Manhattan Beach

The lake under the park has an origin story nobody has proved: that the homesteader Thomas Sloan dug an irrigation well, struck water and woke to a flooded field. A stage driver of the period remembered only that the lake appeared sometime between 1861 and 1863. Manhattan Beach drew crowds to its theater and boats and to an elephant named Roger, who gave children rides, and local lore buries him under a parking lot in Edgewater. After the 1908 fire the park reopened as Luna Park and closed in 1914. Denver made the shore a park in 1923.

What the plaque says

This tablet is the property of the State of Colorado On the northwest shore of Sloan's Lake was Manhattan Beach popular amusement park of the Gay Nineties, with a theater, boating, dancing, and specialties. Opened on June 27, 1891. The theater burned Dec. 26, 1908 some amusement features continued to 1914. Erected by the State Historical Society of Colorado from the Mrs. J. N. Hall Foundation and by the American Pioneer Trails Association and the City Administration of Denver 1953

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Colorado State Capitol — 3.5 mi
  A capitol of Colorado granite, marble, onyx and gold, with three different steps claiming to stand exactly a mile high.
• Dinosaur Ridge — 8.7 mi
  A hogback near Morrison with the bones of 1877 on one flank and the footprints a road crew blasted open in 1937 on the other.
• Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge — 9.9 mi
  Mustard gas, nerve agent and pesticides for forty years, then bald eagles, bison and black-footed ferrets on the same ground.
• Red Rocks Amphitheatre — 10 mi
  Walker's Garden of the Titans, finished by the CCC between Ship Rock and Creation Rock and dedicated on June 15, 1941.

More markers nearby

• Camp Weld — 2.5 mi
• Elephant Corral — 2.5 mi
• Gold Was Discovered — 2.5 mi
• The Rocky Mountain News — 2.5 mi