ECHOS

If you think of Red Rocks Park as just a beautiful place to see a concert, think again! All around you are 738 total acres of deer, dinosaurs, pines and prairie, geological wonders and spectacular vistas. At 6,450 feet above sea level, Red Rocks Park is a unique transitional zone where the Great Plains meet the Rocky Mountains. The diverse environment allows visitors to see plants, birds and animals of both regions. Red Rocks Amphitheatre is a geological phenomenon – the only naturally-occurring, acoustically perfect amphitheatre in the world. From Sting and The Beatles, to opera stars and U2, every artist aspires to play on this magical, spiritual and emotional stage.

The land on which Red Rocks Amphitheatre resides is the traditional territory of the Ute, Cheyenne and Arapahoe Peoples. The Ute, Cheyenne and Arapahoe are among the 48 contemporary tribal nations having an historic presence on the land that makes up the State of Colorado.

On May 9, 1936, Denver Mayor Benjamin Franklin Stapleton and Parks and Improvements Manager George Cranmer received approval from U.S. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes to use the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) to build the Red Rocks Amphitheatre –George Cranmer insisted that Denver officially use the English spelling.

Created by the Civilian Conservation Corps Reforestation Relief Act on March 31, 1933, the CCC aimed to save both unemployed young men and endangered lands during the Great Depression by putting the men to work conserving forests and grasslands. The CCC was a pet program of President Roosevelt, who had initiated a prototype program as governor of New York.

As one of Colorado’s most spectacular settings, Red Rocks attracted the state’s most celebrated piece of architecture. Its amphitheatre is the master work of Colorado’s most highly regarded architect, Burnham Hoyt

Once the National Park Service approved Hoyt’s plan, the CCC began to level the seating area between Ship and Creation Rocks. Although Cranmer had assured the mayor and city council that this would be a cheap and simple task, he soon realized that considerable dynamite would be necessary.

To grade the theater so that all seats would have great views of the stage, CCC workers removed 50,000 cubic feet of dirt and rock. Although steam shovels accomplished some of the heaviest work, most of the muscle came from the picks and shovels, wheelbarrows and rock sleds of the dollar-a-day CCC workers.

After leveling the seating space, workers finished the theater by laying over 90,000 square feet of sandstone, quarried in the Lyons, whose reddish color and textures resembled the natural stone at Red Rocks. CCC workers built the amphitheatre with 800 tons of quarried stone and 30,000 pounds of reinforced steel. The project estimated to take two years actually took five. The materials cost $115,881.87 and the labor, paid by the federal government to CCC and WPA workers, amounted to $357,281.69.