Seven were killed[1] and 50 were seriously injured in clashes among striking streetcar workers, strike-breakers, local police, federal troops and the public.

In that year Thomas S. McMurry was elected mayor after campaigning against the city's public service corporations and demanding a portion of their profits.

Around this time public opinion began to turn against Denver Tramway culminating in 1905 when the company's franchise was supposed to end.

[3]While generous for the company the 1906 franchise specified a fixed rate fare, set at 5 cents, and the requirement that Denver Tramway pay 50% maintenance on any roadway on which it had a two-way line.

[4] Denver streetcar workers had organized in July 1918 as local 746 of the Amalgamated Association of Street and Electric Railway Employees of America.

Within a year, that union had successfully brought new rulings from the War Labor Board that eliminated war-time restrictions, giving them an eight-hour day and a wage hike.

[2] Denver Tramway, violating the board's orders, cut the workers pay, and was the target of a four-day strike in July 1919.

The first serious violence happened on the afternoon of Thursday the 5th, as parading union demonstrators encountered two streetcars headed back to the barn.

Ballou arrived in the early hours of Saturday the 7th with 250 troops from Fort Logan and put Denver under martial law.