Politics & Economy

In the early 1960s, Governor John A. Love and other business leaders worked to bring the 1976 Winter Olympics to Colorado. Despite winning the bid from the International Olympic Committee in 1970, the voters of Colorado decided not to fund the winter games, causing the event to be moved to...

Cannabis ( Cannabis sativa ) is a cultivated annual herb. In Colorado it is best known for producing the medicinal and recreational drug “marijuana,” but it is also grown for a variety of other products, including seed oil, rope, ointments, and clothing. The cannabis plant comes in psychoactive and...

The Colorado Fuel and Iron strike of 1997 was a labor dispute between Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I) and the United Steel Workers of America (USWA) . Oregon Steel Mills had purchased Colorado Fuel and Iron in 1993 and maintained the Pueblo mill’s unionized workforce. When the union...

The Denver Tramway Strike of 1920 typified the active militancy of many labor unions during the early 1900s. The strike brought the conversation surrounding labor relations to the forefront of Denver politics and would influence the larger labor landscape for decades to come. Today the strike is...

The Indian Appropriations Act of 1871 declared that Indigenous people were no longer considered members of “sovereign nations” and that the US government could no longer establish treaties with them. The act effectively made Native Americans wards of the US government and paved the way for other...

The Leadville strike of 1880 was the first major labor conflict in the central Colorado silver boomtown, shutting down most of the area’s mining district from May 26 to mid-June as miners pressed owners and managers for higher wages, an eight-hour workday, and more control over their working...

In 1893 Colorado became the first state to enact women’s suffrage by popular referendum, when a majority of male voters approved an amendment to the Colorado Constitution . The passage of women’s suffrage built on decades of earlier work in the Colorado Territorial Legislature (1861–76) and state...

The Panic of 1893 touched off a nationwide economic depression that lasted for at least three years, threw millions out of work, and caused banks and businesses to fail across the country. In Colorado and other silver-mining states, the panic was tied to the abrupt collapse of the silver industry...

Alcohol prohibition in Colorado (1916–33) was a Progressive Era experiment, based on reform-minded and religious sentiments, to completely ban the sale and transport of alcohol. While the intention of reformers was to reduce violence, drunkenness, and crime, outlawing alcohol instead created more...