Denver Coliseum - Construction

Construction

At a cost of $3 million, the Coliseum was built by the City of Denver to allow the expansion of the rapidly growing National Western Stock Show – at the time the largest livestock event in the west. One of Mayor Quigg Newton’s first acts in office was to appoint a committee of citizens to develop detailed plans for the structure. The committee knew that the building would need to serve many other needs to keep it operating year ‘round. They envisioned hockey, basketball, boxing, track meets, conventions, civic meetings, trade shows, dances, ice skating and “spectacular road shows.” Ground was broken on September 16, 1949 on the building that would soon occupy 122,400 square feet.

Huge reinforced concrete arches span the Coliseum at a greatest height of 87 feet 2½ inches. The weight of the concrete roof is 5,400 tons. The roof was installed in six sections, and an article in the Rocky Mountain News detailed how each section was installed “in a little more than 10 hours and was one of the largest single placements of concrete ever made in Denver. Twenty-six trucks were kept busy shuttling between the plant of the Ready-Mixed Concrete Co. and the stadium. The roof form and the framework supporting it contains 235,000 board feet of lumber and is held together with 10,000 special connectors. The one form will be used for all sections. As soon as the concrete poured yesterday sets, the 123 jacks built into the form will be used to draw the form from the roof and the entire structure moved into place for the next section.

The arena is 127’ 2” wide and 233’ 11” long. Installed in the concrete floor is a cooling system that can transform the arena into an ice-rink (86’x218’) in a matter of hours. The rink was quickly put to use as the first show in the Coliseum was “Ice Follies of 1952” in December 1951 – and netted the city the “grand profit of $147.” The Coliseum’s built-in ice making equipment still provides the surface for “Disney on Ice” tours to this day.