Colorado

• 1. Introduction

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  Colorado is a landlocked state in the Mountain West, and its southwest corner is a spot found nowhere else in the United States. The Four Corners Monument marks the shared boundary of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. It is the only place in the country where four states meet. Colorado also borders Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas to the east and Oklahoma to the southeast. Inside those borders sit mountains, forests, high plains, mesas, canyons, plateaus, rivers and desert lands. The state holds most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, the northeastern part of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains. It is the eighth-largest U.S. state by area. This documentary asks who lived on this ground for thousands of years before any flag flew over it. It asks how a contested map became the 38th state, and why its voters keep acting before the rest of the country. It also asks how people make a living, and a life, in a place of such steep extremes.

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• 2. Contested Ground

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  Artifacts at the Lindenmeier site date from approximately 8720 BCE. Native Americans and their Paleo-Indian ancestors have lived in this region for at least 13,500 years, and possibly more than 37,000. The eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains was a major migration route for early peoples who spread throughout the Americas.

  The Ancient Pueblo peoples lived in the valleys and mesas of the Colorado Plateau, in the far southwest of today's state. The Ute Nation inhabited the mountain valleys, even as far east as the Front Range. The Apache and the Comanche lived in the eastern and southeastern parts. In the 17th century, the Arapaho and Cheyenne moved west from the Great Lakes region to hunt across the High Plains of Colorado and Wyoming.

  In 1803, the Louisiana Purchase from France gave the United States a territorial claim to the eastern Rocky Mountains. Three years later, Zebulon Pike led an Army reconnaissance expedition into the disputed region. Spanish cavalrymen arrested Colonel Pike and his troops in the San Luis Valley the following February. They were taken to Chihuahua and expelled from Mexico that July.

  The Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819 gave the United States Florida. In exchange, it gave up claims to lands west of the 100th meridian and south of both the Arkansas River and the 42nd parallel. The treaty took effect on the 22nd of February 1821. Spain recognized Mexican independence with the Treaty of Cordoba on the 24th of August 1821, and Mexico ratified the Adams-Onis Treaty in 1831.

  Meanwhile, Missouri became a state on the 10th of August 1821. What remained of Missouri Territory, including northeastern Colorado, stayed unorganized for 33 years over the question of slavery. After the Mexican-American War of 1846, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 brought much of western and southern Colorado into the United States.

  In 1849, the Mormons of the Salt Lake Valley organized the State of Deseret and claimed the entire Great Basin. Washington refused to recognize it because it was theocratic and sanctioned plural marriage. The Compromise of 1850 instead created California, the Territory of New Mexico and the Territory of Utah. On the 9th of April 1851, Hispano settlers from the area of Taos founded the village of San Luis, Colorado's first permanent Euro-American settlement.

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• 3. Territory and Statehood

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  The Pike's Peak Gold Rush of 1858-1862 brought an influx of settlers. On the 28th of February 1861, President James Buchanan signed an act creating the Territory of Colorado. Months later the American Civil War produced small skirmishes between Confederate and Union supporters in the territory.

  In August 1861, Governor Gilpin organized the 1st Colorado Infantry. John P. Slough led the unit into New Mexico Territory in February and March of 1862. There it fought at Apache Canyon, Glorieta Pass and Peralta. Slough resigned in April 1862 and Major John M. Chivington replaced him. With resources tied up in the war, little remained for mines, farms and infrastructure, and Denver stagnated.

  On the 26th of March 1862, Abraham Lincoln appointed John Evans as the territory's second governor. Evans encouraged investment in Denver rail projects and founded the University of Denver in 1864. Anti-native sentiment also grew through the war years. An exterminationist ideology, led in Colorado by Evans and Chivington, called for the total eradication of native people in the territory.

  The Colorado War worsened relations until 1864, when Chivington ordered the Sand Creek Massacre. Evans was forced to resign the following spring.

  In 1867, the Union Pacific Railroad laid its tracks to Weir, now Julesburg, in the territory's northeast corner. The Union Pacific met the Central Pacific at Promontory Summit, Utah, on the 10th of May 1869, forming the first transcontinental railroad. The Denver Pacific reached Denver in June of the next year. The Kansas Pacific arrived two months later and forged the second line across the continent.

  Congress passed an enabling act on the 3rd of March 1875, setting the requirements for statehood. On the 1st of August 1876, President Ulysses S. Grant signed Proclamation 230, admitting Colorado as the 38th state. That date fell four weeks after the nation's centennial, which earned Colorado the nickname Centennial State.

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• 4. Boom, Bust, Conflict

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  The discovery of a major silver lode near Leadville in 1878 triggered the Colorado Silver Boom. The Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890 invigorated silver mining further. A few months later, Cripple Creek delivered Colorado's last and greatest gold strike, and a new generation of gold seekers arrived. Then the repeal of the Sherman Act in 1893 caused a staggering collapse of the mining and agricultural economy. The state recovered slowly and steadily.

  Denver's flower growers found their own fortune. Between the 1880s and 1930s, floriculture grew into a major industry, and locals called the period the Carnation Gold Rush.

  Mining remained dangerous work. An 1884 accident in Crested Butte killed 59 and became the first formally recorded disaster. Since then, more than 5,000 Colorado miners, many of them immigrants, are estimated to have died in accidents.

  Poor conditions and discontent brought several major clashes between strikers and the Colorado National Guard. These included the Western Federation of Miners Strike of 1903-1904 and the Colorado Coalfield War. The Ludlow massacre, part of that war, killed a dozen women and children. Federal troops intervened to end the violence in the Coalfield War of 1913-1914 and again in the Denver streetcar strike of 1920.

  The coal strike of 1927-28 ultimately won a raise of a dollar a day. During it, the Columbine Mine massacre left six strikers dead after a confrontation with Colorado Rangers. Separately, the mayor of Trinidad was accused of deputizing members of the Klan against striking workers.

  In 1924, the Ku Klux Klan Colorado Realm achieved dominance in state politics. At peak membership, the Second Klan held significant control over both major parties, especially in the governor's office and the city governments of Denver, Canon City and Durango. A particularly strong element controlled the Denver Police. Cross burnings became semi-regular in cities such as Florence and Pueblo. The Klan targeted African-Americans, Catholics, Eastern European immigrants and other non-White Protestant groups.

  Philip Van Cise and other non-Klan lawmen and lawyers pushed back. The organization's power declined rapidly, and membership waned significantly by the end of the 1920s.

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• 5. Land of Altitude

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  In 1861, Congress defined the new Territory of Colorado exclusively by lines of latitude and longitude. They ran from 37°N to 41°N, and from 102°02'48"W to 109°02'48"W. After years of government surveys, the borders were officially defined by 697 boundary markers and 697 straight boundary lines. Only Colorado, Wyoming and Utah have borders made entirely of straight lines, with no natural features.

  The summit of Mount Elbert, in Lake County, stands 4400.58 meters high. It is the highest point in Colorado and in the entire Rocky Mountains of North America. The 30 highest major summits of the range all lie within the state. Colorado is the only U.S. state that sits entirely above 1,000 meters.

  Even the lowest point is high. The Arikaree River leaves Yuma County at 1011 meters, flowing into Cheyenne County, Kansas. That is the highest low point of any state, and it sits above the high points of 18 states and the District of Columbia.

  The Rockies within Colorado hold 53 true peaks and 58 named peaks that reach 14,000 feet or higher. Climbers call them fourteeners. Notable summits include Longs Peak, Mount Blue Sky, Pikes Peak and the Spanish Peaks near Walsenburg. Trees such as conifers and aspens cover the slopes up to a tree line near 12,000 feet in the south and 10,500 feet in the north. Much of the alpine snow melts by mid-August, leaving a few snow-capped peaks and a few small glaciers.

  Approximately half of Colorado is flat and rolling land. The Eastern Plains rise from roughly 3350 to 7500 feet and are mostly farmland and rangeland. Corn, wheat, hay, soybeans and oats are typical crops. Most villages there have both a water tower and a grain elevator. Heavy use of artesian wells for irrigation has caused underground water reserves to decline.

  About 84% of Coloradans live along the Front Range Urban Corridor, between Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Pueblo. The high Rockies partly shield that strip from Pacific storms. Across the mountains, the main population centers of the Western Slope are Grand Junction, Durango and Montrose.

  The Continental Divide runs along most of the crest of the Rockies. West of it, water flows by the Colorado and Green rivers toward the Gulf of California. In the interior sit large high basins called parks. North Park is drained by the North Platte River, Middle Park by the Colorado River, and South Park holds the headwaters of the South Platte.

  In the south-central part of the state, the San Luis Valley holds the headwaters of the Rio Grande. Its northern end is the San Luis Closed Basin, an endorheic basin that helped create the Great Sand Dunes. The valley lies between the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and the San Juan Mountains.

  The Western Slope runs from alpine mountains to arid deserts. Its northwestern corner holds part of Dinosaur National Monument. The region also has the ski resorts of Aspen, Breckenridge, Vail, Crested Butte, Steamboat Springs and Telluride, plus the hot springs of Glenwood Springs. Amtrak's California Zephyr crosses the Rockies here on its way between Denver and Grand Junction.

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• 6. Storms, Fire, Wildlife

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  On the plains, the average July temperature is 55 °F in the morning and 90 °F in the afternoon. The average January temperature is 18 °F in the morning and 48 °F in the afternoon, though consecutive days can differ by 40 °F. Chinook winds sometimes warm Front Range cities near the mountains to 70 °F or higher in winter. Foothill microclimates run nearly the whole spectrum, from humid subtropical to subarctic.

  Hail is the most commonly reported warm-season severe weather hazard. Severe hailstorms hit Denver on the 11th of July 1990 and the 8th of May 2017, the latter the costliest in state history. The Eastern Plains lie in the western edge of Tornado Alley. Damaging twisters include the 1990 Limon F3 tornado and the 2008 Windsor EF3 tornado, which devastated a small town. Floods also strike, notably the 1965 Denver Flood, the Big Thompson River flooding of 1976 and the 2013 Colorado floods.

  The highest official air temperature ever recorded in Colorado was 115 °F on the 20th of July 2019 at John Martin Dam. The lowest was -61 °F on the 1st of February 1985 at Maybell. In summer 2008, Denver broke its 1901 record for consecutive days above 90 °F. The new record of 24 days beat the old one by almost a week.

  The state averages only 17 inches of precipitation per year, and some portion of it is almost always in drought. That dryness feeds wildfires. The Hayman Fire of 2002 was followed by the Fourmile Canyon Fire of 2010 and the Waldo Canyon and High Park fires of June 2012. In 2020, the Pine Gulch, Cameron Peak and East Troublesome fires became the three largest in state history. The Marshall Fire, which started on the 30th of December 2021, was the most destructive ever in terms of property loss.

  Yet the mountains also receive huge winter snowfalls. Their spring melt swells the Yampa, Colorado, Arkansas, North Platte and South Platte rivers, as well as the Rio Grande. Water flowing out of the Colorado Rockies is a significant source for New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Nevada. It also supplies Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, and a significant amount is diverted to California.

  Colorado has over 90 potentially active faults. Its largest recorded earthquake was a magnitude 6.6 in 1882. The second largest was a 5.3 on the 22nd of August 2011, about 9 miles west-southwest of Trinidad, with no casualties. The U.S. National Earthquake Information Center is located in Golden.

  The last wild gray wolf in Colorado was shot in 1945, after trapping and poisoning in the 1930s. A wolf pack recolonized Moffat County in 2019. In 2020, Coloradans voted to reintroduce gray wolves, though cattle farmers worry about their herds. Mountain goats were introduced between 1947 and 1972, yet the state declared them native in 1993. In 2013-2014 and 2019, an unknown illness killed nearly all mountain goat kids.

  Pronghorn numbers fell to a low of only 15,000 in the 1960s. Conservation efforts brought the population back to roughly 66,000 by 2013 and an estimated 85,000 by 2019. As suburban housing spread along the eastern Front Range, wildlife officials suggested landowners modify fencing so the growing herds can move through.

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• 7. Ballot Box Politics

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  On the 7th of November 1893, Colorado men voted to give women the vote. That made Colorado the second state to grant universal suffrage and the first to do it by popular vote. On the 8th of November 1932, Colorado voters approved repeal of alcohol prohibition, more than a year before the Twenty-first Amendment was ratified. The state has also banned Sunday motor vehicle sales under C.R.S. section 12-6-302 since at least 1953.

  The International Olympic Committee chose Denver as host city on the 12th of May 1970. In 1972, Colorado voters rejected a referendum to fund the 1976 Winter Olympics that had been scheduled to be held in the state.

  In 1967, Governor John Love signed a law allowing abortion in cases of rape, incest or threats to the woman's health. Colorado was the first state to loosen restrictions this way, and many others followed. In 2024, residents voted to put an explicit right to abortion in the state constitution. The Chicano Movement, a civil rights movement of Mexican Americans, is widely considered to have begun in Denver. The National Chicano Youth Liberation Conference was held in Colorado in March 1969.

  In 1992, voters approved Amendment 2 by 53 to 47 percent, barring protected-class recognition for homosexuals and bisexuals. In 1996, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 against it in Romer v. Evans. Amendment 43 banned same-sex marriage in 2006, and the Supreme Court's 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges nullified it. Voters repealed its defunct ban in 2024.

  In 2012, voters amended the constitution to protect the personal use of marijuana by adults. The first recreational marijuana shops in the United States opened in Colorado on the 1st of January 2014. On the 30th of October 2019, Colorado became the first state to accept digital ID through its myColorado app. By November 2022, the app had over 1 million users.

  On the 19th of December 2023, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Donald Trump was disqualified from the 2024 presidential election. On the 4th of March 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled that decision.

  Gun violence has also shaped the state's laws. At Columbine High School in 1999, students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 13 students and one teacher before taking their own lives. On the 20th of July 2012, a gunman killed 12 people in an Aurora movie theater. The state responded with tighter firearm restrictions, including a magazine capacity limit. Later attacks killed 10 people at a Boulder supermarket on the 22nd of March 2021 and 5 at a Colorado Springs nightclub on the night of the 19th and the 20th of November 2022.

  Colorado has 64 counties, and Denver and Broomfield have consolidated city and county governments. The least populous, Hinsdale County, has 747 residents. There are no civil townships, so counties matter a great deal. The state also has more than 4,000 special districts. Voters approved some of them to help pay for Coors Field and Empower Field at Mile High.

  Nearly 60% of residents were native to other states in the 2000 census. No native-born governor held office from 1975 until Bill Ritter took office in 2007. Today Jared Polis, a Democrat, is governor. Colorado voted Democratic for president in 1948-1964 and 1992. After a Republican-leaning post-war era and a swing-state period in the 1990s, it backed Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. It then backed Hillary Clinton in 2016, Joe Biden in 2020 and Kamala Harris in 2024.

  Politics here splits between conservative cities such as Colorado Springs and Grand Junction and liberal ones such as Boulder and Denver. Of 4,087,582 registered voters, 49.20% are unaffiliated. Democrats hold 25.43% and Republicans 23.00%, so unaffiliated voters outnumber either major party's registrants by roughly two to one.

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• 8. People and Livelihoods

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  The Census Bureau estimated Colorado's population at 5,957,493 on the 1st of July 2024, a 3.2% increase from 2020. The 1930 census was the first to count more than one million residents. In 2020-74.47% of residents lived in one of 273 incorporated municipalities. Denver is the largest, with 729,019 residents in 2024, and Colorado Springs is second.

  The Town of Carbonate has had no year-round population since the 1890 census because of severe winters and difficult access.

  Hispanic and Latino residents made up 20.7% of the population in the 2010 census. Southern Colorado has a large number of Hispanos, descendants of early settlers of colonial Spanish origin. Spanish is the second most spoken language, and English in Colorado carries many Spanish idioms. Two Ute reservations lie in the southwestern corner, and the Ute dialect of Colorado River Numic is still spoken. Most immigrants come from Mexico, India, China, Vietnam, Korea, Germany and Canada.

  In 2014, a Journal of the American Medical Association report gave Coloradans the longest life expectancy of any state, 80.21 years. Coloradans also have the lowest obesity rate in the nation, at 24%. That figure has risen from 17% in 2004.

  Colorado's gross domestic product in 2025 was $584.3 billion. Per capita personal income was $86,181 that year, ranking tenth in the nation. Small businesses made up 99.5% of Colorado businesses and employed 48.6% of the workforce. Federal land covers 37% of the state, and federal facilities include NORAD, the Air Force Academy and Fort Carson. The state also has the largest annual beer production of any state.

  Tourism brought 85.2 million visitors in 2018, and they generated $22.3 billion. Many familiar brands began in Colorado. Coors beer started in Golden in 1873. Samsonite luggage came from Denver in 1910, and Jolly Rancher candy from Golden in 1949. Celestial Seasonings teas have been made in Boulder since 1969, and Estes model rockets were launched from Penrose in 1958.

  Uranium mining goes back to 1872, when pitchblende ore was taken from gold mines near Central City. From 1910 to 1922, Colorado and Utah dominated radium mining, and the byproducts gave the town of Uravan its name. In the 1940s, Naturita and Paradox earned the nickname yellowcake towns. On the 11th of September 1957, a plutonium fire at the Rocky Flats Plant contaminated surrounding populated areas.

  More than 400 films have been shot in Colorado, according to the state film office. The Stanley Hotel appears in The Shining and Dumb and Dumber. South Park is set in a fictional central Colorado town. Kent Haruf set his novels in the fictional high plains town of Holt. Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady each lived in and around Denver for several years. On the 27th of March 2025, it was announced that the Sundance Film Festival will move to Boulder in 2027 under a ten-year deal.

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