Downtown

I made reservations for a tour of the Denver Mint back on July 6th, and we finally went on Friday. Last time I went to the Mint, it was about 1985, so I wasn't prepared for the new Modern Mint. After you remove all metals from your person, including watches, keys, bracelets, belts, and in some cases shoes (like in my case), they ask to see your camera. They make you remove the batteries from the camera and keep the batteries separated from your camera for the duration of the tour, which is why I only have the above photo to show you (even older than 1985). Then you walk through a metal detector and wait in a room that looks like a Star Wars corridor for your tour. Before the tour starts, the guards make jokes about hanging everybody upside down and shaking them before they leave to make sure tourists haven't stuffed their pockets with coins. As if you could actually be within twenty feet of any coins during the tour.

Back in '85, you actually got to see coins being made. It was cool--and loud--because those coins were getting stamped right there in front of you. I remember holding in my very own ten-year-old hands the scrap metal with holes in it after the coins had been punched. The Modern Mint only has big blue room-sized machines, and you can't see what's going on in them. Every now and then some pennies come out. There aren't even any people in there except for the guards and the tour guide. Sigh.

But it's still cool to hear the statistics. They produce 7,000 pennies per minute, 5 to 10 million pennies per day (I didn't check the math). And they supply coins to all banks west of the Mississippi (the Philadelphia Mint handles east of the Mississippi). From the 30's to the 60's, an armed guard sat in a special booth with a machine gun, which ensured that they never ever had a robbery. Today they have a mannequin in a police uniform sitting in the special booth with a sign next to him that says NOT A REAL FIREARM. Who needs a machine gun if you have a Star Wars corridor and a metal detector?

After the Mint tour (30 minutes long on the dot), we wandered over to Civic Center Park where Taste of Colorado was gearing up for Labor Day weekend. The Boy Scouts of America had a very large, professional, free event at Taste of Colorado. I think it was for the 100th anniversary of scouting. I talked to some of the workers, and they said Denver was the 42nd city they'd been to this year. As they travel around the country, they transport a museum, a ropes course, a photo setup (they'll make it look like you're on the cover of Boys' Life), and several other attractions. The kids loved that ropes course.