Skip to main content

Coal Mining in Colorado

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, coal mining was the most important industry in Colorado. Coal mines served as the crucibles of empire, churning out the fuel needed to power the railroads, precious-metal mines, and smelters that…

Colorow

One of the best-known Nuche (Ute) leaders of the nineteenth century, Colorow (c. 1813–88) was involved in many significant events in Colorado history, from his first contact with white Americans during the Colorado Gold Rush to the Meeker Incident and…

Garfield County

Named for former president James Garfield, Garfield County is a mountainous county in western Colorado. Covering 2,956 square miles, it is bordered to the north by Rio Blanco County, to the east by Routt and Eagle Counties, to…

Glenwood Springs

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…

Trappers Lake and Flat Tops Wilderness

The Flat Tops Wilderness covers more than 235,000 acres of remote mountains and forests in Garfield, Rio Blanco, and Eagle Counties on Colorado’s Western Slope. Its most popular natural feature is Trappers Lake, the state’s second-largest natural lake,…

Vulcan Mine Explosions

Between 1896 and 1918, the Vulcan Mine in Garfield County exploded three times, killing a total of eighty-five workers. The successive blasts prompted action from labor unions and politicians to make coal mines safer. At the site of the Vulcan Mine today…

Western Slope

“A Fantasy land,” “a mystique,” “a state of mind”—these are only some of the expressions used to describe the Western Slope of Colorado, commonly defined as the roughly one-third of the state that lies west of the Continental Divide. The serpentine…