Larimer Street is where Denver's commercial history began. The block now branded as Larimer Square — a private historic preservation project developed in the 1960s by Dana Crawford — is the city's oldest surviving commercial streetscape, with buildings dating to the 1870s and 1880s.
The building at 1433 Larimer harbored a speakeasy during Prohibition, the period from 1920 to 1933 when federal law prohibited the manufacture and sale of alcohol. Denver's LoDo district was home to multiple clandestine drinking establishments during this period, and the subterranean and narrow rear-access architecture of many Larimer Street buildings made them practical for illicit operations.
Josephina's Restaurant occupied the address from 1974, running an Italian menu in what Denver Westword described as a venue that 'was never good and sometimes bordered on embarrassingly bad.' It closed after approximately 30 years. The kitchen crew was absorbed by Corridor 44, which opened in October 2005 in a 44-foot-long former hallway — described by Westword as the most unusual restaurant space in Larimer Square.
The Denver Terrors haunted history app tour includes the Josephina's address as one of Denver's documented atmospherically charged sites, and the building's speakeasy past gives the paranormal associations a tangible historical anchor.
Sources
- https://denverterrors.com/most-haunted-restaurants-in-denver/
- https://www.westword.com/restaurants/corridor-44-5095844
Object movementPhantom voicesSensed presence
The speakeasy at 1433 Larimer had a showgirl named Amelia. That much the account establishes. She fell in love with the owner of the operation, they married, and they had a daughter together — a girl named Ginger. What happened to Amelia after that is not specified in the accounts that circulate about her. Only that she remained.
Object displacement and disembodied voices are the phenomena attached to her presence, consistent with the Prohibition-era underground bar atmosphere that defined the building's most active chapter. A woman who worked in a place of noise, music, and constant movement during some of the most legally fraught years in American bar history — it is not hard to understand why the accounts frame her as still present rather than departed.
Josephina's Restaurant closed after 30 years at the address. Corridor 44 now occupies the portion of the space that includes Josephina's former bar. The original speakeasy infrastructure — whatever was built for clandestine service in the 1920s — lies beneath the current commercial renovation, accessible in the building's bones if not in its surface.
The Denver Terrors tour, which guides visitors through downtown Denver's haunted sites, includes the address. Whether guests sipping champagne in the 44-foot corridor feel Amelia's presence is a variable the app cannot control.
