Denver

39.7392°N, 104.9903°W.

Capital of Colorado at 1,609 metres elevation, the highest major city in the United States. Founded as a gold-mining camp in 1858 at the confluence of Cherry Creek and the South Platte River; the city's grid was rotated 45° to align with the riverbanks rather than true north — the only major American city with this orientation. The Colorado State Capitol, completed 1894, stands at exactly one mile (1,609.34 m) elevation; the 13th step on the west entrance is engraved with that fact. Denver International Airport (1995) covers 137 km², the largest airport in the Western Hemisphere by land area; its blue mustang sculpture (DIA Mustang, Luis Jimenez 2008, 9.7 m tall) killed its creator when a section of it fell on him during fabrication. Denver is at the geographic eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains, where the Great Plains terminate at the Front Range.

A city built at exactly one mile up has a state capitol where step thirteen is the milestone — and a blue horse at the airport that killed the man who made it.