the Winter […]
The presidential debate at the University of Denver is now in the history books. Here’s a look at how it all went down.
There’s a lot of official University history available for perusal at the new Digital DU website: archival photographs, meeting minutes, media guides. But for those who want a more authentic glimpse at what was going on at the University during any given year, the site’s collection of digitized yearbooks is […]
When Fred Hadley (BS engineering ’52) was a senior, he walked around the University of Denver campus with his 16mm camera shooting nearly 38 minutes of black and white footage. About 10 months ago, a friend helped him convert it from film to digital, and they put it on the […]
The family that had a hand in everything from the U.S. Senate to the Central City Opera to the Denver Broncos also had a lasting impact on DU.
For years the University of Denver identified Grace Mabel Andrews as its first African-American graduate. But as is often the case, history may need a little re-writing. Last May, Adjunct Professor Valeria Wenderoth arrived at DU to teach musicology classes for a Lamont School of Music faculty member who had […]
As we celebrate President’s Day on Feb. 21, it is important to remember that without President Abe Lincoln there would be no University of Denver. Although he never set foot in Colorado, Lincoln did set in motion events that led up to the founding of the University. He was a […]
You might not want Phil Goodstein (MA history ’75) to learn too much about your life. He just may find all the skeletons. Goodstein uncovered plenty of bones in his latest book, The Ghosts of University Park, Platt Park and Beyond (New Social Publications, 2010), in which he examines historic […]
The DU Bookstore sells a shirt that says, “University of Denver Football — Undefeated Since 1961.” It was 50 years ago this month — on Thanksgiving Day 1960 — that the University of Denver played its last football game. At the time, no one knew it was the last game, […]
On Oct. 2, 1926, the University of Denver football team stepped onto the gridiron of Hilltop Stadium for the first time, achieving a 27-7 victory over archrival Colorado School of Mines. With room for up to 25,000 fans, the new stadium far surpassed the makeshift field at University Park — […]
It is not often that you hear “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” sung at a funeral, but it was a fitting tribute to local sports legend and DU alumnus Richard “Dick” Yates, who died Sept. 11, 2010, at the age of 84. Yates, a member of the Colorado Sports […]
A century ago, the University competed in four intercollegiate sports — football, basketball, baseball and tennis. Today, while basketball flourishes, football has been scrubbed and baseball sent down to the minors as a club sport. Tennis, meanwhile, enters its second century quietly racking up accolades with forehands, backhands and serves. […]
Doris Finnie-Shade (BA ’41) remembered paying her tuition when she was a student at the University of Denver in the late 1930s — $75 per quarter. “But that kind of money was just as hard to come by as $25,000 or whatever it is today,” said Finnie-Shade, one of about […]
“Avoid needless crowding … Smother your coughs and sneezes … Wash your hands before eating … ” These words of advice bring to mind warnings heard around the world during the recent H1N1/swine flu scare, but they were actually uttered in the fall of 1918 by Dr. William Sharpley, Denver […]