Chinatown in Denver, Colorado, was a residential and business district of Chinese Americans in what is now the LoDo section of the city. It was also referred to as "Hop Alley", based upon a slang word for opium. The first Chinese resident of Denver, Hong Lee, arrived in 1869 and lived in a shanty at Wazee and F Streets and ran a washing and ironing laundry business. More Chinese immigrants arrived in the town the following year. Men who had worked on the construction of the first transcontinental railroad or had been miners in California crossed over the Rocky Mountains after their work was completed or mines were depleted in California.

In Denver, most of the Chinese operated laundries, picking up a need for Denver's residents. Anti-Chinese sentiment escalated to mob rule in Chinese enclaves throughout the Western United States. On October 31, 1880, a white mob attacked Chinese people, their homes and their businesses, virtually destroying all of Chinatown. A mob of white men killed Sing Lee and assaulted dozens of other Chinese residents. The Chinese immigrants were not compensated for their property loss. Some people moved away soon after the riot, others stayed and rebuilt Chinatown, but the residents continued to experience racial discrimination. By 1940, Chinatown had few Asian inhabitants and the district was razed as part of an urban renewal project.

The boundaries of Chinatown changed over time, but extended from approximately 15th to 20th Streets, and from Market to Wazee Streets. There were at least three Chinatown boundaries in the city of Denver, the first established along Wazee Street and the last being located on Market and Larimer Streets.

Chinese immigrants, most of whom were men, moved from the West Coast where they had been railroad workers, miners, and businesspeople to Colorado. Once the transcontinental railroad was completed (May 10, 1869), and California gold mines were depleted, many immigrants moved inland. In 1870, business owners and Territorial legislators encouraged more Chinese immigrants to come work in Colorado to meet the needs for agricultural and other cheap laborers to "hasten the development and early prosperity of the Territory".

High wages eat up the profits of [Colorado] farms, put an embargo on thousands of lodes that might otherwise be profitable, hinder manufacturers, and act in general as an incubus on our efforts.

— Joseph Woof, in an appeal to import Chinese from California

The June 29, 1869 edition of the Colorado Tribune announced "the first John Chinaman in Denver". Hong Lee lived in a shanty at Wazee and F Streets and ran a washing and ironing laundry business. By the fall of 1870 there were 42 Chinese men and women living along Wazee Street, establishing what was first known as Chinaman's Row. Wazee was probably a Cantonese name for "Street of the Chinese". It was located next to the red-light district on Holliday Street, now Market Street. It was a very poor district, but it provided some safety, a shared cultural heritage, community support, and a place to buy and sell goods unique to their culture. Italians were similarly situated. They lived in a poor neighborhood along the South Platte River between Highland and downtown Denver called "The Bottoms". According to historian Robert Athearn, its residents adapted to living in a hovel because of "the strength of their old-world heritage and their religion".

The town grew quickly, but did not have the infrastructure to manage the influx of people and public health issues. There were open sewers, trash-filled rivers, cows and pigs that freely walked the streets, and carcasses of dead cats and rats in the streets. With the completion of the transcontinental railroad, tuberculosis patients came to Colorado beginning in the 1870s for the dry, sunny climate and high altitudes. Colorado became the "sanatorium to the world" and the disease spread throughout the city. By the 1880s, 10,000 people in Denver had tuberculosis; this was one-third of the city's population. Dr. Frederick J. Bancroft (who created Denver's public health system) claimed that Denver was one of the dirtiest cities in the country. The entire city was not clean, but ethnic enclaves for the Chinese, Italians, and the Irish were worse. There were efforts to use public opinion on health to oust the Chinese from downtown Denver. Further: Frances Wisebart Jacobs § Denver's Jewish Hospital Association