Five Points is one of Denver, Colorado's oldest historic neighborhoods adjacent to the downtown central business district. The neighborhood is located in the area of Northeast Denver where the original downtown street grid meets the neighborhood street grid of the first Denver suburbs. Horse-drawn transit served this Denver neighborhood and the limited space to name the transit stops caused the area to be named Five Points. The Five Points transit stop culminated the names of the following streets: Washington Street, 27th Street, 26th Avenue and Welton Street.
Five Points came to significant historical prominence from the 1860s through the 1950s. The neighborhood was home to Denver's aristocracy, housing mayors, governors, and prominent business people. The Welton Street Business District, Clement neighborhood, San Rafael community, Curtis Park and Ballpark neighborhoods are located within the larger Five Points neighborhood.
Five Points was considered the "Harlem of the West" due to its long jazz history. It was the first predominantly African-American neighborhood in Denver. In the 1920s through 1950s the community thrived with a rich mix of local business and commerce along the Welton Corridor offering the neighborhood butcher, real estate companies, drug stores, religious organizations, tailors, restaurants, barbers and many other main street uses. Welton Street was also home to over fifty bars and clubs, where some of the greatest jazz musicians ever, such as Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Nat King Cole, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie and many other legends performed. The Legendary Rossonian building, built in 1912, became the center of the Five Points community offering a premier hotel and jazz club still nationally known.
Five Points has been a community in change almost from the beginning. It has always been a neighborhood with a diverse economic mix of residents which is evident by the large variety of houses that exist. Mansions were built next to row homes. Many of the rich began moving out of Five Points in the late 19th Century, choosing to make their home in the much more popular Capital Hill Neighborhood. Five Points was also home to a large Jewish population and is still home to a former synagogue, Temple Emanuel, on the corner of 24th and Curtis. After WWII many Japanese-Americans called Five Points home. In fact, what is now Agape Church on the corner of 25th and California was once a Japanese Methodist Church.
The Five Points community suffered, as many urban areas did, in the late 1950s through the late 1990s due to the influx of drugs, crime and urban flight. Many properties were abandoned, the local economy became somewhat irrelevant and the larger market was turned off by what was happening. Through that time there were many starts and stops to redevelopment but also many hindrances to reinvestment. Five Points became a 'no-man's land' in need of a larger vision and new generation of leadership.
Throughout this period the historical prominence of Five Points continued to be celebrated through institutions such as the Black American West Museum and Heritage Center as well as the Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library. A number of African-American churches and businesses still exist in the community.
Attempts to build a strong business base along the once thriving Welton began again in 2009 with the formation of the Five Points Business District. Resistance to development and the refusal of some long-time property owners to sell or develop their properties is a major hindrance in this effort. Progress is being made though, with a new coffee shop, and the promise of a tenant in the long empty Rossonian.
Denver's Juneteenth festival draws thousands people every year. It starts at Manual High School and goes down to Welton Street in Five Points, where dozens of vendors sell merchandise and street performers perform.
In the early 1990s Denver's first light rail system was installed connecting the Central Business District to Five Points.
As of the 2010 Census, the racial makeup of the neighborhood was 56.95% white, 15.23% African American, 1.72% Asian, and .81% Native American. Hispanic or Latino of any race is 22.53% of the population.ref name="1">"Error: no |title= specified when using {{Cite web}}". http://www.piton.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=CommunityFacts.Summary&Neighborhood_ID=886. [1]