This book begins "During Robert Roeschlaub's lifetime, the American West was elevated from a geographical territory into a symbol of a national empire. By the time he reached Denver in 1873, a trained architect at the age of thirty, Roeschlaub had witnessed first-hand the promise of western enterprise in the gold rush of 1859 and had fought in the Civil War - both of them experiences tht underscored the momentum and destiny of American civilization.... He was a working architect whose awareness of his place in the development of his city and region was informed by wide reading and study of architectural forms and whose contribution can be measured as much by its traditional humanism as by its artistic merits."