Denver is an industrial suburb in eastern

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

, on the railway to

Germiston Germiston, also known as kwaDukathole, is a city in the East Rand region of Gauteng, South Africa, administratively forming part of the City of Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality since the latter's establishment in 2000. It functions as the m ...

and Hoofrif Road, around 6 km east of City Hall. It borders Benrose to the west, Jeppestown and Malvern to the north,

Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...

to the east, and the François Oberholzer Freeway to the south. There is just a small portion of the suburb in the northwest that has residential zoning; otherwise, Denver consists of industrial land and squatter camps both in the west and up north, the latter largely on Hoofrif Road. Denver was laid out on 25 ha of

Doornfontein Doornfontein ( ) is an inner-city suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa, located to the east of the city centre. It is in Region F of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality. In the 1930s, it attracted many Jewish immigrants, becoming ...

farm, like all the eastern suburbs of Johannesburg. Owner F.J. Bezuidenhout, for whom Bezuidenhout Valley is named, leased the area in 1903 to a J.H. Strutton to grow crops and garden. Denver was later purchased by a business, and in October 1898, it was zoned as a residential township. Before and after the

Second Boer War The Second Boer War (, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, Transvaal War, Anglo–Boer War, or South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer republics (the South African Republic and ...

, several American

mining Mining is the Resource extraction, extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agriculture, agricultural processes, or feasib ...

machinery firms built offices there, and it was named after

Denver Denver ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of ...

, capital of

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

, as a result. On 31 May 1900, Dr. Fritz Krause, the

South African Republic The South African Republic (, abbreviated ZAR; ), also known as the Transvaal Republic, was an independent Boer republics, Boer republic in Southern Africa which existed from 1852 to 1902, when it was annexed into the British Empire as a result ...

's appointed mayor of Johannesburg, rode out to meet

Frederick Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts Field marshal (United Kingdom), Field Marshal Frederick Sleigh Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts (30 September 1832 – 14 November 1914), was a British Victorian era general who became one of the most successful British military commanders of his time. ...

to arrange the surrender of the main city into which they subsequently rode. In the early years, the white population of the area was so large that from 1910 to 1933, there was a constituency in the

Parliament of South Africa The Parliament of the Republic of South Africa is South Africa's legislature. It is located in Cape Town; the country's legislative capital city, capital. Under the present Constitution of South Africa, the bicameralism, bicameral Parliamen ...

which located in the neighborhood.

Railway station

The Denver Station stop on the

Metrorail Gauteng Metrorail Gauteng is a network of commuter rail services in Gauteng province in South Africa, serving the Johannesburg and Pretoria metro areas. It is operated by Metrorail (South Africa), Metrorail, a division of the Passenger Rail Agency of Sou ...

is located at . It was the site of a train crash in 2015.

Sources

* Potgieter, D.J. (ed.) (1971). ''

Standard Encyclopaedia of Southern Africa The ''Standard Encyclopædia of Southern Africa'' (''SESA'') is a 12-volume encyclopaedia that is principally about the Republic of South Africa and nearby countries. About 1,400 people contributed to the encyclopaedia. The first two volumes w ...

'', vol. 3. Cape Town: Nasionale Opvoedkundige Uitgewery (Nasou).

References

{{Greater Johannesburg, communities Johannesburg Region F