Denver Public Library

I spend a lot of time at the Denver Public Library. I think it rivals any other public library in the country. The collection is vast and the checkout terms are generous. The Central Library Branch is also an interesting place to visit for the stones it is made from.

The old wing, shown in these pictures is made from Salem Limestone from Indiana, and the dark green border on the bottom is granite reportedly from Austria. Here is a closeup of the green granite. Note the color is washed out because of the sun.

On the new wing there are two different types of limestone. The beige limestone on the south side of the library comes from the area around the town of Solnhofen, near Eichtstatt in Bavaria, Germany. This limestone is also used in the floor of the ground level floor. It is easy to see large ammonites, which are kind of like nautilus shells, coiled around themselves, and up to 8 inches in diameter. These fossils date back to the Jurassic era, about 150 million years ago. These fossils were formed when the critters died a lonely death in the muddy lagoons of long ago, when they swam into the wrong area and asphyxiated from a lack of oxygen. Their shells were buried and then fossilized.

The other limestone is found on the northwest
side of the building, and forms the trim on the floor.The green limestone is from Frankfurt, Germany and contains fossils as well. These are called belemnites, and they have spear-tip shaped shells. They are ancient relatives of squid and octopi. One library clerk told me that many geologists and naturalists visit the library to look at the floor just to see the fossils.

I walked around the library and found that the red surfaces and some of the green surfaces are just painted concrete.

The presence of the fossils, and the smooth surface of the limestone indicates what is true stone and what is concrete.

The base of the pillars is made from Stony Creek Granite, which comes from Massachusetts. It is a Proterozoic-age granite gneiss, and you can see the big crystals in the photos here. The white is quartz, the tan crystals are orthoclase
feldspar, and the black is biotite mica.

Directions (from RTD Plaza):

Turn right on Colfax.

4.3 left on Glenarm. Make a U-turn because of construction. Right on Bannock. Left on 14th Avenue.

5.1 Denver Public Library