Entry No. 9 — the Denver file — filed under: library
Rocky Mountain Land Library at the Puritan Pie Co.
A 1911 building that used to crank out pies for the Senter Pie Company is now stuffed with one of the strangest, best libraries in Denver: the Rocky Mountain Land Library, a 32,000-volume collection about nature, the land, birds, bees, and urban homesteading. Walk past on Champa and you'd never guess the squat brick warehouse opens to the public, let alone that it sits in the heart of Denver's Beat Generation map — Neal Cassady's boyhood home was right next door. It functions as a kids' nature library and urban-homesteading learning center, with a free seed library and teaching kitchen in the long-term plan. This is a 'how have I never heard of this' spot for anyone who likes books and dirt.
The story
In 1911, A.J. Senter broke ground at 26th and Champa to build a pie factory with extra-deep cellars [1.1.1]. The cellar depth wasn't a quirk—it was designed to hold ice and frozen cherries so the business could bake fresh cherry pies year-round in an era long before commercial refrigeration. By 1920, the operation became the Puritan Pie Company, filling the Curtis Park air with baking crusts next door to a young Beat writer named Neal Cassady. You didn't hear it from us, but Cassady's older brother Jack ran a bootleg whiskey still out of the back of a nearby house and relied on the heavy, sweet odor of Senter's pie ovens to mask the smell of cooking mash from local law enforcement.
Decades after the ovens cooled and following a half-century stint as a property management warehouse, former Tattered Cover booksellers Jeff Lee and Ann Martin stepped in with a very different harvest. Over thirty years of working among stacks, Lee and Martin had amassed tens of thousands of books centered on dirt, plants, birds, bees, natural history, and human land stewardship. They moved their massive collection into the brick pie factory, transforming the industrial space into the urban branch of the Rocky Mountain Land Library.
It is an improbable sanctuary tucked into Denver's oldest residential grid. The long-term blueprint for the building includes a kids' nature library, an urban homesteading learning center, a free seed library, and a community teaching kitchen—using food and soil to ground city dwellers in the natural world. Where flour dust once flew and bootleg stills bubbled in the shadows, shelf after shelf of books now hold court.
What it's like
Finding the place requires looking closely: there is no neon sign or grand storefront, just a squat 1911 red brick warehouse sitting quietly among the Victorian homes of Curtis Park. Step inside during a scheduled open house or workshop and you'll find an unpretentious, high-ceilinged space packed with long wooden tables and rows of books dedicated to backyard homesteading and earth sciences. The main catch is timing: this is not a walk-in public library branch with standard daily hours. Access is event- or appointment-based, so you must check their programming schedule before making the trek. Street parking along Champa Street is standard; keep it quiet for the neighbors, grab a coffee nearby after browsing, and take a slow stroll around the surrounding Beat-history blocks.
The move: Pull books on birds, bees, and backyard homesteading off the shelves together, then walk the surrounding Curtis Park Beat-history blocks (Cassady's old home is steps away) and end at a coffee shop to compare what you found.
📍 Before you go Aim for the squat brick warehouse near 26th & Champa in Curtis Park — there's no grand storefront, so watch the addresses or you'll stroll right past it. This isn't a walk-in branch: public access runs limited and appointment- or event-based, so line something up before you make the trip (hours shift, so check ahead). It's indoors and works year-round; daytime and weekend programming is your best bet. Curtis Park is one of Denver's oldest residential blocks, so keep it low-key on the surrounding streets. Pair it with a slow loop of the neighboring Beat-history blocks and cap things off at a nearby café — street parking is the norm here.
- 📍 Curtis Park
- 💸 Free
- ⚡ Low-key
- 🌗 Indoors
Where: Puritan Pie Co. building, ~2612 Champa St (26th & Champa), Curtis Park, Denver — inside the old 1911 pie factory; next door to Neal Cassady's boyhood home
Hours: Limited / appointment-based public access typical for the Land Library — confirm hours and whether the Champa branch is open before going (landlibrary.wordpress.com / Westword).
Pair it with
- National Wildlife Property Repository — Trade the Land Library's curated texts on natural history for a massive federal warehouse in Commerce City filled with confiscated wildlife artifacts.
- Riverside Cemetery History & Mystery Tours — Follow the South Platte corridor north from Curtis Park to Denver's oldest 1876 burial ground for another deep dive into forgotten city history.
- Cheesman Park Pavilion & Its Buried Dead — Pair a study of urban land and soil at Champa Street with a visit to the city park sitting atop thousands of unextracted 19th-century graves.
Good to know
Where is the Rocky Mountain Land Library's Denver branch located?
It is inside the historic Puritan Pie Co. building at 2612 Champa Street (at 26th and Champa) in Denver's Curtis Park neighborhood.
What kind of books are in the library's collection?
The collection focuses on nature, land stewardship, gardening, urban homesteading, birds, bees, soil, and environmental history, assembled over decades by two veteran booksellers.
Can I visit the library anytime during the week?
No. Public access at the Champa Street building runs on a limited, appointment- or event-based schedule, so you need to confirm open hours or register for a program before going.
What is the historical connection to Beat Generation history?
Beat icon Neal Cassady spent his boyhood right next door, and his brother used the sweet smells of the pie factory to mask an illegal liquor still during Prohibition.
Is parking available on site?
There is no dedicated parking lot, but standard street parking is available along Champa Street and the surrounding residential blocks of Curtis Park.
Plan a visit & invite your people →
Further reading: Westword · denverarchitecture.org · confluence-denver.com
last checked: 2026-06-07