Elitch Gardens, one of Denver's most storied entertainment institutions, operated near where you are in various forms for over a century as an amusement park and theater complex. The original Elitch Gardens was established in 1890 by John and Mary Elitch at a location in northwest Denver, operating as a combination amusement park, botanical garden, and summer theater. The Elitch Theatre, which opened in 1891, was the oldest summer theater in continuous operation in America, hosting productions featuring some of the greatest actors of the twentieth century — Sarah Bernhardt, Douglas Fairbanks, and Cecil B. DeMille all worked here early in their careers.
The gardens gave countless Denver residents their first exposure to professional theater and elaborate ornamental horticulture. When the original Elitch Gardens closed in 1994 and the operation moved to a new downtown location, something irreplaceable was lost: a neighborhood-scale entertainment complex with a century of accumulated memory and a specific sense of place that a more corporate downtown park cannot replicate. The name Elitch carries the history forward even as the format has fundamentally changed.