Main: Toast of the Town
Top Ten: Mile High Moments
Faces: Orange-and-blue memories
Concerts: What dreams are made of
Memories: Former Broncos share memorable moments Pat Bowlen: Though he tore down Mile High, fond memories remain
Numbers: Mile High through the years

Victory: Broncos 38, 49ers 9
Finale: One last salute
New digs: Owens, Bowlen join ceremony to 'top out' new Broncos stadium
Stories: Broncos past and present share memories
Chronology: Mile High's last day
Souvenirs: Fans make a play for seats
Good seats: Workers, kin watch game on big TV in new stadium
Voices: Qutoes from Mile High's last day
Passion: Family still has first season-ticket seats
Tales: 76,000 tickets — 76,000 stories
Farewell cry: Tough South Stands fans say goodbye with tears

Video & audio: Broncos, fans remember Mile High
Destruction: Video montage of the stadium's demolition
Interactive timelines:
Game day | Through the years
Slideshow: Orange-and-blue memories

Proud reign: A day at Mile High
Q&A: What'll happen to Mile High landmarks
Gene Amole: When Bill Redd, Bears Stadium ruled Denver's sporting world
Dave Krieger: Frigid night of football frozen in time, mind
Bernie Lincicome: The burning question: How to say goodbye
The stars: Rating the best Broncos team ever

Forums: Reminisce with other Broncos fans
Vote: What Mile High moment is your favorite?
Thinking back: Readers remember Mile High Stadium

The photograph on yellowed newsprint shows Louis Wright standing amid a thousand points of light, as if his head is among the stars. Teammates Rubin Carter, Jim Ryan and Dennis Smith are coming toward him, and now that you look, those points of light are everywhere.

This is the Mile High moment frozen in my mind — and in my toes and fingers, too. The cramped, frigid football press box squeezed in among the girders that support the upper deck will be charming when it's history.

The baseball press box was at least part of the plan. My favorite nights at Mile High were spent there, watching minor league baseball beside Frank Haraway, then the official scorer.

Mile High is Denver, and not because of the Broncos or the Bears (or the Zephyrs) or the Rapids or even the Rocky Mountain Newshounds, who played a softball game there against Channel 4 and its star third baseman, Les Shapiro, before a Zephyrs contest one evening quite a few summers ago. (We smoked 'em.)

Mile High is Denver because it started small and then grew, piecemeal, like the city, finally becoming major league — sort of. We've outgrown her. Denver has graduated to the big leagues, worthy of state-of-the-art Coors Field and the Pepsi Center, and now a football stadium not built to be a minor league baseball yard.

It grew like an erector set. At first, the new pieces were put in beside the old pieces; later, they went on top. The last ones, those luxury boxes, had a sort of kitchen counter look. I still wonder if that's what they were looking for.

It felt like an erector set, too. The upper decks bounced when the people bounced. This scared the bejesus out of novice national TV announcers, who thought the whole thing was about to come apart. They had a tendency to sit down suddenly, as if this would steady things.

The night they made that photograph was Oct. 15, 1984, an autumn blizzard shown across the country on Monday Night Football. They credited it for a boom in the ski business and a slowdown in residential growth. The rest of the country thought we were Anchorage.

On the first two plays from scrimmage, Steve Foley and Wright picked up fumbles by Green Bay Packers running backs and returned them for touchdowns. At the time, the Broncos had a terrific defense and not much offense, which tells you how long ago it was. They won 17-14.

For better or worse, we can't do with our metro area what they're doing on north Federal. We can't build a new town with wider concourses next door and move over there. Long after Mile High is gone, we'll have urban sprawl and highway congestion and all the other products of incremental growth.

We just won't have that big orange symbol of it anymore. Then again, I won't hit my head on a steel girder every time I stand up, which sounds like a good thing to me.

Contact Dave Kriger at (303) 892-5297 or kriegerd@RockyMountainNews.com.