The silent skies of Denver's Central Park: A lost dance with old cartwheels

Back in the old days, Colorado's big city, Denver, was home to the hub of American aviation - the Stapleton International Airport. Now, this grand old relic, affectionately known as Central Park, is just a peaceful park, but its wind-whipped appearance hides a multitude of stories of dancing Silver Birds and steady DC-4s. It's quite the public monument to yesteryears. You could say it was the cat's pajamas. For the sharp suits in the aviation world, it was forever called DEN.

This grand bash was the brainchild of Denver's Mayor, Benjamin F. Stapleton, and city planner, Charles Vail, who brought it to life in 1929, ready for Colorado's sky-hungry aviators to take flight. To the novice, it might have seemed a bit rough at first, just a gravel track, with a small airmail sorting house serving as the main terminal. But as the 1930s kicked off, things really started to take off. United Airlines and Continental Airlines, two big players in the game, decided to camp out.

The airfield even gained a catchy new name, sharing the fame of the man in the spotlight - Benjamin F. Stapleton. Other carriers got their chance to shine, like Aspen Airways, Frontier Airlines (which grew as big as Texas), and the Rocky Mountain Airways. Stapleton itself had its own tale - starting out as a mish-mash of simple runways, it grew stronger and sturdier with each passing decade. In the late '30s, it got a glitzy facelift and even had a whole wing custom-built in the '50s.

By the mid-'50s, the whole place got an upgrade, going from zero to hero. But, like all great things, Stapleton's glory days eventually faded. It's been close to 30 years since the planes last roared overhead. Today, it stands still and quiet, reminiscent of a headstone, but we're always left with the cast of countless cartwheels spinning in our heads.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons