Beneath the glacier-carved peaks and valleys of Rocky Mountain National Park, below the alpine lakes and rushing streams, a concrete-lined tunnel belies the illusion of a pristine wilderness. In 1944, the two ends of the Alva B. Adams Tunnel were…

The Colorado River Water Conservation District, generally known as “The River District,” is a public agency dedicated to protecting and developing Colorado’s share of the Colorado River.
 
 Origins and Establishment
 
 The River District…

The Colorado Water Institute (CWI), an affiliate of Colorado State University (CSU) since 1965, exists for the express purpose of focusing the expertise of higher education on evolving water concerns and problems in the Centennial State.
 
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Colorado, “the Centennial State,” was the thirty-eighth state to enter the Union on August 1, 1876. Its diverse geography encompasses 104,094 square miles of the American West and includes swathes of the Great Plains, southern Rocky Mountains, and the…

Glenwood Springs is a mountain resort community 150 miles west of Denver, at the confluence of the Colorado and Roaring Fork Rivers on Colorado’s Western Slope. It is the seat of Garfield County and has a population of nearly 10,000. The city is known…

With a population of nearly 60,000, Grand Junction is the largest city on Colorado’s Western Slope. The city takes its name from its location at the junction of the Gunnison and Colorado (formerly the Grand) Rivers, in the heart of the Grand Valley…

The beautiful and imposing mountain scenery of Colorado’s Great Divide has led to the common belief that the state is home to a singular “Continental Divide.” The divide in Colorado, however, is only a piece of the larger Great Divide, a geologic crest…

The tension between aridity and irrigated agriculture has been a defining characteristic of Colorado for much of its modern history. On average, the state receives less than fifteen inches of annual precipitation, making it the seventh driest state in…

Mesa County is situated on 3,341 square miles of the eastern Colorado Plateau in western Colorado. The county is named for the wide, flat-topped mountains within its borders. The Spanish called such mountains mesas—meaning “tables.” The county’s largest…

The Old Spanish Trail was designated a national historic trail by an act of Congress in 2002. From 1829 to 1848, the major trade route extended 2,700 miles between Santa Fé de Nuevo Mexico (Santa Fe, New Mexico), and Alta California (Los Angeles,…

State Bridge spans the Colorado River along Highway 131 in Eagle County and was originally constructed in 1890. Built with state funding, the bridge helped promote growth by providing the only east–west transportation link across the state that was open…