 Denver City was founded in November 1858 as a mining town during the Pike 's Peak Gold Rush in western Kansas Territory . That summer , a group of gold prospectors from Lawrence , Kansas , had arrived and established Montana City on the banks of the South Platte River . This was the first settlement in what was later to become the city of Denver . The site faded quickly , however , and by the summer of 1859 it was abandoned in favor of Auraria ( named after the gold mining town of Auraria , Georgia ) , and St. Charles City . 
