Colorado

Colorado Rockies

The Rocky Mountains are called the Continental Divide because they run from Alaska almost to Cape Horn, and because they divide the river drainage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.  They also exercise significant effects on the weather: they can turn air masses into cyclones that can carry a lot of snow in the winter toward the Midwest; they generate sudden spring hail storms; they generate chinook winds.

The Front Range of the Colorado Rockies gets more hail than anywhere else in the US.

The Denver-Aurora metro area has about 60% of Colorado's residents.

In 1541, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado came through Colorado looking for gold, a fact that allowed Spain to claim the land.  Significantly, however, the Spaniards brought their horses to the area and allowed them to run wild; the Natives learned to ride them, and tribes that had previously been farmers became hunters.   The Comanche, for instance, were insignificant until their riding skills made them famed and feared.

Colorado's nickname is the Centennial State: it became a state in 1876.

When prices dropped after WWI, many went bankrupt and blamed communism for their economic woes.  Fear of communists led to fear of all foreigners, which became fear of anyone who seemed different.  The Ku Klux Klan spread in Colorado.  By 1923, the Denver mayor was KKK, and he appointed other Klan members to judgeships and other authority positions.  Then the governor and a senator were Klan.  But gradually the tide turned back to sense.

Colorado stegosaurus

Large numbers of dinosaur fossils are still being discovered.  The official state fossil is the stegosaurus.

Colorado has the lowest rate of obesity in the US.

The world's largest molybdenum mine is at Climax.

Colorado Yule marble is a special white marble that lines the inside of the Lincoln Memorial in Wash. DC and, in the form of a 100-ton solid block, is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery.

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

One of 4 US coin-producing mints is in Colorado.  It has the largest supply of gold in the US outside Fort Knox.

Hispanics were the first non-Natives to build permanent settlements in CO.  Many African-Americans came to CO originally as cowboys on cattle drives, about 25% of whom were black.

The US's only Buddhist university is the Naropa Institute at Boulder.

The Colorado Rockies baseball team has found home runs are easier to hit in thin mountain air.

Axolotl salamander

There is a species of amphibian called the axolotl that is unique in that they don't lose their gills as they mature; they are found only in Colorado and in Mexico City.

The US's first national forest, designated by Pres. Benjamin Harrison in 1891, is in CO and is now called the White River National Forest.  Today, 12 national forests lie wholly or partly in Colorado.

The Royal Gorge of the Arkansas River boasts the world's highest suspension bridge.

Royal Gorge suspension bridge

Grand Lake, CO's largest natural lake, has the US's highest altitude yacht dock.

The highest paved road in North America is on Mount Evans.

Grand Mesa is the world's largest flat-topped mountain; its national forest contains 300 lakes.

Great Sand Dunes

Hovenweep National Monument protects the ruins of 6 prehistoric pueblo sites.

The Great Sand Dunes National Monument is about 39 miles long and 700' high and includes some of the world's highest sand dunes.


The Manitou and Pikes Peak Railway is the world's highest railroad.