A Spirited Past, a Versatile Present

It all started upstairs from a haunted restaurant

Long before the last millennium ended, Vanguard Communications began as Ron King (writer and public relations/media veteran) and Steve Wilson (art director veteran) sharing a bare office on the second floor of a 19th-century, brick building in the oldest part of downtown Denver. On the first floor was a Bohemian restaurant called – appropriately – City Spirits.

Toiling away late at night, Steve and Ron would notice odd thumps and bangs. With time, the restaurant manager confessed that he tried not to be alone in the building after midnight because he and other restaurant employees had witnessed numerous strange events – doors closing on their own, Rolodex files spinning by themselves, and hearing their names whispered in empty rooms.

Once while closing up after midnight, the manager, in a jaunt down to the basement, spotted the shadowy figure of a bearded man dressed in a Victorian-era long coat. Two other employees reported having glimpsed the outline a young girl in garb from the same period.

Within a year, Ron and Steve moved on, and in 2000, Vanguard purchased half of the ground floor of a former fish warehouse that was undergoing a conversion to office and residential condos. That's our home today.

Like our office space, our company's work and focus have broadened to finance, healthcare, retail and science and technology. Yes, we've come far, although one day we hope to go back to 1434 Blake Street in Lower Downtown Denver and see if we can meet the bearded man and the little girl.