The neighborhood was home to a number of Denver's leaders, housing mayors, governors, and prominent business people, as well as middle-class laborers.

With a succession of majority African-American populations as new residents settled in the city, Five Points in the first half of the 20th century became known as the "Harlem of the West".

It developed as a predominantly African-American neighborhood because discriminatory home sale laws in other areas excluded black people.

They were part of the Great Migration of the 20th century out of the rural South to northern, midwestern and western industrial cities for jobs and other opportunities.

Businesses included a butcher, real estate companies, drug stores, tailors, restaurants, barbers, and many other main street services.

Welton Street was also home to more than fifty bars and clubs, where nationally known jazz musicians, such as Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Nat King Cole, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie and others performed.

Many of the rich began moving out of Five Points in the late 19th century to live in the more popular Capitol Hill neighborhood.

Five Points at one time had a large Jewish population, formed by waves of immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

After World War II, many Japanese-Americans who had been interned in interior camps resettled in Denver and lived in Five Points.

In 2002 Five Points was designated as a cultural historic district, in recognition of its important role in African-American history in the city.

[8] In 2002 Five Points was designated as a cultural historic district, in recognition of its important role in African-American history in the city.

Developer Andrew Romanoff was in charge of a renovation in 2012 to adapt the building for use as office space, to be leased to small businesses.

[18] One of the few remaining sections of Denver metro's RTD's FasTracks expansion plan is the final 0.8 miles of the L line.