City Park is an urban park and neighborhood in Denver, Colorado. The park is and is located in east-central Denver. The park contains the Denver Zoo, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Ferril and Duck Lakes, and a boathouse. City Park is also the name of the neighborhood that contains the park, though the park is the vast majority of the neighborhood. To the immediate north of the park is the City Park Golf Course. City Park is the largest park in Denver. Geography The park is located in east-central Denver slightly more than a mile east of downtown. The park is a mile long and three-quarters of a mile wide. The park's boundaries are: West-York Street South-17th Avenue East-Colorado Boulevard North-23rd Avenue. The City Park neighborhood has the same boundaries except for having Colfax Avenue as its southern boundary, which is two blocks south of 17th Avenue. Therefore, the entirety of the neighborhood is only two blocks wide, but about a mile long. The area in the southwest corner of the neighborhood consists of East High School and a green area called the City Park Esplanade, which in some ways extends the park south two blocks to Colfax Avenue. The eastern part of the neighborhood around Colfax Avenue (along with parts of the Congress Park neighborhood across Colfax) is also known as the "Bluebird District", for the Bluebird Theatre located on Colfax and the urban developments around that area. There is also a neighborhood called "City Park West", which is located just west of the park to Downing Street and commonly known as Uptown. It has the same southern and northern borders as City Park, and has York Street as its eastern border. History When Denver was founded in 1858, it was little more than a mining camp. By the 1870s however, Denver had gained a substantial permanent population, and many residents were clamoring for parks. In 1878, the Colorado state legislature passed a bill to allow Denver to acquire of state land to build parks. City Park became the largest tract turned into a park. The initial park layout was designed by Henry Meryweather in 1882 in the tradition of both English pastoral gardens and Central Park in New York City with a flowing, casual design. The 1893 World's Fair started the City Beautiful movement, which further developed the design. The park was irrigated with water from