7 Crazy Facts About Edgewater, Colorado

 Edgewater is not your average city, and here are seven crazy facts to prove it.

This tiny Colorado city sits right on the edge of Denver, next to Sloan's Lake. Its history is packed with radio legends, a lost amusement park, and an elephant mystery that's still unsolved. Stay until the end, because number one is the strangest of all.

#7: A city you can walk across in 20 minutes

Edgewater is a full city that you can walk across in about 20 minutes. The whole thing covers less than one square mile, and around 5,000 people live there. It has its own mayor, its own city council and its own police force.

But it can never grow. In the 1960s, Wheat Ridge and Lakewood incorporated around it, and with Denver on the other side, Edgewater got completely boxed in. It's a whole city, locked inside three others.

#6: A radio station because Denver already had one

Edgewater got a radio station because Denver couldn't. In 1926, a 19-year-old named Rex Howell bought a station called KFXJ. The rules said he had to license it to a city that didn't already have a station, and Denver did.

So he picked the closest option he could find: Edgewater. For the next five years, the young broadcaster sent his signal out from a house in town, before moving the station to Grand Junction in 1931. Radio was brand new back then, and tiny Edgewater was on the air before many much bigger towns.

#5: The Edgewater girl who became a star

Nell Brinkley grew up in the lakeshore community that became Edgewater, and her father, Robert Brinkley, was later elected the town's second mayor.

In 1907 she left for New York to draw for William Randolph Hearst's newspapers, and she became famous almost overnight. Her "Brinkley Girl" illustrations soon outshone the famous Gibson Girl. The 1908 Ziegfeld Follies even staged a number called "Nell Brinkley Studies" with a song named for her, and women across the country copied her hairstyles.

#4: The Beatles show that didn't sell out

Edgewater was home base for the station that brought the Beatles to Colorado. In 1954, radio station KIMN set up its studios on 20th Avenue in Edgewater, where the Edgewater Marketplace stands today. It stayed for 30 years and became the number one station in the Denver area.

On August 26, 1964, KIMN presented the Beatles at Red Rocks. Here's the crazy part: it was the only Beatles concert in the U.S. that didn't sell out. When the band skipped Denver on its next tour, KIMN chartered a jet and flew its listeners to St. Louis and back in less than 24 hours to see them.

#3: A lake made by accident

The lake that gave Edgewater its name came from a farmer's well. In 1861, a farmer named Thomas Sloan dug a well on his land, and it overflowed, flooding about 200 acres. That accident became Sloan's Lake, and the town on its shore was named Edgewater for its spot at the water's edge.

But here's the twist. Today, the lake sits inside Denver. The city named after the water doesn't actually have any of it.

#2: The lost amusement park

Around 1890, Manhattan Beach opened on the north shore of Sloan's Lake. Crowds came out from Denver for its zoo, roller coasters, fireworks, a steamboat called the Frolic, and an elephant that gave rides. Edgewater's own city history calls it the largest amusement park west of the Mississippi.

After its theater burned in 1908, the park was renamed Luna Park for a short time, then closed for good after the 1913 season. Today, almost nothing of it remains.

#1: The elephant under the grocery store

There may be an elephant buried under a grocery store in Edgewater. Manhattan Beach's star attraction was an elephant named Roger, who gave rides to children.

In July 1891, a rising hot air balloon spooked him. Roger broke free, and a six-year-old boy was thrown and tragically killed. Roger was reportedly shot afterward. According to local legend, he was buried near West 20th Avenue and Depew Street, right where an old King Soopers building stands.

Nobody has ever proven it. But in Edgewater, the legend lives on.

So there you have it

  1. A city you can walk across in 20 minutes
  2. A radio station born because Denver already had one
  3. The Edgewater girl who became a star
  4. The only Beatles show that didn't sell out
  5. A lake made by accident
  6. A lost amusement park
  7. An elephant that might be buried under a grocery store

Only in Edgewater. Which fact surprised you most? Tell me in the comments, and subscribe to 7 Crazy Facts for more cities.

Be sure to visit the YouTube channel 7 Crazy Facts for more great videos.

Learn about Denver Guided Tours.

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