The outer layers of bricks are separating from the bricks behind them, a condition called delamination that can lead to their collapse. For decades, the walls appeared to be steady and strong, but after a century, some of the houses are starting to show structural failure. By 1900, 206 brickyards dotted the Denver landscape. In the following years, gold, ranching, railroads, and healthful air for treating consumption (tuberculosis), brought thousands of people to Colorado, and dwellings were built quickly to house them. Shortly thereafter the mayor proclaimed that all future buildings would be constructed of fireproof materials. Many of the first houses in the Queen City of the Plains were built rapidly from logs, then consumed in a deadly fire that nearly destroyed Denver City, as it was known in 1863. After all, clay is plentiful where mountains loom, and early Denverites learned the benefits of brick in a big way.
Since few trees grow in the arid plains at the base of Colorado’s majestic Rocky Mountains, most of Denver’s beloved old neighborhoods are built from brick. Construction varies from cheap buildings to this handsome ca. Many of the historic buildings in Denver with brick delamination problems date from around the turn of the 20th century.
