Wednesday, August 26, 2026

The Beatles play Red Rocks and ask for oxygen

1964 · Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison

On Aug. 26, 1964, the Beatles played their only Colorado show — a 12-song set at Red Rocks. About 7,000 tickets sold. Oxygen canisters sat onstage because the thin air kept interrupting Twist and Shout.

They landed at Stapleton at 1:35 p.m. The Rocky Mountain News said officers on three-wheel motorcycles flushed fans out of the wheat stubble like rabbits. Ten thousand people waited at the airport. Five thousand more ringed the Brown Palace. Lunch was grilled cheese.

Brian Epstein had passed on a 22,000-seat stadium at the University of Denver and taken the 9,000-seat rocks instead. Tickets were $6.60 — double Igor Stravinsky. Officially it was the only date on the 1964 American tours that did not sell out. Unofficially every high-school student on the Front Range knew you could sneak in over the sandstone, and they did.

The band took the stage at 9:30 p.m.: Twist and Shout through Long Tall Sally, jelly beans flying at 27 rookie cops, Paul later calling it a lovely arena that looked beautiful at night. Then they left in an ambulance because the limousine had been eaten by the crowd.

Red Rocks has been a rock room ever since. The Beatles just had the sense to notice the altitude first.

Sources: The Beatles Bible — Red Rocks, 26 August 1964 · The Denver Post — the only Colorado concert · The Paul McCartney Project — Denver 1964

A Kansas City headline invents the Pike’s Peak rush

1858 · Cherry Creek / Kansas City papers

On Aug. 26, 1858, the Kansas City Journal of Commerce roared “THE NEW ELDORADO!! GOLD IN KANSAS!!” Mountain traders had walked in with ounces from Cherry Creek. The headline did more to populate Colorado than the gold did.

Green Russell’s party had already found a modest placer near the mouth of Little Dry Creek — today’s Englewood — in July. What the rest of the country needed was a newspaper that could not help itself.

The Journal had held the story until the dust was in hand. John Cantrell and other mountain men arrived with specimens washed in a frying pan. The type went large. “Gold in Kansas Territory” was geographically honest: there was no Colorado yet, and Cherry Creek sat in Arapahoe County, Kansas.

By the next afternoon Kansas City was “alive with excitement.” Outfitters sold pans. Guidebooks sold miles. An estimated 100,000 people would take the slogan “Pikes Peak or Bust” even though the useful gold was eighty miles north of the peak. Denver City, Auraria, and Golden are downstream of that headline.

Most of the 1859 crowd went broke. The towns stayed.

Sources: Wikipedia — Pike's Peak gold rush · History Colorado — Colorado Magazine, April 1959 · Wikipedia — Timeline of Colorado history

A 30-minute hailstorm bills Denver a million dollars

1944 · Denver

On Aug. 26, 1944, a mid-afternoon hailstorm hammered Denver for 10 to 30 minutes. Stones up to an inch and a half stacked 5 and 6 inches deep. Damage was put at nearly $1 million — serious money in a wartime city.

The cell arrived between 2 and 3 p.m. Hail ranged from gravel to golf-adjacent. Downtown logged 0.95 inch of rain on top of the ice. Underpasses filled 6 feet deep. People had to be pulled out of stalled cars. Sewers surrendered. Manhole covers floated away and the water department spent the evening putting the city back together.

Greenhouses took the poetic loss: news accounts said about 20 carloads of glass. Gardens were a total write-off. Trees stripped. Phone lines down. The next day the American Red Cross got wartime priority to find replacement materials.

Front Range August still works this way. The 1944 storm is just the version with a wartime invoice attached.

Sources: National Weather Service notes via ThorntonWeather · Westword — Denver weather history