The Greenback Cutthroat was declared the state fish on March 15, 1994. Before environmentally degrading mining operations began in the nineteenth century, the fish could be found in nearly every mountain stream in Colorado. Today, biologists are attempting to restore the population using small groups of Greenbacks found in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Born in Greeley, Carpenter earned his law degree from the University of Denver.

Carpenter served one term in the Colorado Senate where he was known for his expertise in water law.

The Colorado River Commission hammered out the final version of the compact in November 1922.

Colorado adopted the Lark Bunting as its state bird on April 29, 1931. The small, black-and-white-feathered bird arrives in Colorado in April. It spends the summer on the plains and at elevations of up to 8,000 feet before flying south in September.

Many flags, including those representing claims by France, Spain, Mexico, and Great Britain, have flown over the land we know today as Colorado. Colorado's current state flag was officially adopted on June 5, 1911.

The white and lavender columbine was officially declared the state flower on April 4, 1899. Digging or uprooting the flower on public lands is prohibited in Colorado.

The Seal of the State of Colorado is based largely on the Seal of the Territory of Colorado, created in 1861. The crossed sledgehammer and pickaxe commemorate Colorado's long history of mining.

Town of Marble. The photo was taken from Perry Road.
 

Bent's Old Fort was built near present-day La Junta in 1833 by the trading partners Ceran St. Vrain and William and Charles Bent. The fort was the center of trade along the Santa Fé Trail until about 1850. This reconstruction of Bent's Old Fort was completed in 1976.

Author and Native American rights activist Helen Hunt Jackson was among the many influential tuberculosis patients who moved to Colorado in hopes that the state's climate would improve their health.

Designation of the Lower Downtown Historic District in 1988 helped transform what had been Skid Row into a vibrant residential, retail, and recreational district.

William Bent (1809-69) built an adobe trading post on the Arkansas River west of present-day Las Animas in 1833. Bent's Fort was situated along the Santa Fé Trail that connected Missouri and Mexico and quickly became the center of trade on the Great Plains.

In 1866, former trader Thomas O. Boggs founded the agricultural community of Boggsville, the first such community in Bent County and one of the earliest in the state. Unoccupied since 1975, the Boggs’ family house, shown here, has been restored as part of the Boggsville Historic Site.

Workers used railed carts like the one shown here to excavate the 13.1-mile Alva B. Adams Tunnel. Construction of the tunnel, which would become the largest water diversion project in the state, lasted between 1940 and 1944.

The first exhibition on the rooftop of the new Aspen Art Museum, Cai Guo-Qiang’s installation “Moving Ghost Town” sparked controversy among Aspenites and animal-rights activists concerned about the well-being of tortoises with iPads attached to their shells. The tortoises were removed after a few weeks because of a streak of cool, wet weather.

Built in 1878, the Central City Opera House was saved in the early 1930s by the start of the Central City Opera Festival.

For its 2014 festival, Central City Opera presented Mozart’s classic opera The Marriage of Figaro. This clip shows the finale of the opera’s second act.

Formerly known as Ballet Nouveau Colorado, Wonderbound is the second-largest professional dance company in the state. Led by Garrett Ammon and Dawn Fay, the Denver-based company has gained a reputation for energetic choreography and innovative collaborations.

Through its in-school and in-theater performances, Wonderbound reaches nearly 20,000 young students per year. It also runs a professional theater management internship for high schoolers at Pinnacle Charter School and recently started Art Squad, which offers students the chance to create their own dance performance.

Adolph Coors (1847-1929) was a brewery apprentice in western Germany before moving to the United States in 1868. He worked in Chicago breweries until 1872, when he moved to Colorado to begin his own brewery in Golden.

On July 4, 1776, the day the Declaration of Independence was signed in Philadelphia, the Spanish friars Francisco Atanasio Dominguez and Silvestre Velez Escalante set out to find a route to Monterey, California through the uncharted northwest reaches of New Spain. As the friars followed the route of Juan de Rivera over old Ute trails into Colorado and Utah, they met and traded with Utes and other Native Americans and named many landmarks. The expedition never reached California, as the friars decided not to test the formidable Sierra Nevada Mountains during winter and returned to Santa Fe in January 1777.

The Keyhole Route to the summit of Longs Peak has remained popular among non-technical climbers, with roads and amenities being built between 1915 and the 1960s to facilitate access to the trailhead.

Beginning in the 1960's, a new generation of technical climbers with improved equipment and ropes began to demand access to the sheer Diamond Wall on the East Face of Longs Peak.

Historically, Longs Peak played a large role in the seasonal migrations, hunting practices, and cosmology of the Ute and Arapaho, who knew Mount Meeker (left) and Longs Peak (right) as the "Two Guides" for their prominent roles as landmarks in the region.

Though dismantled in 1973 for incompatibility with the Wilderness Act of 1964, the Cable Route up Longs Peak can still be appreciated for its steep intensity.

Named for Nathan Meeker, the Indian Agent who was killed by Utes in an uprising at the White River Indian Agency in the fall of 1879, the town of Meeker was established soon after his death as a group of Army buildings. It was formally incorporated in 1885 and has developed into a hub for ranching and hunting in northwest Colorado.   

A reproduction of a sketch of soldiers surveying the damages after the fire and battle with the Ute people that broke out on September 29, 1879 at the White River Indian Agency. Nathan Meeker and his eight male employees were killed during the fighting, and his wife and daughter were taken hostage.

The small community of Meeker, Colorado sits 255 miles west of Denver, nestled close to the Flat Tops and adjacent to the White River. With a population of around 2,500, the area is primarily known for ranching, with cattle and sheep still being raised in large numbers in the pastoral meadows near Meeker.

This quite realistic pictograph of a tipi is part of a larger rock art panel at a rockshelter site in Las Animas County. Note the red painted band at the bottom of the lodge and the clearly defined smoke flaps painted in charcoal at the top.

Portrait of Richard Wetherill (1858-1910), the nineteenth-century rancher who stumbled across the ruins of Mesa Verde.

This photograph was taken by Gustaf Nordenskiöld during his initial investigations of the Mesa Verde region in 1891.

At 14,400 feet, Mount Elbert is the second-highest point in the contiguous United States and king of Colorado's "Fourteeners" - mountain peaks 14,000 feet or higher.

This brochure was published by the Council of Conservationists, one of the conservationist groups that united in the mid-1950s to halt the development of a proposed dam at Echo Park inside Dinosaur National Monument. In addition to advocating for preservation of the park's natural beauty, the brochure emphasizes the amount of money the dam would cost taxpayers and calls for readers to write members of Congress asking them to oppose the dam.

The Matchless Mine in Leadville, Colorado was one of many successful silver mines that helped propel Horace Tabor to fortune during the great silver boom. Silver prices plummeted and the Tabor's were financially ruined, but in 1899, as his dying wish, Horace reportedly told Baby Doe to "hold on to the Matchless."

Founded in the late nineteenth century as a mining town, Crestone experienced a rebirth in the twentieth century as a center of religious culture. With its assorted offerings of prayer flags and religious-themed art and jewelry, the Creative Trade gift shop reflects the modern soul of Crestone.

Chief Ouray, pictured here with his wife Chipeta, was one of the most influential leaders of the Northern Ute people in the late nineteenth century. A known intellectual and skilled diplomat, Ouray negotiated treaties and attempted to avoid conflict with whites wherever possible. 

The Colorado River drainage basin is shown in gray shading, with the river and major tributaries labeled. The portion of the drainage basin within the state boundaries of Colorado is shown with gray shading.

Looking downstream at the headwaters of the Colorado River in Rocky Mountain National Park. Here the Colorado meanders across a broad glacial valley bottom lined with wet meadows and beaver ponds. The orange conifers are infested by mountain pine beetles. The straight tan line on the hillslope at upper right is the Grand Ditch, which diverts water from the Colorado River across the continental divide and into Long Draw Reservoir and La Poudre Pass Creek, one of the headwaters of the South Platte River.

Below Glenwood Springs, the Colorado River enters the high desert of the Colorado Plateau. Flowing alternately across open plains and through canyons formed in orange-red sandstone, the river is turbid with suspended sediment. Cottonwoods line the river.

Originally named Colorado Agricultural College, Colorado State University was established under the Morrill Act of 1862, which granted land for the establishment of agricultural colleges throughout the country. CSU's Agricultural Extension Service is a legacy of the university's land-grant heritage and has played a major role in agricultural development in Colorado.

Nathan Meeker was determined to change the traditional horse culture of the Ute, and his patronizing treatment of the Ute helped set the stage for the Battle of Milk Creek and the Meeker Incident in 1879. Though killed in the conflict, the military buildings constructed to house troops along the White River soon became the town of Meeker.

Kivas were used by many Puebloan for religious rituals and other ceremonies. The kivas at Mesa Verde are mostly round, subterranean rooms , although there are some kivas built above the ground while others differ architecturally.

Cliff Canyon in Mesa Verde National Park is home to the Cliff House Sandstone, which can be seen in two cliffs beneath the broad, green mesa. Canyons such as this allowed for Puebloans to build their dwellings in the stone itself.

Chief Ouray and his wife, Chipeta (front row, right), travelled to Washington, DC, with Southern Utes to negotiate the treaty that would remove White River and Tabergauche Utes from Colorado following the Meeker incident. Chief Ouray passed away at the age of 47 shortly after the trip.

Before the construction of Camp Hale, the Eagle River meandered through the Pando Valley north of Leadville.

The construction of Camp Hale transformed the Pando Valley with the addition of about 1,000 buildings and 15,000 troops.

Training at Camp Hale included instruction in skiing techniques. This photo, a still from the film Mountain Fighters (1943), was taken at Camp Hale and depicts a demonstration in a side-step technique.

The Tenth Mountain Division was known for its white uniforms, meant to camouflage the soldiers in winter conditions.

After the Tenth Mountain Division left Camp Hale in late 1944, the camp’s buildings were dismantled and the materials sent to Fort Carson for reuse.

Since the army transferred Camp Hale to the White River National Forest in 1965, munitions cleanup and revegetation efforts have begun to return the Pando Valley to its prewar appearance.

With its symmetrical design and front porch supported by white columns, the Taylor House is often described as Southern in appearance.

The intricate woodwork in the Taylor House is done in mahogany from the Philippines and was supposedly dusted every day.

Ellis Meredith was a leading advocate for women’s suffrage in Colorado, which became the second state to grant women the vote in 1893.

Both men and women are lined up outside a polling station. Ellis Meredith, inspired by progressive women such as her mother, Emily Meredith, and Susan B. Anthony, fought for the right to vote for Colorado women, succeeding in 1893.

Crestone Needle (14,197 feet) and Crestone Peak (14,294 feet) seen from Humboldt Peak (14,064 feet). These neighboring Fourteeners are three of ten peaks above 14,000 feet in the Sangre de Cristo range.

At 14,115 feet, Pikes Peak acted as a beacon for many overland migrants, who used the distant landmark for navigation just as French trappers and native peoples had in the past. "Pikes Peak or Bust!" became a popular saying for those who migrated west seeking fortune or adventure in the nineteenth century.

The restored hydroelectric plant in Glenwood Springs now serves as the Glenwood Center for the Arts.

The Holly depot remained in operation for about seventy years, from 1912 until freight service ended in the early 1980s. The building now houses the town hall and library.

Silver deposits around Leadville made Horace Tabor (1830-99) into one of the wealthiest mining moguls in Colorado history. Clockwise from top left, this nineteenth-century sheet  features images of Tabor's house, a portrait of Tabor, the Tabor Block office building, and the Tabor Theater.

Horace Tabor had an extended affair with Elizabeth Bonduel McCourt, who came to be known as "Baby Doe" Tabor following their marriage in 1883.

The Hotel Jerome served as a popular local watering hole and boardinghouse during the “quiet years” between silver and skiing. Here the community celebrates the Fourth of July at the hotel in 1911.

Shown here in 1946, just as Aspen was being reborn after World War II, the Hotel Jerome witnessed the founding of the Aspen Institute and the Aspen Skiing Company.

The Hotel Jerome opened its new pool in 1950, as it was becoming a hot spot for skiers and movie stars alike.

The citizens of Rio Blanco County, Colorado erected these memorial markers in 1927 at the site of the White River Indian Agency where Nathan Meeker and eight of his employees were killed. A native granite stone with a bronze plaque was placed in memory of the men lost on September 29, 1879.

Designed by architect Sidney G. Frazier, the Beaux-Arts Greeley Tribune Building opened in 1929 and retains much of its original character today.

The Greeley Tribune Building housed the offices of the Tribune newspaper from 1929 to 1986. It is now the home of the Greeley History Museum.

Zalmon G. Simmons decided to finance the Manitou and Pikes Peak Cog Railway in 1889, and the track was opened in 1891.

Amity, Colorado, was at one point a trading post and stage station along the Santa Fe Trail. It is one of many examples of settlements that appeared along the trail in southeastern Colorado.

A photograph of buffalo hides stretched on the ground with men posed in the background reads "Dry Ridge at one time a settlement on the Santa Fe." The southern route of the Santa Fe Trail, the Cimarron Cutoff, contained many long, dry stretches between water sources.

Originally, the Ute people were organized into separate bands, or groups of families, that occupied territory recognized by the other bands. Although there were regional differences between bands, they were, and remain to be, tied together by cultural and spiritual practices, such as the Bear Dance.

Adolph Coors began brewing beer in Colorado in 1872; by the time this advertisement was printed in 1890, Coors was a millionaire.

Ponds at the Leadville National Fish Hatchery have raised trout for more than 125 years.

Located at the base of Mt. Massive near Leadville, the hatchery has been a tourist destination since its construction.

Indian Agent Samuel G. Colley stands in the upper left of this photo with interpreter William Simpson Smith. The white woman on the far right is thought to be Mary Todd Lincoln. The front row Indians are, left to right, War Bonnet (Cheyenne – killed at Sand Creek), Standing in the Water (Cheyenne - killed at Sand Creek), Lean Bear (Cheyenne – mistakenly killed by Colorado troops), Yellow Wolf (Kiowa). Second-row Indians are unidentified.

The gray shaded area indicates the land area reserved for the Cheyenne and Arapaho under the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie and managed by the Upper Arkansas Indian Agency. The black shaded area indicates the reduced land area reserved for the Cheyenne and Arapaho ten years later under the Treaty of Fort Wise, supervised by Samuel G. Colley.

Born in Bedford, NH, former Indian agent Samuel Gerish Colley (1807-90) died in Beloit, WI.

Collection of photos portraying the damage, of the Spring Creek Flood of 1997, on the CSU campus and surrounding Fort Collins areas.

Collection of photos portraying the damage, of the Spring Creek Flood of 1997, on the CSU campus and surrounding Fort Collins areas.

Collection of photos portraying the damage, of the Spring Creek Flood of 1997, on the CSU campus and surrounding Fort Collins areas.

Collection of photos portraying the damage, of the Spring Creek Flood of 1997, on the CSU campus and surrounding Fort Collins areas.

Collection of photos portraying the damage, of the Spring Creek Flood of 1997, on the CSU campus and surrounding Fort Collins areas.

Collection of photos portraying the damage, of the Spring Creek Flood of 1997, on the CSU campus and surrounding Fort Collins areas.

Collection of photos portraying the damage, of the Spring Creek Flood of 1997, on the CSU campus and surrounding Fort Collins areas.

Collection of photos portraying the damage, of the Spring Creek Flood of 1997, on the CSU campus and surrounding Fort Collins areas.

Collection of photos portraying the damage, of the Spring Creek Flood of 1997, on the CSU campus and surrounding Fort Collins areas.

Major Lafayette Head, standing sixth from right, with the delegation of Colorado Ute Indians as well as government officials in Washington, DC, to discuss the Treaty of 1868.

The distribution of Gateway tradition sites in relation to the Ancestral Puebloan and Fremont culture areas.

Photograph of a Gateway tradition masonry structure.

Plan maps of Gateway tradition stone structures showing the variability within this feature type. 

Lands granted to the Cheyenne and Arapaho peoples under the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie and 1861 Treaty of Fort Wise.

Opened in 1908 at Fourteenth and Curtis, it hosted free concerts, automobile shows, Boy Scouts gatherings, and the 1908 Democratic National Convention. 

Now considered a National Historical Landmark, the park was the centerpiece of Mayor Robert Speer’s City Beautiful park system.

Unlike visitors to New York’s Central Park, people were encouraged to play in the fountains and pools in Denver’s parks.  

Some farmers in the San Luis Valley still irrigate their fields with water from acequias—community-operated ditches with origins that reach back to Moorish Spain. Colorado’s rich water history has left a legacy of water-related culture and laws throughout the American West.

The Colorado River and its tributaries, including the Eagle River shown here, are vital resources that support agriculture, industry, cities, recreation, and the environment on the West Slope and the East Slope of the state of Colorado, as well as in eighteen downstream states and Mexico. Unlimited demands on limited water supplies can result in conflict—but can also lead to collaborative agreements. With population growth and climate change projected to create a widening gap between water supply and demand, compromise between competing parties becomes increasingly important.

The gray trees in this picture are lodgepole pine killed by mountain pine beetle. This picture was taken near Willow Creek Pass in north-central Colorado in 2012, approximately ten years after the outbreak began in this area.

Enhanced outcrop cairn type, located in South Park. This is one of several cairn types located on a vision quest site. It might have been associated with a particular clan within a tribe.

Cairn with upright rock, located In South Park. As with the enhanced outcrop, it is yet
another cairn type, perhaps associated with a social subset of a tribe.

Arc feature in South Park, opening to the east. This is a typical arc, most likely
associated with the vision quest ritual.

Arc feature in South Park, opening to the southeast. Another typical arc, associated
with the vision quest. Its orientation is slightly different than the previous photograph, but the reason is unknown.

Before the late 1930s, Akron's main gymnasium was located in the basement of the Washington County High School. Eugene Groves was selected to design an aboveground gymnasium as an addition to the high school in 1936.

The gymnasium's original structure has seen few major modifications, though it no longer serves as the high school gym.

The American Legion Hall, also known as the Kiowa County Fairgrounds Community Building, was completed in 1938 as one of six New Deal projects in Eads during the Great Depression. The building is still used by the American Legion and the county fair, as well as serving as a popular place for community gatherings.

Established in 1875 at an elevation of about 11,200 feet, Animas Forks flourished in the late 1870s and early 1880s on the strength of speculative mining investments. It has been a ghost town since the 1920s.

Before the railroad arrived in Silverton in 1882, Animas Forks served as a regional center for commerce and mail. It had general stores, boarding houses, a jail, a newspaper, and a grand hotel called the Kalamazoo House.

The ghost town of Animas Forks annually attracts about 250,000 visitors who see it along the four-wheel-drive Alpine Loop Scenic Byway. The site includes nine buildings that are still standing as well as the foundations of roughly thirty other structures.

In 1879 William Duncan built a two-story wood-frame house in Animas Forks. In 2013–14 it received a comprehensive restoration as part of a site-wide stabilization project overseen by the Mountain Studies Institute.

In its first decade as a mining camp, Breckenridge developed a rocky Main Street lined by log buildings.

During the silver boom of the 1880s, Breckenridge developed into a bustling town full of mines, saloons, and shops.

After the silver crash of 1893, Breckenridge survived thanks to the dredging operations that unearthed nearly 150,000 ounces of gold from 1910 to 1923.

The last dredge operating in Breckenridge proceeded straight through town before it shut down in 1942, destroying vegetation and buildings as it went.

In the 1940s and 1950s, many historic buildings in Breckenridge were torn down for firewood or to reduce their owners’ taxes.

The opening of the Breckenridge Ski Area in 1961 brought new development as well as new resources for preserving historic buildings.

Annual reunions have taken place on the anniversary of the Battle of Beecher Island for more than 100 years, attracting hundreds of people.

The story of army scouts stranded for days on Beecher Island has inspired artistic recreations such as this 1926 painting by Robert Lindneux.

Boggsville began when Thomas Boggs built his adobe house along the Purgatoire River in 1866.

John W. Prowers arrived in Boggsville in 1867 and built a large two-story house that served at various times as a general store, stagecoach station, county office, and school. Only the south section of the house is still standing.

The Boston bachelor James Lee acquired the Boggsville site in the late 1880s and established San Patricio Ranch there, with 800 hundred cattle and 1,000 horses.

Since 1953 the White River community has used the Buford School for dances, events, and other social gatherings, including the White River Community Association’s annual fish fry fundraiser.

Hackberry Springs has been used and occupied by humans for thousands of years. Rock art adorning the site bears a resemblance to similar to Navajo petroglyphs found in the Gobernador Canyon area in northern New Mexico. 

Constructed in 1935, the Colorado Women's Prison was converted into the Museum of Colorado Prisons in 1988 after years of vacancy and a community effort to restore the property. The museum features unique exhibits in each of the thirty original cells.

Constructed in 1914, the Crowley School served as a schoolhouse until the late 1970s.

Designed by Denver architect Montana Fallis, the Egyptian Theatre in Delta opened in 1928. It is best known as the site where the Depression-era "Bank Night" promotion began.

After falling into disrepair in the 1960s and 1970s, the Egyptian Theatre received an extensive restoration in the 1990s. Upon completion of the project, the theater held a special screening, complete with a Bank Night drawing during intermission.

Fort Garland operated as a US Army post in the San Luis Valley from 1858 to 1883 as part of the conquest of the region. Troops from the fort set out to punish Indigenous resistance to invading Hispano and Anglo-American colonists.

The Colorado Historical Society (now History Colorado) bought Fort Garland in the 1940s and opened it as a regional museum in 1950.

Established in 1835 by Louis Vasquez and Andrew Sublette, Fort Vasquez operated for seven years as a fur-trading post along the South Platte River. The decaying fort was reconstructed in the 1930s. The Colorado Historical Society (now History Colorado) acquired the building in 1958 and opened it as a regional museum in 1964.

The Fort Vasquez Museum received a major restoration in 2005. The grounds now include a life-size bison sculpture by local artist Stephen C. LeBlanc.

The Grand Hall at Lorraine Lodge, built with local stone and wood, features a cathedral-style ceiling and walk-in fireplace.

In recent decades Jefferson County has renovated Boettcher Mansion and made it into a popular venue for conferences and weddings.

The Carriage House originally functioned as a three-car garage, with servants’ quarters upstairs. Now it is used for smaller events and meetings.

The Matchless Mine was located on Fryer Hill east of Leadville, which was a bustling mining district in the late 1800s.

After Horace Tabor died in 1899, his widow, Elizabeth "Baby Doe" Tabor, spent the last three decades of her life trying to retain ownership of the Matchless Mine.

Baby Doe Tabor lived her final years in this spare eighteen-by-twenty-four cabin at the Matchless Mine outside Leadville, shown here after its restoration in 1953.

In 1953 the nonprofit Leadville Assembly restored the Matchless Mine and opened it to the public as a museum.

In 1892 James G. Milne built a two-bedroom brick farmhouse on his land in Weld County. There have been several additions through the years, but the original interior remains largely intact. The farmhouse is now one of the last old farmhouses in the Lucerne area.

Originally built with a traditional flat roof, the church at San Acacio added a pitched roof and a new cupola during renovations in the early twentieth century.

The church at San Acacio, which was founded in the 1850s or 1860s, is generally considered the oldest continuously used European-American religious space in Colorado.

Completed in 1941, the Main Hospital Building was intended to be the best and most modern tuberculosis treatment center in the United States. Its design was intended to maximize patients' access to sunshine and fresh air.

The Main Hospital Building featured Art Deco details, such as the rounded corner and lighting in the post office. The 290,000-square-foot building also included two large dining rooms, a gym, an officers' clubroom, and a library.

After Fitzsimons was closed in 1996, the former army hospital became home to the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, pictured here, and the adjacent Fitzsimons Innovation Campus, a medical research park.

The plaza was designed as a U-shaped building around a central courtyard, with all the doors and windows facing the courtyard to make the building harder to attack. It originally had a fence on the east side as well as a small entrance to the courtyard on the north side, pictured here.

The town of La Veta acquired the plaza and in 1958 opened it to the public as a museum. Today the Huerfano County Historical Society operates the Francisco Fort Museum, which is open during the summer.

Large numbers of Russian German immigrants were recruited as agricultural laborers to northeastern Colorado in the early twentieth century.

Sugar beet cultivation in northeastern Colorado played a large role in the lives of many Russian German immigrants.

The dry climate has helped portions of the flume survive for more than 125 years. Most portions that remain are not completely intact. The brackets and floors are still there, but the sidewalls have fallen away.

Fort Collins wood scientist Ron Anthony has led a revival of interest in the hanging flume. In 2006 the nonprofit World Monuments Fund placed the flume on its "100 Most Endangered Sites" list.

Carl Howelsen chose the location of Howelsen Hill because the terrain made it perfect for ski jumping.

Howelsen Hill recently celebrated its 100th anniversary. In addition to its jumping complex, the ski area also features downhill skiing and miles of Nordic trails.

Before the completion of the Jackson County Courthouse in 1913, county records were stored at the C. E. Mosman Store in Walden.

The Jackson County Courthouse is the most important building in the county and still serves most county functions.

In 1952 the Denver Jewish Community Center bought a ranch in Elbert County and started to use it the next year for a new Jewish summer camp called JCC Ranch Camp. It is set on 388 acres in the rolling hills of the Black Forest.

The JCC director who acquired the ranch described the camp as "an unusual project which combines an American western ranching program with Jewish content and a kosher kitchen."

JCC Ranch Camp celebrates Saturday morning services at a site called Eddie's Corner. The camp continues to host 500 or more campers each summer, including second-generation campers whose parents attended in the 1950s and 1960s.

The first town of Julesburg was founded at an important crossing of the South Platte River. In January 1865 Native Americans raided the town and burned it to the ground.

The second town of Julesburg was established on the south side of the South Platte River after the first town of Julesburg was burned to the ground. The town was abandoned in 1867 when residents learned that the Union Pacific Railroad planned to follow the north shore of the river.

The fourth town of Julesburg was established in 1886 when Union Pacific built a branch that connected the transcontinental line to Denver. The original depot was constructed from wood and served the community until 1929, when a new brick building was commissioned.

On June 6, 1947, a tornado hit the town of Julesburg. The tornado tore off part of the rail depot's roof before doubling back and destroying sections of the sidewalls. The depot remained open during the extensive repairs, and pieces of brick and tile from where the building had collapsed were reused in the reconstruction.

After Amtrak assumed control over passenger services nationwide, Union Pacific considered demolishing the Julesburg station and replacing it with a smaller modular building. The city, along with citizens and the Fort Sedgwick Historical Society, moved the building 110 feet to the north, where it now serves as the Depot Museum.

New Deal projects carried out between 1933 and 1941 transformed La Junta City Park from a poorly drained park into the city's top outdoor recreation space. The Works Progress Administration originally planned to build four lakes in the park, but a large flood in 1937 caused the WPA to reduce the number of lakes to just one.

For the park's walls and buildings, the WPA quarried stone from a site near Higbee, just south of La Junta. In all its work, the WPA emphasized local materials and labor-intensive, handcrafted construction in order to maximize wages and minimize other expenses.

During its two main phases of work, the WPA built new walks, driveways, perimeter walls, tennis courts, restrooms, and benches in La Junta City Park. The basic layout of the park has not changed since the WPA completed its improvements in 1941.

Recent additions to the park, including the sunken skate park (2003), have generally enhanced the park's functionality without substantially altering the WPA's design.

Established as a Du Pont company town in the early 1900s, Louviers Village was planned as a model community to attract long-term employees for the company's nearby dynamite plant. Du Pont sold the town in the early 1960s.

Louviers Village had three sections: the Triangle (small cottages), the Quadrangle (larger houses), and Capital Hill (management housing). Originally none of the roads had formal names; houses were known simply by company-assigned numbers.

Ralph Richardson's family lived in the Flats (or Triangle) section of Louviers Village. Workers usually stayed at Louviers for their whole career, and families often had more than one member working at the plant.

Completed in 1912, Capital Hill consisted of four large houses on a hill overlooking the rest of Louviers. These houses were reserved for upper management and the company doctor.

The Hanging Bridge, spanning the Royal Gorge's most narrow section. The narrowness of the canyon en route the the rich minefields of Leadville, Colorado was the cause of the corporate feud that became known as the Royal Gorge War.

The first sightseeing train of many to travel through the Royal Gorge in its long history as a premier tourist destination in Colorado.

The Royal Gorge Bridge spans 1,260 feet and is situated 1,053 above the Arkansas River, making it the highest suspension bridge in the United States. Since its opening in 1929, the Royal Gorge Bridge and Amusement Park has seen more than 25 million visitors.

Completed in 1938, the Englewood post office was the first federal building in Englewood and the only federal building constructed in Englewood as part of the New Deal. Its location on South Broadway helped push the city to grow north toward Denver.

Sod homestead of settlers on the Plains in the 1870s or 1880s.

Cabin near Gillett, Colorado ca. 1894-1900.

Staking out a Homestead near Craig, Colorado, 1913-1915.

Video portrays the destruction of the Spring Creek Flood of 1997.

At 14,259 feet, Longs Peak is the tallest mountain and only fourteener in Rocky Mountain National Park. The peak is named for Major Stephen Long, who is said to be the first to spot the great mountains on behalf of the U.S. Government on June 30, 1820.

Lake Helene is located 3.15 miles from the Bear Lake Trailhead in Rocky Mountain National Park.

From middle of July to the first week of August is the best time to see wildflowers around Crested Butte - Wildflower Capital of Colorado. This photo was taken on Deer Creek Trail between Mt. Crested Butte and Gothic.

Mantle’s Cave, located in Dinosaur National Monument, is an important archaeological site containing well-preserved artifacts from the Fremont period, about 1,000 years ago.

Central portion of Mantle’s Cave showing four storage cists built against rocks in the foreground.

Cluster of twenty-six earthen cists on the western end of Mantle's Cave.

Typical earthen cist with its sandstone slab cover adjacent.

Coursed masonry cist built on a large slab fallen from the cave roof.

Colorado National Monument near Grand Junction encompasses more than 20,000 acres of spectacular canyons and rock formations.

At 14,157 feet, Mt. Sneffels is the highest peak in the Sneffels Range and the highest point in Ouray County. It is named after the Icelandic volcano Snæfell, which was featured in Jules Verne's novel A Journey to the Center of the Earth.

Much of Colorado was once covered by an ancient seafloor. The vertical red rocks at places like Roxborough State Park, west of Denver, or the Flatirons west of Boulder, are dramatic remnants of that seafloor, pushed up along with the rest of the Rocky Mountains some 65 million years ago.

From late July to first two weeks of August is the best time to visit Shrine Pass by Vail Pass.

Direction: From I-70, take exit 190, follow Shrine Pass Rd / CO 709.  Drive about 2.3 miles, a parking lot is on the left. Follow the trail to the top of pass.

For more information about the trail, please visit Shrine Mountain Trail #2016

Lake Helene can be accessed from the Bear Lake Trailhead in Rocky Mountain National Park. Round trip 6.3 miles. Star-end Elevation: 9,475' - 10,643'

A symbol of the Colorado high country, the quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) is so named because its distinctive round leaves flutter in the wind. Aspen groves share a single root structure, making them among the world's largest living organisms, and their brilliant fall foliage brings thousands of tourists to the high country every year.

At 12,965 feet, Mt. Sopris towers over the Roaring Fork and Crystal River valleys and the nearby towns of Redstone, Carbondale, and Basalt. The mountain is named for Richard Sopris, mayor of Denver from 1878 to 1881 and member of the first European party to explore the Roaring Fork Valley.

Mountain goats, such as the ones shown here grazing on the slopes of Mt. Evans, are not native to Colorado. The Mt. Evans goat population was introduced by Colorado Parks and Wildlife beginning in the 1950s. The animals are most commonly seen on rocky cliffs above timberline.

This picture was taken above Lake Haiyaha. From Bear Lake Trailhead, hiked to Nymph Lake via a winter route along Chaos Creek, passed Lake Haiyaha, continued to Chaos Tarn.

Lake Isabelle is located 2.1 miles from Long Lake Trailhead in the Brainard Lake Recreation Area in Boulder County.  It is an easy and family friendly hike. It is not a natural lake but a reservoir. It is drained every year in late July to early August, so be sure to call the Boulder Ranger District 303-541-2500 before your hike.

Moose can often be seen in Brainard Lake Recreation Area. In the 1970s, there were hardly any moose in Colorado. In 1978, they were reintroduced to Colorado by Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Since then, moose have thrived and expanded to other parts of Colorado.

Aspen, Colorado at its height just before the Silver Panic of 1893 sent the town into sharp decline

A view of Aspen from the first chairlift installed on Aspen Mountain in 1947. At the time, this was the longest chairlift in the world, aiding to Aspen's legendary status as a premier skiing location.

Aspen dwellers celebrate the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad finally reaching the town on November 2, 1887. After the rail lines appeared, mining companies could economically export mineral ore to the smelters located in Leadville, Colorado and Aspen witnessed spectacular growth.

The Lowry pueblo is an Ancestral Puebloan ruin with thirty-seven rooms, eight kivas, and one Great Kiva. It dates to around 1100 CE and could have had several dozen residents at its height.

The initial core of the pueblo consisted of four rooms and possibly two kivas, to which more rooms and kivas were added over several decades. The pueblo might have had multiple stories, though probably no more than three.

The Great Kiva stands apart from the main pueblo at Lowry. Since 2000 the entire site has been part of Canyons of the Ancients National Monument.

In the 1910s the Colorado Yule Marble Company supplied the marble for the Lincoln Memorial, whose architect wanted the purest, whitest marble available.

In 1931 the quarry at Marble cut the large marble blocks used for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. The marble developed a crack in the mid-twentieth century but was recently repaired.

Construction on Rim Rock Drive began in November 1931 and accelerated in 1933, when New Deal agencies such as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) started to work on the road. The first CCC workers arrived in May 1933.

Saguache grew during a period of prosperity in the early twentieth century, reaching a population of 1,200 in 1940.

Originally built in 1880, the Saguache County Bank received a new classical revival façade in 1913 designed by Denver architect John J. Huddart.

As Saguache continued to develop, new buildings were constructed to accommodate the increasing population and prosperity. Built in 1910, the Saguache County Courthouse was designed by John J. Huddart, the Denver architect who also designed the Saguache County Bank's updated façade.

Long a vibrant commercial district in Saguache, Fourth Street still has a core of historic buildings and was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2014.

An early Edison electric plant built in 1887, the Salida Steam Plant was converted into a theater and event center in 1989. The façade still boasts the names of the Salida Steam Plant and the Public Service Company of Colorado.

The Arkansas River began flowing during the uplift of the Rockies some 3 million years ago. Over centuries, as the mountains pushed farther upward, the river carved the spectacular, 1,250-foot Royal Gorge.

This L-shaped kettle house produced salt for Charles Hall’s Colorado Salt Works in the 1860s. Much of the building still stands, but the chimney collapsed in the 1990s.

Located in Park County, the Salt Works Ranch still operates as a Centennial Farm under the ownership of Charles Hall's descendants. The salt works buildings have become a part of the ranch landscape.

Donated to the Colorado Historical Society (now History Colorado) in the 1930s, this kettle was one of the earliest kettles used by the Colorado Salt Works in South Park in the early 1860s.

Perched on the edge of a 400-foot cliff above Bridal Veil Falls near Telluride, the Smuggler-Union Hydroelectric Plant was built in 1907 to power the Smuggler-Union Mining Company's mines and mills. Today it produces sustainable energy for the town of Telluride.

The Smuggler-Union Hydroelectric Plant was built to power the company's main mill at Pandora, about 2,000 feet below Bridal Veil Falls.

Horse racing was one of the most popular events at the state fair in the early twentieth century, but rodeo sports eventually became more popular and displaced the races.

In the late 1880s the state fair was held at Mineral Palace Park in Pueblo. In 1890 the State Fair Association sold the site and moved the state fair to a new location west of Lake Minnequa.

The fair added more substantial facilities in the 1920s and 1930s, when it received greatly increased state and federal funding.

The Montrose Placer Mining Company completed the hanging flume in Dolores Canyon in 1891. The flume operated for only a few years, but portions of it still hang from the canyon's sandstone walls.

In 1918 Fitzsimons General Hospital was established east of Denver to treat soldiers infected with tuberculosis during World War I. Soon it grew to eighty-six buildings and a capacity of 1,400 patients.

Channing Meek founded the Colorado Yule Marble Company in 1905 and opened the company’s large marble mill in 1907.

The Colorado Yule Marble Company cut some of the largest blocks of marble ever quarried, including a 124-ton block that was used for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Stone from the Colorado Yule Marble Company’s quarry had to be hauled four miles to the company’s mill for finishing and shipping.

After marble was hauled from the quarry to the mill, workers cut and finished the stone. Workers in this section of the mill polished the stone by hand.

Marble’s quarries faced nearly insurmountable transportation problems until Channing Meek built the Crystal River and San Juan Railroad in 1906, allowing marble to be shipped quickly and cheaply out of the Crystal River Valley.

The redbrick Bent County Courthouse was designed in a Victorian Institutional style. It has been in continuous use since March 1889.

Designed by Denver architect Robert Roeschlaub, the Central City Opera House opened in March 1878. It briefly made Central City the cultural capital of Colorado.

The Central City Opera House was restored in the early 1930s and became home to the Central City Opera Festival. The festival flourished in the 1950s, but maintenance costs and declining attendance caused a financial crisis in the 1970s.

The opera house interior originally featured five ceiling paintings depicting classical motifs by the San Francisco artist John C. Massman. The ceiling paintings and chandelier were restored in the early 1930s with the help of Colorado muralist Allen True.

The Central City Opera Festival staged its first performance, a production of Camille starring the silent-movie star Lillian Gish, in July 1932. The director, Robert Edmond Jones, asked the audience to wear 1870s clothing to evoke the opera house's early days. The opera festival is now the second-oldest summer opera company in the United States.

The Colorado Territorial Penitentiary was constructed in 1869 and opened in June 1871 in Cañon City. It became the Colorado State Penitentiary, which has been located in the area ever since. The prison housed its first female inmate in 1873, but by 1884 the number of incarcerated women grew to six, prompting the construction of a separate women's prison within the penitentiary grounds.

In the early twentieth century, conditions in the women's prison were generally considered above average for a prison. Inmates were allowed to work in the prison's flower and vegetable gardens, and volunteers from outside the prison came to teach sewing, music, and other skills.

Inmates usually spent their time doing the domestic work necessary to keep the prison functioning, such as cooking, cleaning and laundry.

The hot water in Pagosa Springs bubbles up from more than 6,000 feet below the earth's surface, where it is warmed by residual heat from ancient volcanic activity in the area.

Today the hot springs attract 175,000 visitors annually. They also power a geothermal heating system that heats fifteen buildings, including the town hall and local schools.

The Peck House was at its height at the end of the nineteenth century, when it was run by Frank Peck and his wife (identified as “F. L. Peck” and “Mrs. F. L. Peck” on the left side of the porch).

The Peck House fell into disrepair after World War I and was even converted into apartments during the hard times of the 1930s.

After Louise Harrison and Margaret Collbran bought the Peck House in 1956, they rehabilitated it and built a large addition. They reopened the hotel in 1958 as “Hotel Spendide.”

Zebulon Montgomery Pike, the American explorer for whom Pikes Peak is named, led an expedition through the southwestern portion of the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase in 1806-7. Pike was later killed in the Battle of York during the War of 1812.

Buggies and people with umbrellas gather around a likeness of Zebulon Pike erected for the 25th anniversary of Colorado's statehood, in front of the Antlers Hotel, Colorado Springs, El Paso County, Colorado. The plaster statue succumbed to the elements soon after it was made.

Map of 1806-07 Lt. Zebulon Pike's Southwestern Expedition wayside marker

When the Colorado Territory was formed in 1861, Summit County covered nearly the entire northwest quarter of the state. Today it occupies 619 square miles in mountainous central Colorado.

The Tenmile Range features some of the tallest peaks in Summit County, including Quandary Peak, the thirteenth-highest mountain in the state. This photo of the range was taken along Swan Mountain Road on the southeast side of Dillon Reservoir.

The Reiling Dredge began extracting gold from French Gulch, east of Breckenridge, in 1909. When it sank in 1922, its operators chose to leave the wreckage behind. Today, it is has been deemed one of Colorado's Most Endangered Historic Places.

A Ute tipi camp near Denver, 1874. Note the pegs used to secure the base of the lodge in the foreground. William Henry Jackson photograph, History Colorado collections.

Conical lodge frames or wickiups may have been covered with skins, brush, bark, or other materials. This tipi-like framework of poles is preserved in an old-growth forest in Montrose County, Colorado.

The Keota Stone Circles Archaeological District in Weld County is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Scores of roughly circular “tipi rings” such as this one have been documented there.

The Barlow and Sanderson Stagecoach is a mud wagon like those that operated on the Barlow and Sanderson lines in the San Luis Valley in the 1870s and 1880s. The Barlow and Sanderson Stagecoach was acquired by the Monte Vista Commercial Club sometime before 1947 and donated to the Colorado Historical Society in 1959.

After being housed for years in History Colorado's Fort Garland Museum, the stagecoach is now in Monte Vista.

Stagecoaches were used to transport mail, freight, and people between towns prior to the rapid expansion of the railroad in the 1870s and 1880s. By the early 1880s Barlow and Sanderson stagecoaches were primarily operating between mining camps in the San Juan Mountains.

The Barlow and Sanderson Stagecoach in Monte Vista was initially mistaken as a Concord, a popular model made by Abbott, Downing, and Company. It was later determined that the Barlow and Sanderson Stagecoach was actually an Abbott, Downing "mud wagon," designed to be smaller, lighter, and lower to the ground.

Born into slavery in 1822, Barney Ford eventually became one of the most prominent businessmen in Colorado, with diverse holdings that included restaurants, hotels, and mining investments.

After being run out of Breckenridge and working as a barber in Denver, Ford built the People’s Restaurant on Blake Street in 1863. The building has been altered significantly since Ford’s time, but the interior bricks and the columns along the front façade are thought to be original.

In 1880 Ford moved to Breckenridge, where a popular restaurant and wise mining investments quickly made him wealthy. In 1882 he built an elegant house for his family on Washington Avenue.

A stained glass window in the State Capitol honors Ford for his many contributions to Colorado in business and civic affairs.

Pictured here before recent renovations, the Barney Ford Building (originally home to Ford’s People’s Restaurant) is one of the few buildings associated with Ford still standing in Denver. The interior bricks and the columns across the façade are thought to be original.

In 1880 Ford moved to Breckenridge, where a popular restaurant and wise mining investments quickly made him wealthy. In 1882 he built an elegant house for his family on Washington Avenue.

Born into slavery in 1822, Ford made his way to freedom and eventually became one of the most successful businessmen in Colorado. The People’s Restaurant, which opened on Blake Street in 1863, helped launch his career.

The Barney Ford Building has been renovated at least twice since the early 1980s, resulting in a new interior and the enclosure of the formerly open portico with large windows. The building is now home to a restaurant and offices.

The Bent County Courthouse opened in 1889 and is now the oldest functioning courthouse in Colorado.

Now more than 125 years old, the Bent County Courthouse has benefited from several restoration efforts since the 1990s and received the Governor's Award for Historic Preservation in 2010.

Tourist examine the Wall of Bones from the second floor of the Quarry Building at Dinosaur National Monument on April 4th 2012.

Lake County, home to Colorado's highest mountains, is located in central Colorado.

The American Beet Sugar Company built the Rocky Ford Factory in 1901.

A Colorado sugar beet field between 1900 and 1910.

A young man helps load sugar beets in Northern Colorado, c. 1920

Inside the boiler room of the Great Western Sugar Company's factory in Fort Collins, c. 1905.

Benito Gonzáles and Francisca and Francisco García worked in Greeley beet fields in the 1920s.

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Designed by the architecture firm Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill and completed in 1963, the Air Force Academy's Cadet Chapel won the American Institute of Architects' Twenty-Five Year Award in 1996.

Bottles of mustard gas were among the hazardous materials held at the Pueblo Chemical Weapons Depot from 1942 to 1996, when the facility served as a weapons storage site. Today, mustard gas shells, along with other dangerous projectiles stored at the site, are currently being destroyed  at the Pueblo Chemical Agent Destruction Pilot Plant.

As of November 4, 2015, the Pueblo Chemical Agent Destruction Pilot Plant has destroyed more than 400 hazardous objects, including projectiles, mortar rounds, and mustard agent bottles.

Garfield County, established in 1883, covers 2,956 square miles of Colorado's Western Slope.

One of Colorado's original seventeen counties, Weld County covers 4,017 square miles in northeastern Colorado and is home to more than 250,000 people.

Adams County, located just north of Denver, is home to more than 440,000 Coloradans.

Adams County was named for Alva Adams, the fifth, tenth, and fourteenth governor of Colorado.
 

This photo shows the South Plants of the Rocky Mountain Arsenal chemical complex, about ten miles northeast of Denver, in 1970. The US Army built the facility in 1942 to manufacture chemical weapons; in 1952, Shell Oil began leasing the south plants to  manufacturers of fertilizers and pesticides.

Arapahoe County, named for the Arapaho people, covers 805 square miles and is home to more than 572,000 Coloradans.

Boulder County, in north central Colorado, encompasses 740 square miles of diverse geography, including mountains, plains, and foothills. It is home to nearly 300,000 Coloradans.

Otero County, located along the Arkansas River in southeast Colorado, encompasses 1,270 square miles and has a population of 18,831.

Bent County, named for the famous nineteenth-century trader William Bent, lies along the Arkansas River in southeast Colorado.

Located in Colorado's southeastern corner, Baca County covers 2,557 square miles. An agricultural county, Baca County was hit hard during the Dust Bowl (1934-40).

Gunnison County, named for the western explorer John W. Gunnison, was established in 1877.

Moffat County, formed in 1911, is named for railroad mogul David Moffat.

Ouray County in southwestern Colorado is named for Chief Ouray, one of the most prominent leader of the Tabeguache Utes in the nineteenth century.

Yankee Boy Basin is an alpine basin in the Uncompahgre National Forest of Ouray County. From mid-July to early August, the basin offers spectacular wildflower displays. Country Road 361 (high-clearance vehicles recommended) runs from the town of Ouray to the basin. At the basin the road turns into a hiking trail that leads to Mt Sneffels (14,150 feet), the fourth tallest peak in the San Juan Mountains.

Pitkin County, established in 1881, is home to some of Colorado's most popular tourist destinations, including Aspen and the Maroon Bells.

Larimer County straddles the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains in north central Colorado.

U. S. states and territories prior to the establishment of the Colorado Territory.

U. S. states and territories after the establishment of the Colorado Territory.

The Astor House was a popular meeting place for territorial officials. The building still stands on 12th St. in Golden, where it is now a house museum.

This documentary surveys the history, significance, and contemporary issues facing the Denver Mountain Parks.

Artist’s conceptual image of Juan Rivera shown dressed in period costume, including a three-cornered hat, which probably demonstrated to Native Americans Rivera’s rank as a representative of the governor of New Mexico.

Juan Rivera and his company trading with the Tabeguache Utes at Pissochi near present-day Naturita, Colorado in the fall of 1765.

General path of the Rivera expedition through western Colorado in 1765.

Studio portrait of Buckskin Charlie Chief of the Southern Utes in wool coat and cap, wearing braids.

Studio portrait of Chief Buckskin Charley and wife To-wee or Tee-Wee (Emma Naylor Buck). To-wee wears a buckskin dress, concho belt, beaded necklace, large earrings and beaded moccasins. Buckskin Charley wears a cloth shirt with hair locks and beaded moccasins. He wears the Rutherford Hayes Indian Peace Medal and carries a catlinite pipe and beaded pipe bag.

Cabinet photo of Buckskin Charley and Emma Buck’s sons in traditional Ute dress. Antonia Buck is standing and Julian Buck is seated.

Studio portrait of Buckskin Charley in traditional dress with 4-winds cross and Rutherford Hayes Indian Peace Medal.

Three Ute chiefs standing in front of a teepee. Seated is Chief Buckskin Charley (Moache), to his right is Chief Ignacio (Weeminuche) and to his left is Severo (Caputa). Severo and Ignacio wear Indian Police badges.

Group of seven males, three females and a child in traditional Ute dress standing in front of teepees, probably near Ignacio, Colorado. Chief Buckskin Charley is fifth from left, Severo is sixth from left, and Emma Buck is eighth from left. Presumably this is Buckskin Charley’s family.

Southern Ute Chief Buckskin Charley on horseback wearing overalls, boots and a western hat.

Pair of beaded moccasins (ca. 1880) presumably belonging to Buckskin Charley and given as gift to Issakson family.

The city of Fort Collins began as an army camp in 1862-64. This nineteenth-century sketch of the city looks southwest, with the Cache la Poudre River in the foreground and Longs Peak in the background.
 

Visitors enter Rocky Mountain National Park via US Route 34 in Beaver Meadows, in southwestern Larimer County.

Kiva and room block from the Puzzle House site in Montezuma County.

Ute and Arapaho Native Americans hunted in the area of present-day Estes Park before the town was established by Enos Mills in 1860.

The Turquoise or Squash Kiva at Santo Domingo Pueblo, Sandoval County, New Mexico.

Anticipating attacks by Spaniards or Indians, US explorer Zebulon Pike and his men built a stockade like this one in southern Colorado in 1807.

Zebulon Pike climbed this 600-foot butte adjacent to his camp in early February 1807. The wooded Rio Conejos winds through the foreground. Blanca Peak looms in background, just south of the prominent dip in the horizon that marks Medano Pass, where Pike entered the San Luis Valley.

Pike and his men lined the inside of their stockade with sharpened posts called pickets.

The Rio Conejos runs near the Stockade.

Gathering at Pike Stockade, c. 1940s.

Pike Stockade with Sierro del Ojito in background.

The Pike's Stockade grounds are closed during the winter months but are open to the public and tour groups from Memorial Day weekend to September 30.

The famous American photographer, W.G. Chamberlain, took this photo of the southern Arkansas River, a large portion of which flows through Browns Canyon National Monument.

 White-water rafters haul their boat down a series of steps at the Fisherman’s Bridge put-in on the Arkansas River.

The Arkansas River Fly Shop and Guide Service in Salida sells hundreds of brilliantly colored and patterned flies.

GIS map of Colorado illustrating the Overland and other trails.

1867 General Land Office “exterior boundaries” plat.  Green arrow indicates location of the original Overland Trail (pre-1864), and the red arrows point to the “Cut-off” trail route (post-1864). Higher resolution: www.glorecords.blm.gov/details/survey/default.aspx?dm_id=186783&sid=0bzquvdh.omx&surveyDetailsTabIndex=1

A Concord Coach stands in front of a building that is probably a stage station. Note the African American soldiers atop the vehicle. The figure with the long beard (wearing light-colored trousers) resembles Ben Holladay.

This photo of Carson was taken two months before his death in Boggsville, Colorado.

Humerous short film featuring HCN's Paonia headquarters, many HCN staff, and a bit of Paonia's quirky culture.

Fort Lyon with tents outside, c. 1862-64.

Ute people at the Southern Ute Agency at Ignacio, about 1890.

Ute encampment in the Uncompahgre Valley near the Los Pinos Agency, ca. 1878-1881.

Designed by Robert Roeschlaub, the Cheyenne County Jail was completed in 1894 and served the county until the early 1960s. The tower allowed the sheriff to overlook the jail cells.

After the 1870s, the success of cattle and coal led Trinidad to a five-decade period of economic prosperity during which many impressive civic, commercial, and residential buildings were constructed.

In 1882 the Jaffa brothers, prominent Jewish merchants in Trinidad, built a 700-seat opera house at the town's main intersection. The opera house is now part of the Corazon de Trinidad National Historic District, which includes many historic buildings downtown.

Constructed by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in the late 1930s, the Manitou Experimental Forest Station's stone administrative complex north of Woodland Park is considered some of the WPA's best work in Colorado. The experimental forest continues to conduct research on watershed protection and resource management.

After declining in the 1950s, the Rossonian Hotel has been the focus of several major redevelopment efforts since the 1980s. As of 2016, Sage Hospitality plans to expand the building and turn it into a luxury hotel and condominium complex.

Now one of only two "mile houses" in the Denver area that still exist in their entirety, Seventeen Mile House is owned by Arapahoe County and preserved as part of an open-space park.

Born in Maine, Stanley came to Colorado after he was diagnosed with tuberculosis at fifty-four. He recovered quickly, but not before driving to the Estes Valley in 1903 and deciding to build a house and a grand resort hotel in Estes Park.

The Stanley Hotel struggled in the late twentieth century but has been revitalized since the 1990s. Owner John Cullen has invested millions of dollars in upgrades and improvements, including several new buildings planned to open in 2016–17.

Colorado artist Allen True painted thirteen murals for the Telephone Building's entrances and lobbies. The murals depicted events from the history of communications, such as this one showing the construction of telephone lines through the mountains.

Aspen, established in 1879 by Henry B. Gillespie, began as a silver-mining town and developed into a hub for culture and recreation on Colorado's Western Slope. Today Aspen is one of the most popular vacation destinations in Colorado.

Delta County, home to abundant fruit orchards, was established in 1883.

Snowshoeing is one of the best ways to enjoy Colorado's great outdoors in winter. There are plenty of trails in both national parks, national forests, and open spaces. Many trails are only accessible in winter when there is enough snow coverage. Snowshoeing gives visitors the chance to experience places they wouldn't see in other seasons.

The photo was taken on Horsetooth Rock Trail next to the city of Fort Collins.

In winter, a bike trail along Lake Dillon, by Frisco and Dillon, is accessible to snowshoers of all ages and skill levels.

The construction of Interstate 70 across Colorado's Rocky Mountains was one of the greatest engineering feats in US history and was essential to the growth of tourism in the high country.

Located in the Elk Mountains southwest of Aspen, the Maroon Bells are two Fourteeners, Maroon Peak and North Maroon Peak. Maroon Lake, at the base of the peaks, is one of the most photographed places in Colorado. In the summer and fall Maroon Lake is accessible via Highway 82, with an available shuttle service.

Perhaps the first photograph of a cliff dwelling in southwestern Colorado, Two Story House. The two individuals in the photograph are Captain John Moss, guide for the Hayden Survey, and Ernest Ingersoll, reporter with the Hayden Survey. Photographed by William Henry Jackson, 1874.

This illustration from the June 20, 1874 edition of Harper's Weekly shows two Colorado farmers opening a wooden headgate, allowing water to flow into an irrigation flume.

The Arapaho and Cheyenne delegation at Camp Weld in September 1864. Kneeling in front are Major Edward W. Wynkoop (left) and Captain Silas Soule. The seated delegates are (l-r) Neva, Bull Bear, Black Kettle, White Antelope, and No-ta-nee. Standing in back are (l-r) unidentified, unidentified, John Simpson Smith, Heap of Buffalo, Bosse, Dexter Colley, unidentified.

Wagons on Fourteenth Street between Lawrence and Larimer Streets in Denver carrying the Indian delegation to meet with Governor John Evans, September 28, 1864.

Arapaho camp across Cherry Creek from the gold seekers camp in 1858.

The Wheeler Opera House occupies the upper floors of a building whose lower levels have housed a bank, a grocery, and various offices.

Built during Aspen's boom years, the Wheeler Opera House was the third-largest opera house in Colorado when it opened in 1889.

As late as the 1940s, the Wheeler Opera House remained scarred from the 1912 fires that closed it for decades.

The Wheeler Opera House was renovated and redesigned by the Bauhaus architect Herbert Bayer around 1950.

Mountain States moved its headquarters to 1801 California Street in 1984. Now part of CenturyLink, the Telephone Building still serves as the main central office in Denver.

Fall colors normally peak between the third and fourth weeks of September. This photo was taken on the Ptarmigan Peak Trail in Summit County.

The Stanley Hotel opened in 1909 in Estes Park and helped make the town into a tourist destination.

This portrait of Owl Woman, the Cheyenne wife of Colorado trader William Bent, was drawn by Lieutenant James Abert at Bent's Fortin 1845.

Inside the NORAD headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

The family came to the Fort Collins area in 1882.

Arleigh Bee dug the well to supplement the irrigation water.

Children visiting the Bee Family Centennial Farm Museum.

John M. Francisco and his trading partner, Henry Daigre, built Francisco Plaza in 1862 at the site of present-day La Veta. In 1876 the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad reached the plaza, which housed the railroad depot and related operations for several years.

By the 1890s the railroad tracks next to Francisco Plaza were removed and the property returned to its earlier use as a residence and farm. John Francisco rented rooms to families and businesses.

Hovenweep National Monument has a long history of human habitation, dating back to around 6000 B.C. From about AD 1166 through 1277, the area was occupied by Ancestral Puebloans, who used prehistoric masonry techniques to build a variety of structures, from ceremonial kivas to stone towers. The Hovenweep Castle and Rimrock House, shown here, are among the dozens of these structures that endure today.

The Hovenweep House and the three-story Square Tower, shown here, are located at the head of Little Ruin Canyon about a half mile from the monument Visitor's Center.

A worker inspects washed beets at the Great Western Sugar Factory in Brighton in 1939. The factory operated from 1917 to 1977.

The Colorado Freedom Memorial in Aurora was completed in 2013 to honor all Colorado veterans who were killed or missing in action. More than 6,000 names are etched into the memorial’s glass panes.

Rocky mountain bighorn sheep

Hanging Lake is a very popular 1.2 mile hike in Glenwood Canyon, right next to I-70. Although the trail isn't long, it is steep and rocky. It is recommended for moderately fit hikers. For others, there is a paved and wheel chair accessible trail along the Colorado River. This paved trail starts at the parking lot and offers amazing rocky formation view of Glenwood Canyon.

Make sure you have good hiking or walking shoes and plenty of water.  In the summer, you also need prepare for afternoon thunderstorms. On weekends and holidays, make sure you arrive early because parking space is limited.

• Trailhead Elevation: 6135 Feet
• Highest Elevation: 7200 Feet
• Total Elevation Gain: 1065 Feet

For more information please visit Hanging Lake webpage.

The 2,198-acre Devil's Backbone Open Space has 12 miles of trail which connect to Rimrock Open Space and Horsetooth Mountain Open Space. It is popular for hiking, running, mountain biking, and wildlife and wildflower viewing year round. 

For more information, please visit https://www.larimer.gov/naturalresources/parks/devils-backbone

As Colorado Fuel & Iron's (CF&I) Pueblo operations expanded in the early twentieth century, management had Denver architect Frederick J. Sterner design new office and medical dispensary buildings. Today the buildings, sporting the distinct Mission Style, house a museum run by the Steelworks Center of the West.

The ruins of the White River Ute Indian Agency in 1879 shortly after the Meeker Incident. Courtesy of the Western History Collection, Denver Public Library, X-30699; the original is from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, December 6, 1879.

Commemorative marker for the White River Ute Indian Agency and site of the Meeker Massacre of 1879 just west of Meeker, Colorado. Courtesy of the Western History Collection, Denver Public Library, X-30688.

The 2nd Los Piños Ute Indian Agency on the Uncompahgre River in the 1870s while it was operational.

Group portrait in front of the post office at the 2nd Los Piños Ute Indian Agency, ca. 1877–1879.

Zia oral traditions place part of their ancestry in the region of Mesa Verde, southwestern Colorado.

William H. Jackson's famous photo taken in 1874 is one of the earliest known images of the Yucca House site, showing more extensive standing walls than now exist. The view is to the southeast with Mesa Verde in the background and Capt. John T. Moss standing in front of a wall near the center.

View from the Upper House looking east at the Lower House

This "virtual reality" reconstruction of Yucca House by Dennis R. Holloway, Architect, looks east with the Mesa Verde escarpment in the background. It is based on mapping by Crow Canyon Archaeological Center and photography by Adriel Heisey.

Charcoal, such as carbonized wood collected from a camp fire, is suitable for radiocarbon dating, but may represent multiple “dates” of the death of the trees used in the original firewood.

Radiocarbon dating of wood from dead-on-the-stand trees will yield a date that may be much older than the archaeological feature that is being dated.

Richard Carrillo explains excavation results at Bent’s New Fort. At the time of his death in 2014, Carrillo was the preeminent Southeastern Colorado archaeologist and historian and was working on a project at Bent’s New Fort.

Inside Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site.

View of the plaza within Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site. In the 1830s and '40s, Native Americans, Anglo-Americans, and Hispanos met in the plaza to conduct trade.

In 1849 a decline in the bison hide trade forced William Bent to close his original trading post and open a new one farther down the Arkansas River. This sketch by archaeologist Michelle A. Slaughter outlines the layout of the new fort (click for larger image).

Map of Colorado snow zones and maximum (peak) snow accumulation as snow water equivalent (SWE), showing major river basin boundaries. The snow measurements are thirty-year averages at snow telemetry (SNOTEL) stations.

Variable spring snow cover at Colorado State University's Mountain Campus (9,000 feet), near the low elevation boundary of the seasonal snow zone.

a) Snow water equivalent (SWE) patterns at the Joe Wright snow telemetry station in northern Colorado illustrating a high (2011), low (2012), and average (2013) snow year. The amount of SWE affects b) streamflow generation, as shown at the Michigan River near Cameron Pass, adjacent to the Joe Wright station.

A steam-powered tractor pulls a harrow on the open plains of Colorado. The mechanization of farming contributed significantly to the environmental catastrophe of the dust bowl in the mid-1930s.

A dust storm bears down on the town of Burlington in Kit Carson, County, enveloping everything in its path.

A powerful dust storm envelopes the outbuildings of a rural Colorado farm (possibly in Walsh, Baca County), leaving devastation in its wake.

Aerial view of Pueblo Bonito, one of the most distinctive great houses in Chaco Canyon.

Many of the fur traders and trappers who passed through Fort Davy Crockett attended one or more of the sixteen rendezvous held between 1825 and 1840. This is William Henry Jackson’s interpretation of a Wyoming rendezvous, probably painted in the 1930s.

Collegiate Peaks Wilderness west of Buena Vista

Aerial view of the Colorado State Capitol building, state office buildings, apartment buildings, churches, and houses in the Capitol Hill neighborhood

Capitol Hill North, c.1880

Caroline Bancroft sits on a stone bench and holds her open book "Gulch of Gold" in Central City.

Seated portrait of suffragette Minnie Reynolds Scalabrino in Denver, November 1910.

In addition to campaigning for women's suffrage in Colorado, Minnie Reynolds helped found the Denver Woman's Press Club, an organization of women writers that endures today.

Exterior photograph of the old A.T. Lewis and Sons building located in Denver. The building housed a succession of dry goods and department stores from 1891 to 1970, including Saloman's Bazaar (1891-95), A.T. Lewis and Son Department Store (1896-1932), and W.T. Grant Company (1940-70). Prominent Denver architect Robert S. Roeschlaub designed both the original 1891 building and the 1902 expansion.

The Central City Opera House, originally opened in 1878, was renovated and reopened in the 1930s. Described as "the finest temple of the Muse west of the Missouri" and designed by architect Robert S. Roeschlaub, the oldest opera house in Colorado is constructed of Gilpin County granite, except for the top and sides.

View of the Chamberlin Observatory, 2930 East Warren Ave, in the Observatory Park Neighborhood of Denver. Designed by Robert Roeschlaub, the 1890 observatory has a rusticated sandstone exterior with an iron observatory dome, an arched entry with a voussoir arch, and a parapet with a cornice and dentils.

View of Marion Street Parkway in Denver's Washington Park neighborhood. Landscape architect Saco Rienk DeBoer, who worked on the park in the early twentieth century, poses in a horse-drawn buggy by the City Ditch.

View of the garden designed by S. R. DeBoer at the Chappell house at 2900 Sheridan Boulevard, in Edgewater, Jefferson County. The house has a stucco finish and a half hipped roof.

A piece of painted china from the place setting of the 22nd Infantry. This artifact was excavated in 2009 by the Fort Lewis College Archaeological Field School.

This map shows the boundaries of the Clear Creek drainage basin and the conserved lands within.

This map shows some of the popular trails found in Clear Creek Canyon.

Ute Indians and agents in Washington, DC after conclusion of the 1873 Brunot Agreement. Front row, left to right: Guero, Chipeta, Ouray, and Piah; second row: Uriah M. Curtis, James B. Thompson, Charles Adams, and Otto Mears; back row: Washington, Susan (Ouray’s sister), Johnson, Jack, and John.

Ute camp at Los Pinos Agency, 1874.

Spring snowshoeing by the Drift Peak above the Blue Lakes, south of Breckenridge.

"Hagerman Peak-Snowmass Lake," from the thirty-second annual Colorado Mountain Club Outing, Snowmass Lake, August 11-19, 1945.

Musician Dean Reed returns to East Berlin after his acquittal in the "Farmers' Protest," 1978.

Exterior photograph of the Burr Studio/Denver Woman's Press Club located in Denver. The club bought the house in 1924.

Complete Promontory culture bison hide moccasin. This artifact was thought to have been manufactured by the ancestral Apache around AD 1160-1280.

Early Ceramic period reconstructed ceramic vessel from Franktown Cave. The exterior of the pot A sherd from this pot was AMS dated to AD 660-880.

This sandal was woven from yucca leaves and dates to 3350-2880 BC.

This Promontory Culture hoop is made from a willow twig that was bent into a circle and used as a frame to weave a sinew net. This object may have been used to play the hoop game, where small feathered darts were thrown at the hoop as it rolled across the ground.    

Site overview looking west.

Franktown Cave excavation crew in upper shelter, 1956.

El Paso County was created in 1861 as one of the original seventeen counties of the Colorado Territory.

Preserved original discovery of the Folsom point near Folsom, New Mexico. The removed matrix with bison bone and point are at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

Clovis points from the Drake Cache site, Logan County, Colorado

Far View House and Pipe Shrine House at Mesa Verde National Park.

Far View Reservoir, near Far View House at Mesa Verde National Park.

The namesake twin spires above the Chimney Rock Great House are distinctive landmarks.

Aerial view showing the layout of the Chimney Rock Great House at Chimney Rock National Monument.

Like the Chimney Rock Great House, Escalante Pueblo tops a hill near Dolores with a commanding view of the surrounding landscape.

This ponderosa pine tree was likely peeled in the 1800s to obtain the inner bark, and is located at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve in Saguache County.

This CMT is located at a historic campsite along the Old Spanish National Historic Trail (OSNHT) in the San Luis Valley, Colorado; the lower branches were removed with an ax to open the area for livestock and/or increase line-of-sight.

Cross-section (upper) and elevation (lower) drawings of an Hidatsa earth lodge, recorded by anthropologist Gilbert L. Wilson.

Replica Mandan earth lodge at the Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site.

Portrait of Zebulon Pike, the military explorer who attempted to climb Pikes Peak during his expedition of 1806-7.

Pikes Peak, which features a paved highway, cog railway, and donut shop, is just one of many famous places in Colorado that have been made through interactions of land, labor, and leisure.

Montage of Pikes Peak from Colorado City, showing what is likely Fountain Creek.

Alamosa County was established in 1913, thanks to efforts from Colorado state senator William "Billy" Adams.

With heights of up to 750 feet, the Great Sand Dunes in Alamosa County are the highest sand dunes in North America. They were formed around 12,000 years ago, as wind continuously blew sediment from the upper Rio Grande River westward across the San Luis Valley, piling it at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

The Beaver Creek Fire burns in the Routt National Forest in northwestern Jackson County in late June 2016.

Archuleta County, created in 1885, lies amidst the rugged San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado.

Cheyenne County, named for the Cheyenne people who once lived there, was established in 1889.

Costilla County, part of the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado, originated as a Mexican land grant issued in 1843.

Montezuma County, home of Mesa Verde National Park, was established in 1889.

Mesa County, named for the many flattop mountains within its borders, was established in 1883.

San Juan County, once the heart of gold and silver mining in the San Juan Mountains, was established in 1876.

Along Highway 34 in Big Thompson Canyon, you will often see wild animas like bighorn sheep, deer, and occasionally black bears.

Along Highway 34 in Big Thompson Canyon, you will often see wild animas like bighorn sheep, deer, and occasionally black bears.

Independence Pass, on Highway 82 between Aspen and Twin Lakes, takes its name from the nearby ghost town of Independence, where gold was found on July 4, 1879.

Governor John Love formed the Colorado Olympic Committee in the 1960s to build a case for the state to host the 1976 Winter Olympics.

Richard Lamm’s opposition to hosting the 1976 Winter Olympics vaulted him from the Colorado House of Representatives to the governor’s mansion in 1975.

Yankee Boy Basin is one of the most popular and beautiful destinations in San Juan Mountains, known for its wildflowers in late July and early August. To get there, take Hwy. 550 south; at the sign for Box Canyon Park take left onto Camp Bird Road/361; and at the Camp Bird site take Yankee Boy Basin Road/26. If you don't drive a 4x4 vehicle, park at the fork of Governor Basin Road and Yankee Boy Basin Road, walk uphill for 1 mile to reach the destination. Remember to stay on beaten passes and do not step into flower fields.

The road to Yankee Boy Basin has been improved in the past few years but it is still off most drivers' comfort zone. It is highly recommended to take a jeep tour, which is available in town of Ouray, CO.

The North American beaver (Castor canadensis), a keystone species in Colorado’s wetlands and waterways, has struggled to recover from excessive trapping during the nineteenth-century fur trade.

Structures from the Old Hundred Mine cling to the side of Mt. Galena in the San Juan Mountains in San Juan County.

Portrait of the signatories of the 1873 Brunot Agreement. Front row, left to right: Guero, Chipeta, Ouray, Piah. Second row: Uriah M. Curtis, Major J. B. Thompson, Gen. Charles Adams, Otto Mears. Back row: Washington, Susan, (Ouray's sister) Johnson, Jack and John.

A historic house structure near Red Mountain Pass, deep in the San Juan Mountains.

Red Mountain is a set of three peaks between Ouray and Silverton, Colorado. The reddish color comes from iron ore. This area is also know as the Red Mountain Mining District, which is known for the silver produced as well as gold, iron, copper and other minerals.

Today Animas Forks is one of the most popular destinations along a popular 4-wheel alpine loop scenic byway. 

Colorado’s mule deer population has been declining due to growth of homes, roads, traffic, disease, and etc. Wildlife officials are seeking help.

More information...

The Agnes Vaille Storm Shelter just below The Keyhole on Longs Peak. Rocky Mountain National Park superintendent Roger Toll had the shelter built in 1927 in honor of his late friend, Agnes Vaille, a mountaineer who perished in a climb on Longs Peak.

A view of the industrial style, three-story brick administration building at the Denver Municipal Airport in 1935. The Denver Municipal Airport opened in 1929, and the name was changed to Stapleton International Airport in 1964.

A United Airlines DC-6 passenger plane, also known as a "Mainliner 300," sits on the tarmac at Stapleton Airport, c. 1947. Built in 1929-30, Stapleton International Airport brought international air traffic and shipping to Denver.

Military officer, explorer, and politician John Charles Fremont (1813-90) led several expeditions through present-day Colorado from 1843-53. His travels through Northern Colorado in 1843 helped create a series of famous Oregon Trail maps.

Seeking an overland route through the Rocky Mountains, John C. Fremont's expedition crossed the plains in 1843 and resupplied at Fort St. Vrain in present-day Weld County.

Following the north fork of the Cache la Poudre River, Fremont's group passed present-day Eagle's Nest Open Space in Larimer County in 1843.

Fremont's 1843 expedition crossed the Big Thompson River near the present site of the Centerra shopping complex in the summer of 1843.

After crossing the Big Thompson River near present-day Loveland, John C. Fremont's 1843 expedition proceeded to present-day Fort Collins, following the northwest route of these railroad tracks into the Poudre Canyon.

Ice Lake Basin, located on the Ice Lake Trail in western San Juan County, is considered one of the most beautiful places in the San Juan Mountains. This photo shows Lower Ice Lake Basin in summer, bursting with wildflowers.

Camp Bird Mine was one of the most productive gold and silver mine in the world. This Victorian-style houses was formerly the Camp Bird Mine’s superintendent’s and manager’s residents.

The Camp Bird Mine was discovered by Thomas F. Walsh in 1896. It was one of the most productive gold mines in Ouray County.

Imogene Pass (el. 3997 m./13,114 ft.) is the 2nd highest pass in Colorado, which connects Ouray with Telluride. The road is accessible by 4x4 vehicles but is highly recommended to take a jeep tour either from Ouray or Silverton because the road is strenuous and dangerous.

Imogene Pass, on the border between San Miguel and Ouray Counties, is classified as a Class 4 (very difficult) four-wheel drive trail. In 1903 striking miners in Telluride were forced to leave San Miguel County, and a small gun station was built at the top of the 13,000-foot pass to keep the miners out.

Completed in 1883, the Grand Hotel was one of the most luxurious hotels in the Southwest. The Harper family, owners of the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, purchased the hotel in the spring of 2015. The family has completed restoration work on the building's thirty-seven rooms and is currently renovating the restaurant and lobby.

Pass Creek Trail by the Coal Bank Pass.

More information...

A worker inspects washed beets at the Great Western Sugar Factory in Brighton in 1939. The factory operated from 1917 to 1977.

Arapahoe County is named for the Arapaho Native Americans, who frequented the area from the 1820s to the late 1860s. The Arapaho followed buffalo herds across the plains during the summer, hunted in the mountains of the Front Range in fall, and spent the winter along the foothills.

A group of rams in Big Thompson Canyon by Hwy 34.  

Park officials try to slow down cars as a ram is crossing the road in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Recently restored, the 1878 Klack Placer Cabin is one of the last remaining one-story log cabins in Breckenridge.

The black Colorado pioneer Barney L. Ford moved to Breckenridge in the early 1880s and established a popular restaurant called Ford's. In 1882 he built an elegant house for his family on East Washington Avenue.

Constructed by Ancestral Puebloans in the 1200s, the 150-room Cliff Palace is now part of Mesa Verde National Park and is one of the most photographed places on Earth.

In 1891 the Swedish scholar Gustaf Nordenskiöld conducted the first significant excavations at Cliff Palace. His work stimulated wider interest in the Mesa Verde area.

The Colorado Museum of Natural History, as it was then known, in 1908.

Carl Schwachheim points out an artifact at the Folsom site as Barnum Brown of the American Museum of Natural History looks on.

Frances and Mary Crane donated their collection of Native American objects to Denver Museum of Nature & Science in 1968.

In the 1860s Hispano settlers established Trinidad along the Mountain Branch of the Santa Fé Trail. By the 1870s the area's good land and economic opportunities had attracted many Anglo-American settlers as well.

One of the most elaborate residences constructed in Trinidad, the cattle baron Frank Bloom's 1882 mansion is a Second Empire showpiece. Today it is part of History Colorado's Trinidad History Museum.

View of the Denver skyline looking west from the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

These pinnacles are one of many spires found within Curecanti National Recreation Area, Colorado. Pinnacles are a product of erosion. 

Hike to Dillon Pinnacles.

Fishing is popular on the Gunnison River in summer.
 

In 1866 Frank Hildebrand settled Hildebrand Ranch. He built a three-ditch irrigations system to water his farmland and gradually expanded the ranch's existing log cabin into a ranch house.

Today the buildings of Hildebrand Ranch are part of Denver Botanic Gardens Chatfield Farms, while nearly 1,500 acres of former ranch land to the west are preserved as part of Jefferson County's Hildebrand Ranch Park.

Skiing pioneer Carl Howelsen organized Steamboat Springs's first Winter Carnival in 1914. For the next year's carnival Howelsen developed the ski area that was later named Howelsen Hill.

In the 1880s James Dexter developed the Inter-Laken Hotel (right) into a high-class resort on the shore of Twin Lakes, south of Leadville. Dexter's distinctive cabin stands at left.

Andrews Glacier is an alpine glacier in a cirque below Otis Peak in Rocky Mountain National Park.

All of the glaciers at Rocky Mountain National Park are cirque glaciers. A cirque glacier is a small glacier that occupies a bowl-shaped basin at the head of a mountain valley. Cirque glaciers are usually the remnants of much larger valley glaciers. Andrews, Tyndall, and Rowe are all good examples of small cirque glaciers. Read More...

Major Lafayette Head with his son George and wife Maria Juana.

Portrait of Lafayette Head identifying him as “corner man,” which meant he was responsible for placing cornerstones.

Nearly complete Plains Woodland pot from Franktown Cave.

Arrowheads, stone tools and part of a pot from the Rainbow Creek site, Douglas County.

For much of its length, the road was built through solid rock using manual labor. Most of the rocks that were drilled, blasted, and sledgehammered to make way for the road were removed by hand or carted away by horses.

As with other Civilian Conservation Corps projects, which sought to maximize wages and minimize other expenses, Rim Rock Drive included rustic rock walls. In addition, the road required more than 200 culverts to help it drain and prevent erosion.

Work on Rim Rock Drive stopped during World War II but resumed in the late 1940s. All twenty-three miles of the road were completed and paved by 1951.

For decades the Rossonian Hotel was a central institution in Five Points. The Rossonian Lounge played host to distinguished black musicians such as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Nat King Cole, Billie Holiday, and Ella Fitzgerald.

These ruts west of Dodge City, Kansas were made by wagons crossing the Santa Fe Trail, an important nineteenth-century trading route that connected Missouri and Santa Fe, New Mexico.

DAS&RDC (Denver Area Square and Round Dance Council) records a demo on Sixteenth Street Mall in Denver.

Crossdating, the basic principle of tree-ring dating, illustrated. The landscape across the American Southwest has living trees, dead but exposed snags and remnant trees, and archaeological wood preserved in existing structures and cliff dwellings.

The Maroon Bells photographed in 1940. The iconic peaks were protected as part of the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness in 1964.

Photo of Trappers Lake, White Mountain National Forest, in 1940. The lake was one of the first federally protected wilderness spaces in the United States.

This photo was taken loking up South Colony in the San Isabel National Forest in 1920.

Arthur Carhart, landscape architect and one of the earliest advocates for wilderness areas, in the San Isabel National Forest in 1920.

Erosion in the Pike National Forest, 1934.

The World's Wonder View Tower in Genoa was built in 1926 and stands as a prime example of early automobile tourist facilities on the eastern plains.

View of the High Line Canal and a wood frame aqueduct in Platte Canyon on the South Platte River in Douglas County. Trees grow beside the aqueduct and grass on the hills.

View of the Colorado & Southern Railway narrow gauge High Bridge trestle over Clear Creek Canyon above Georgetown; a passenger train and locomotive run over Clear Creek.

Mining and railroad mogul Henry Teller was elected to the US Senate when Colorado became a state in 1876. He was in office for five terms and switched political parties twice during his tenure.

Mari Sandoz, famed Western author, in 1938.

Photographs of different wetland types around Colorado: (1) riparian area, Moffat County; (2) riparian area along stream in Larimer County;  (3) riparian area, Hinsdale County; Fen, Grand County; (4) salt flat, Alamosa County; (5) marsh and wet meadow, Washington County;  (6) fen, Park County; (7) wet meadow, Boulder County; (8) sloping fen (foreground) and riparian area, Grand County (photo credits: All photos by D. Cooper, except photos 2, 3, 5, 7, and 8 by E. Gage).

Mule deer often can be seen on tundra by Trail Ridge Road. This photo was taken on Tundra Communities Trail highest point, where elevation is 12,285 Feet.

An mule deer grazing on Tundra Communities Trail in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Tundra Communities Trail

Mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) are very common in Rocky Mountain National Park. They are smaller than the white-tailed deer and have a black-tipped white tail and white patch on the rump. Male mule deers have forked antlers.

Proportion of total county area mapped as wetlands by the National Wetlands Inventory (NWI). Emergent wetlands are dominated by herbaceous plant species, shrub/scrub wetlands are dominated by shrubs, often willow (Salix spp.) species, while forested wetlands support trees.

Wetland areas in Colorado across different elevation ranges, as mapped by the NWI program .

Chaco’s region: prehistoric roads and great houses.

Great Kiva, Lowry Pueblo, Canyons of the Ancients National Monument.

View of Lake Granby, a reservoir created by the Colorado-Big Thompson Project, looking east. The project diverted water from the Colorado River across the Continental Divide to cities and farms on the Front Range.

Aerial view of Horsetooth Reservoir looking south. The reservoir was created as part of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project and supplies water to the city of Fort Collins.

The St. Vrain Supply Canal enters Rabbit Mountain tunnel.

Map of the Colorado-Big Thompson Project, one of the largest water diversion projects in the history of the United States.

View of Bear Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park with Longs Peak in the distance. In the fall of 1884 the mountaineer Carrie Welton made an ill-fated climb up Longs Peak, dying of injuries and exposure in a snowstorm on her descent.

After the Keyhole 13,200', the route becomes more difficult.

The Homestretch of the East Longs Peak trail. The summit is at the end of the Homestretch.

Longs Peak, at 14,259 feet (4346 m), is the highest peak, and only fourteener, in Rocky Mountain National Park.

More information about bighorn sheep in Rocky Mountain National Park

Floodwaters and accumulated debris on the South Platte River undercut a bridge.

The 1976 Big Thompson Flood overran inhabitants and infrastructure within the Big Thompson Canyon.

The breached Lawn Lake Dam after the 1982 Fall River Flood.

La Plata County, named for one of the three rivers flowing through it, includes the town of Durango as well as the Southern Ute Reservation.

Dolores County, named for the Dolores River, occupies a remote part of Colorado's Western Slope. It was home to a brief mining boom around Rico during the late nineteenth century.

Dolores County in southwestern Colorado is the one of the least populated counties in Colorado. It was home to a brief mining boom near Rico in the late nineteenth century.

La Plata County, named for one of the three rivers flowing through it, includes the town of Durango as well as the Southern Ute Reservation.

San Miguel County, formed in 1883, includes the historic mining-turned-ski town of Telluride, which hosts many annual arts and music festivals.

Teller County, named for US Senator Henry M. Teller, was formed in 1889 to alleviate tension between wealthy mine owners in Colorado Springs (El Paso County) and working-class miners in Victor and Cripple Creek.

• Population:
  • 15,507 (2013)
• Area:
  • 3,260 mi²
• Founded:
  • 1877

The former coal mining town is now called "the last great Colorado ski town". Crested Butte is a destination for skiing, hiking, mountain biking, and a variety of other outdoor activities.

The state flower, Columbine, blooming on the West Maroon Pass trail.

• Population:
  • 28,649 (2013)
• Unemployment rate:
  • 2.6% (Apr 2015)
• County seat:
  • Breckenridge

Located in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness Area, Mt. Daly (13,300 ft) is the most prominent peak seen from Snowmass Village, a ski town in western Pitkin County.

San Juan County covers 388 square miles of the San Juan Mountains. US 550, the "Million Dollar Highway," is the main thoroughfare, and the county also contains the headwaters of the Animas River. 

The town of Silverton,at an elevation of 9,318 feet along the Animas River, is the county seat and only incorporated town in San Juan County. It was established by prospectors in 1874, after the Brunot Agreement forced Ute Indians from the area.

Ouray County lies in southwest Colorado and encompasses a diverse landscape, including the headwaters of the Uncompahgre River in the high country of the San Juan Mountains, the broad mesas of the Uncompahgre Plateau region, and the valley of the Uncompahgre River.

This twelve-room boutique hotel was built in 1886 at the height of the Ouray County gold boom. The Beaumont Hotel has welcomed such famous guests as US Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover, King Leopold of Belgium, and Oprah Winfrey. Recent restorations modernized the entire structure while preserving the property's historical grandeur.

Created in 1861 as one of Colorado's original seventeen counties, Lake County was home to the largest silver rush in the state's history in the 1870s. It is now a popular destination for heritage tourism and mountain recreation.

Aquilegia caerulea is a species of Aquilegia flower native to the Rocky Mountains from Montana south to New Mexico and west to Idaho and Arizona. Its common name is Colorado Blue Columbine; sometimes it is called "Rocky Mountain Columbine",

A Colorado State Historical Fund grant to San Juan County, in cooperation with the Bureau of Land Management, provided for stabilization of the remaining structures in 1997 and 1998. 

Animas Forks is a ghost town located just northeast of Silverton, Colorado. This is where Animas Fork originated. The landscape around Animas Fork is impressive and in general the best time to visit is middle June to the end of September.

Archuleta County covers 1,356 square miles of the San Juan Mountains in southwestern Colorado.

The Animas River is 126-mile-long, originates at Animas Forks northeast of Silverton at an elevation of 11,120 feet, and flows southward to Farmington, New Mexico, where it joins the San Juan River.

Taylor Glacier is a cirque glacier in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Rock glacier: A large mass of rock that actively flows like a glacier. Boreholes drilled in rock glaciers have revealed primarily a mixture of ice and rock. Many scientists consider rock glaciers a form of permafrost, but other researchers believe some rock glaciers may form from small glaciers being covered by rock debris. In any case, these complex mixtures of ice and rock flow downhill at speeds up to 1-2 m/year. Rock glaciers in RMNP have been clocked at 13-20 cm/year. While rock glaciers have a characteristic glacier-like or lava-like appearance from the air, they can be hard to recognize on the ground, as they look like nothing more than a rock field or talus slope.

Rock glaciers exist below Taylor and Tyndall glaciers, as well as in many other locations without glaciers. If you visit them, take care, because the surfaces of rock glaciers are extremely unstable.

Taylor Glacier is a cirque glacier in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Cirque glacier: glacier that resides in basins or amphitheaters near ridge crests; most cirque glaciers have a characteristic circular shape, with their width as wide or wider than their length.

Excavated in 1959–60 by Cynthia and Henry Irwin, the Magic Mountain Archaeological Site was one of the first foothills sites to be professionally excavated and has provided the foundation for all later archaeological research in the region.

In the fall of 1861, Alexander Rooney established Rooney Ranch in a grassy valley with good water between Green Mountain and Dinosaur Ridge in Jefferson County.

By about 1865, Alexander Rooney and his brother-in-law, Thomas Littlefield, had built a two-story stone ranch house, which is now one of the oldest stone buildings in Jefferson County.

In the twentieth century, Alexander Rooney's grandson Alex built a picnic area and dance pavilion beside Inspiration Tree on the slope of Dinosaur Ridge, where the Ute chief Colorow held councils in the late 1800s.

The development of the Denver suburbs has encroached upon what is left of the ranch, especially since the completion of C-470 in the 1980s, but the ranch is still owned and managed by members of the Rooney family and has been increasingly recognized for its historical significance.

In the 1870s prospectors settled in the area that became St. Elmo in Chalk Creek Canyon. The town's growth stalled in the late 1880s, then the population declined after fires and the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act. By the 1940s the town had only two full-time residents.

Summit Lake is a forty-acre alpine lake located at an elevation of 12,830 feet on Mount Evans. It was acquired by Denver in 1924, making it the highest city park in North America.

The streams and wetlands that drain Summit Lake to the east form the start of Bear Creek. The area around the lake is a great example of Arctic tundra, with several plants that otherwise occur only above the Arctic Circle. In 1965 the lake was named a National Natural Landmark.

Today the site of a rest area along Interstate 70, Vail Pass served for thousands of years as a high-elevation prehistoric camp.

Now Vail Pass is known largely as a recreation gateway, giving easy access to opportunities for biking, hiking, fishing, and a variety of winter sports.

In the early 2000s, Jeannie Culpin renovated the Wetmore Post Office building and opened the Wetmore Historical Center in the building, which also continues to house the local post office.

From at least the Middle Archaic period to the Early Ceramic period, prehistoric peoples used the many large rock outcrops in South Valley as shelters.

South Valley's mild weather would have made the area an attractive winter camp, especially with the southwest-facing rock shelters providing warmth from the sun and protection from snows and north winds.

In 1974, the insulation and roofing company Johns-Manville built a large headquarters at the southwest end of the valley and formed the Ken-Caryl Ranch Corporation to develop the area. In the 1980s, Johns-Manville sold its property to Martin Marietta (now Lockheed Martin), which later allowed Jefferson County Open Space to buy South Valley Park to save it from development.

In 1914 Charlotte Perry and Portia Mansfield established moved their performing arts camp from Lake Eldora to Strawberry Park near Steamboat Springs, where it continues to operate today.

Constructed in 1929, the Shenandoah-Dives Mill near Silverton was in operation most years until 1991, making it the longest-running mill in the San Juan Mountains.

Colorado blue columbine (Aquilegia caerulea James, orth. var.) is a perennial flower belong to the Ranunculaceae family.

After Claude and Edna Boettcher died in the late 1950s, their mansion was offered to the State of Colorado as a governor's residence. After some hesitation because of the high cost of maintenance, Governor Stephen McNichols accepted the house at the end of 1959 and moved into it in 1961. The mansion continues to serve as the state's official executive residence.

From 1912 to 1952, Justina Ford lived and saw patients in this house, then located on Arapahoe Street in Denver's Curtis Park neighborhood. It has now been moved to California Street, where it houses the Black American West Museum.

Opened in 1965, the restored Larimer Square celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 2015. Still a popular dining and shopping destination, it helped inspire similar preservation projects in Lower Downtown and Union Station.

Radio talk show host Alan Berg in 1979. 

Cigar making was a profitable enterprise in Denver in the late nineteenth century. This rooftop view of Arapahoe Street in downtown Denver showing "The Mining Exchange Cigar Store Silver State Cigars." 

Well dressed men and women, and railroad employees pose on and near a railroad flatcar filled with dirt at Utah Junction, near Pecos Street and Cargill Drive in Adams County. Lettering on the cars reads: "Denver, Laramie & Northwestern Ry." Far smaller than many of its competitors, the DL&NW existed between 1906 and 1917.

View of Denver, Laramie, & Northwestern Railroad construction, likely in Colorado; men stand on the grade while others work with ties and horses.

This view overlooking Central City (Gilpin County) shows a row of Main Street buildings, including Emmy Wilson's "The Glory Hole Tavern," as well as the "Central Cafe" and "Macks Pool."

Frank Marugg's "Denver Boot" is now known as simply a "parking boot." Here, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation has clamped Marugg's invention on a Ford Explorer.

Arthur Carhart where he was most at home - in the Colorado wilderness.

The Alva B. Adams Tunnel was the linchpin of the controversial Colorado-Big Thompson Project, a massive feat of engineering that redirected millions of gallons of Colorado River water from the Western Slope to farms and subdivisions along the Front Range.

Established by Henry H. Zietz in 1893, the Buckhorn Exchange is Denver's oldest operating restaurant. It is well known for its steak and game meats.

Designated as a minor basilica in 1979, the church remains the heart of Denver's Catholic community. Its lunch program serves more than 50,000 meals annually to the poor and homeless.

Boardman Robinson’s “Colorado Stock Sale” mural still occupies most of a wall in the Englewood post office lobby. The post office was threatened with closure in 2010 but was saved after an outcry from local residents and preservationists.

Bordered roughly by the South Platte River to the northwest, Thirty-Eighth Street to the north, Downing Street to the east, Park Avenue and East Twentieth Avenue to the south, and Twentieth Street to the southwest, Five Points includes popular areas such as Ballpark, River North, and Curtis Park.

In 2003 the Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library opened on Welton Street in Five Points. A branch of the Denver Public Library, it contains collections and exhibitions focused on black history in Colorado and the West.

Folsom point from the Lindenmeier Site, ColoradoD

In 1871 Colorado Springs founder William Jackson Palmer built his first residence at Glen Eyrie, a large clapboard house with more than twenty rooms.

Palmer and his wife, known as Queen, occupied the original Glen Eyrie residence only sporadically in the 1870s and 1880s because Palmer often traveled for work and Queen was confined to lower elevations because of a heart condition.

After selling the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad in 1901, Palmer retired from active business and undertook extensive renovations to Glen Eyrie, transforming the house into a stone castle with sixty-seven rooms.

The largest and most impressive room in the renovated Glen Eyrie castle was Book Hall, which could hold 300 people and had a balcony where an orchestra could perform.

Post-excavation plan of the agent’s house and partial original map of the 2nd Los Piños Ute Indian Agency on the Uncompahgre River near Colona, Colorado, as excavated by the Uncompahgre Valley Ute Project in 2003. Courtesy of Centuries Research, Inc., Montrose, Colorado.bak

2003 post-excavation photo of the ruins of the agent’s house at the 2nd Los Piños Ute Indian Agency (5OR139) on the Uncompahgre River. Courtesy of Centuries Research, Inc., Montrose.

Examples of Archaic era depictions of animals (“zoomorphs”) and humans (“anthropomorphs”). Drawings by Carol Patterson.

During the Formative Era there is a transition of body shapes for game animals characterized by the short legged, round bodied quadrupeds with smaller horns or antlers. Bows and arrows are depicted, and game drives are shown with animated stick figures using the “driving” gesture. Drawings are from western Colorado (A, by Carol Patterson) and southeastern Colorado (B, by Linda Olson).

Formative Era, AD 500 to 1000 (Fremont and Ancestral Pueblo) and AD 1000 to 1300 (Numic Expansion). Drawings and photographs by Carol Patterson.

The Ute historic rock art typically has the horse, buffalo and bear paws. Large pedestrian shield figures may identify Paiute who didn’t ride horses. Plains tribes typically have the horned headdress, horses, and V-necked bodies. In the Southwest, the Utes painted domestic scenes of tribal life. Drawings and photographs by Carol Patterson.

A Ute petroglyph at Shavano Valley is overlaid on a topographic map of the Uncompahgre Plateau. The second panel shows a rock art map from the Smith Fork of the Gunnison overlaid on a topographic map of the Gunnison Gorge and oriented to the south, with a correspondence to the Ute trail location and its alignment with the Gunnison Gorge. Drawings by Carol Patterson.

Conceptual realism is used to emphasize the important parts of an animal for spiritual or ritual purposes. Examples here are of the bear with flexed paws from the Formative through the Historic Era. Drawings by Carol Patterson.

Over time from Protohistoric to Historic, the early depictions of the horse by the Utes show exaggerations of the neck and legs using conceptual realism. Drawings by Carol Patterson.

Mythograms for the Ute include the bear paw, the bear and tree, ‘Cosmic Tree’, and creator Sinavi (creator wolf). For the Navajo, there are paintings of the Mountain Way Ceremony and the Yei God, Ghaan’ask’idii. Drawings and photographs by Carol Patterson.

Workers look at the burned out glovebox where the 1957 fire began on September 11. It was the first large conflagration at the Rocky Flats plant.

This photo shows the detailed view of a glove box damaged in the 1969 fire, the largest and most dangerous fire in the plant's history.

Westward view of Rocky Flats Nuclear Facility, built northwest of Denver by the US government in 1951 to produce nuclear bomb cores. Rocky Flats operated in this capacity until it was decommissioned  in 1991 following the end of the Cold War. During the 1980s it was found that toxic waste from the bomb core production process had been contaminating the surrounding environment for decades; cleanup began in the 1990s, and in 2007 the US Fish and Wildlife Service acquired the site, turning it into a national wildlife refuge.

Map of southeastern Colorado and northeastern New Mexico showing the distribution of Sopris phase sites.

Artist’s reconstruction of a multi-room, stone masonry Sopris phase house.

Drawing of a Taos Incised-style vessel manufactured in the Rio Grande valley and imported to a Sopris phase site on the Purgatoire River in southeastern Colorado.

After a major fire burned the town hall in April 2002, Buena Vista Heritage reconstructed the building with financial help from the State Historical Fund and private donations. It reopened in 2008 as a museum of local history.

A landscape watercolor painting by Henrietta Bromwell. A road passes over a hill covered with shrubbery, grass and trees; a red house is in the background. The colors are purple, apricot and green watercolors.

A landscape watercolor painting of a shed in a meadow with shrubbery, electric and telephone lines are nearby; a road leads up to the shed. Mountains are in the background. The colors are pale brown, blue, pink and white.

Denver Madame Mattie Silks, participant in an 1877 altercation that became known as the "Nude Duel," operated a brothel at Twentieth and Market streets in the late nineteenth century.

Partial view of Bierstadt Lake (elevation 9416 feet), Larimer County, looking toward Hallett Peak (elevation 12,725 feet) and Flattop Mountain (elevation 12,324 feet); the Reverend Thornton R. Sampson, an experienced hiker, met his demise shortly after descending Flattop Mountain on the way to Estes Park in 1915.

Sadie Likens Memorial, Civic Center Park, Denver.

Sheriff Salome Garcia of Union County, New Mexico tightens the noose around the neck of Thomas "Black Jack" Ketchum prior to his hanging in Clayton, New Mexico. Also on the gallows are Sheriff O.T. Clark of Las Animas County, Colorado; Detective H.J. Chambers of Chicago, Illinois; Trinidad citizen C. de Baca; Dr. J.C. Clark; and a priest, Father Dean. The hanging would decapitate Ketchum.

One of the last portraits of Buffalo Bill, taken in 1915 at the Lumiere Studio in Denver.

This poster, with an image by Henry Atwell Thomas, was used to publicize Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in the 1880s and 1890s.

Buffalo Bill's casket, guarded by Denver police, just before burial on Lookout Mountain on June 3, 1917. 

Henry Zietz Jr. took over the Buckhorn Exchange after his father died in 1949. When poor health forced him to sell it in the late 1970s, it was acquired by a group of investors called Buckhorn Associates. They added game meats to the menu but otherwise kept the building and restaurant mostly the same.

Lincoln County, founded in 1889, currently has a population of 5,430.

Lincoln County, named after President Abraham Lincoln, covers 2,586 square miles of Colorado’s Great Plains southeast of Denver.

Logan County covers 1,845 miles of the Great Plains and South Platte River valley in northeast Colorado.

Logan County, named for Civil War general General John A. Logan, was established in 1887.

Morgan County covers 1,294 square miles of the South Platte valley and the Great Plains northeast of Denver.

Morgan County was created in 1889. Its name is derived from Fort Morgan, a military post established along the South Platte River in 1865. 

Phillips County covers 688 square miles on the Great Plains of northeastern Colorado. It has a population of 4,349, more than half of whom live in the county seat of Holyoke.

The county seat is Holyoke. It is named after R.O. Phillips.

Washington County, named for the first US president, is a county of 2,524 square miles on Colorado’s eastern Great Plains.

The county seat is Akron. The county was named in honor of the United States President George Washington.

Yuma County covers 2,369 square miles in northeast Colorado. A part of the state’s Great Plains region, the county includes the lowest point in Colorado: 3,315 feet, along the Arikaree River at the Kansas border.

The county seat is Wray.

The thirty-one victims of the Wichita State University plane crash in October 1970 are commemorated in this memorial near the Eisenhower Tunnel along Interstate 70.

The City and County of Broomfield became the sixty-fourth Colorado county in 2001.

The City and County of Broomfield encompasses about thirty-three square miles on the Front Range in central Colorado, mainly between US Highway 36 and Interstate 25 southeast of Boulder.

Mineral County is a mountainous, sparsely populated county of 878 square miles in southwest Colorado. Located in the heart of the San Juan Mountains west of the San Luis Valley, the county takes its name from the rich mineral deposits found there in the nineteenth century.

Mineral County, located in the heart of the San Juan Mountains, was the site of a massive gold and silver boom in the late nineteenth century. Today, it is the second least-populous county in Colorado.

The geography of Eagle County includes the Eagle and Colorado River valleys, as well as the Gore Range to the northeast and the northern Sawatch Mountains to the southeast.

Eagle County, formed in 1883, covers 1,692 square miles of mountainous terrain in northwest Colorado.

Vail ski resort has been ranked as the best ski resort in north American by many magazines and web sites. It is famous for its family-friendly atmosphere, unrivaled convenience, accessibility, and affluent, exclusive culture that attracted an elite crop of visitors and residents as well as middle-class ski bums.

The Bromley/Koizuma-Hishinuma Farm retains a full complement of farm buildings, including (left to right) a barn, main house, migrant worker building, and silo. In 2006 the city of Brighton acquired the farmstead to preserve an important part of the area's agricultural heritage.

Can you find the sixteen climbers in this photo of the Diamond Wall on the East Face of Longs Peak?

Treat Hall was the only building on the Colorado Women's College campus when it opened in 1909. It was located several miles east of Denver on a twenty-acre site donated by Job A. Cooper.

In 1916, the original Treat Hall (right) was expanded with a four-story brick addition to the north (left).

Pictured here in about 1939, the Midland Terminal Railway's shops complex west of Colorado Springs included a roundhouse (bottom center) and several other offices and shops. The roundhouse's turntable is clearly visible, showing how locomotives were directed from the approach track to different bays in the roundhouse.

In 2008–9 the Midland Roundhouse was renovated for use as shops and offices, with a restaurant in the northern end of the building. The parking lot is located where the turntable used to be, and visitors enter through bays once used for locomotives.

Located in Old Town Lafayette, the Miller House was the longtime home of town founder Mary Miller, who laid out the town in 1888.

In 1959 Beatrice Willard established Alpine Tundra Research Plots near the Rock Cut parking area and the Forest Canyon Overlook along Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park. Her research at the plots led to changes in park policies as well as a better understanding of alpine tundra ecology.

As a result of Willard's research, Rocky Mountain National Park implemented new policies to protect the delicate alpine tundra. Here a ranger escorts visitors who have gone off-trail near Willard's Forest Canyon Overlook plot.

One of Willard's major recommendations was the construction of paved paths at heavy-use parking areas and overlooks such as Rock Cut (pictured here) to prevent visitors from forging their own shortcuts across the alpine tundra.

In 1918–21, Fred Barr built his burro trail from the top of the Manitou Incline to the summit of Pikes Peak. In 1922 he established Barr Camp as a place for his trips to spend the night on their way up the mountain.

Most nineteenth-century trails up Pikes Peak followed creek drainages to Lake Moraine (center left), then ascended the southeast ridge (center right) and took it to the summit. In contrast, Barr Trail—whose switchbacks are just visible in the foreground—ascended the steep eastern slope of the mountain.

Located east of downtown Colorado Springs, the Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind has a park-like campus characterized by stone buildings in the Collegiate Gothic style.

Established in 1881, the Denver Orphans' Home moved in 1902 to a large new building on Albion Street. Designed by Marean and Norton, the brick Second Renaissance Revival building provided much more space and had more windows to let in light.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997, the Kennicott Cabin north of Westcliffe still looks much as it did when Frank Kennicott built it in 1869–70.

The Pueblo Revival superintendent's residence that Jesse Nusbaum built on the rim of Spruce Tree Canyon in 1921 provided the model for the rest of the Mesa Verde National Park Administrative District.

The Atchison, Topeka, & Santa Fe Railroad built the first railroad to Raton Pass in 1878 and opened a tunnel under the pass in 1879. A second tunnel built in 1908 still operates today, serving Amtrak passenger trains that use the route.

Today Interstate 25 takes travelers quickly and easily over Raton Pass using roughly the same route as the toll road that Richens Wootton constructed in 1866.

Designed by Taliesin Associated Architects, the Rocky Mountain National Park Administration Building (also known as the Beaver Meadows Visitor Center) features precast concrete panels with local stones and a Corten steel framework with a triangular motif based on Native American rock art.

Visitors enter the building on the north side, where the building appears to be one story. After going through a low entryway, they emerge into a larger lobby with an information desk, a relief map of the park, and a bank of windows facing the mountains.

The building's exterior walls were made of precast concrete panels created by covering large stones with concrete and then sprinkling the surface with pebbles.

Now the core of Staunton State Park, Staunton Ranch sat south of Black Mountain in an area of pines, aspen groves, open meadows, and granite cliffs.

Built in 1905 at 750 Lafayette Street, the Doud House hosted the wedding of Dwight Eisenhower and Mamie Doud in 1916 and served for decades as the transient army couple's home base. After Eisenhower was elected president in 1952, the house became the unofficial "Summer White House" because he came to Denver so often on vacation.

The Grays Peak National Recreation Trail starts from a trailhead near the old Stevens Mine in Stevens Gulch (center) and skirts past Kelso Mountain (left) before making a series of switchbacks up the northeast side of Grays Peak.

Designed by Jules J. B. Benedict in 1923, the Renaissance-style Holy Ghost Catholic Church was completed in 1943 thanks to a donation from Helen Bonfils.

Completed in 1912, the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception features twin Gothic Revival spires that rise 210 feet above Colfax Avenue.

Construction of the cathedral stagnated for many years before Hugh McMenamin became the driving force behind the building's completion in the early 1900s.

The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception was dedicated on October 27, 1912, in a ceremony that included a parade of 10,000 Catholics through the city.

The building featured Italian marble statuary and stained-glass windows made by the Royal Bavarian Institute in Germany. It could seat 1,500, the largest capacity of any church in the city at the time.

Hispano settlers in the Huerfano Valley built Montoya Ranch in the 1860s. The Montoya family lived there and operated a sheep ranch from 1874 to 1910, when they sold the property to the Lebanese Faris family, who ran a general store and post office in the building.

Built by Stephen Pedro in 1904, the Pedro-Botz House in Smeltertown is a simple log house that housed first the Hungarian Pedro family and then the Yugoslavian Botz family, both of which found employment at the Ohio and Colorado Smelter in the early twentieth century.

Located four miles west of Buena Vista near the base of Mt. Princeton and Mt. Yale, Rock Ledge Ranch was settled in 1887 by Ernest Wilber and has been owned and worked by the Franzel family since 1908. It is representative of the long history of agriculture in the Upper Arkansas Valley.

Located in San Pedro near Culebra Creek, Iglesia de San Pedro y San Pablo was built in 1933–34 under the supervision of Father Onofre Martorell. During Holy Week, the community carries a small model of the church (bottom right) to San Luis for religious observances.

William "Buffalo Bill" Cody served as chief scout for the Republican River Expedition that tracked and defeated Tall Bull's Cheyennes. For many decades he made a reenactment of the Battle of Summit Springs the climax of his Wild West Show.

Despite its significance for the white settlement of Colorado, the Battle of Summit Springs slipped into obscurity in the early twentieth century. In 1969 a centennial commemoration was held at the battle site.

The Summit Springs battlefield now has several historic markers and memorials to identify the site and explain its significance. Here a girl attending the battle's centennial commemoration sits next to a plaque marking the location of Tall Bull's lodge.

Designed by Frank Edbrooke, the triangular Brown Palace opened in 1892 as the most luxurious hotel between Chicago and the West Coast.

When it opened, the nine-story Brown Palace Hotel was the tallest building in Denver. Thanks to the triangular design, each of the 400 guest rooms had a window.

The Brown Palace's three sides wrap around an eight-story atrium topped by a stained-glass ceiling and a skylight.

Henry Zietz had a reputation as a scout and hunter who knew William "Buffalo Bill" Cody, which helped draw business to the Buckhorn Exchange in its early years.

The interior of the Buckhorn Exchange was filled over the years with hundreds of mounted heads, firearms, and photographs of celebrities. All the animals were reportedly shot by Henry Zietz and his son, Henry Zietz Jr.

In the early 2000s, the nonprofit Friends of Beckwith Ranch used State Historical Fund grants and private donations to restore the ranch buildings and reopen them as a wedding and events center.

During crises such as the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, Colorado Agricultural Extension helped Colorado farmers by overseeing the local implementation of federal relief programs.

Five Points refers to the intersection of Welton Street, Washington Street, Twenty-Seventh Street, and East Twenty-Sixth Avenue northeast of downtown Denver. In the 1870s and 1880s, the Curtis Park area within Five Points became Denver's most desirable streetcar suburb.

Crowley County, located along the Arkansas River in southeast Colorado, was established in 1890.

Gilpin County, named for William Gilpin, Colorado’s first territorial governor, was established in 1861 as one of the original seventeen counties of the Colorado Territory.

John H. Gregory's gold discovery in 1858 led to the establishment of Central City. By the time of this photo, the city had emerged as one of the cultural hubs of Colorado's mining country.

The Central City Opera House was built by mine workers to provide entertainment for the city’s residents in the late nineteenth century.

Placer mining operations like the one shown here produced more than $240,000 in gold in Gilpin County during the 1860s, but came at a heavy environmental cost. This photo shows a stream bed that has been rearranged, and the hillside in the background was cleared of trees to build the houses and wooden sluices in the foreground.

Grand County, named for the Grand River (now the Colorado River), was established in 1874 and spans Middle Park, a large intermountain basin.

The town of Grand Lake, next to Colorado's deepest natural lake, was established in 1879.

The Moffat Tunnel, completed in 1928, allowed for rail travel under the Continental Divide between Grand County and Denver.

Established in 1874 in the heart of the San Juan Mountains, Hinsdale County is one of Colorado's most prolific historic mining counties.

Jackson County, named for former President Andrew Jackson, covers the mountain basin of North Park and was established in 1909.

Kiowa County, named after the group of Plains Indians who once inhabited the area, was established on Colorado's eastern plains in 1889.

Kit Carson County, named for the famous trapper and Army scout Kit Carson, was formed in 1889 on Colorado's eastern plains.

Las Animas County, the largest county in Colorado, was established in 1866.

Montrose County, one of the most significant agricultural counties on Colorado's Western Slope, was established in 1883.

Prowers County, named for one of Colorado's prominent early ranchers, is located along the Arkansas River in southeast Colorado.

Pueblo County, named for an early trading post called El Pueblo, was established in 1861 as one of the original seventeen counties of the Colorado Territory.

Constructed by the Denver & Rio Grande Railway in 1881–82, the narrow gauge line from Durango to Silverton climbs nearly 3,000 feet in 45 miles. It was built to carry ore from mines in the San Juan Mountains, but now the scenic route is a major tourist attraction.

Instead of building a station at the existing town of Animas City along the Animas River, the Denver & Rio Grande established its own town, called Durango, two miles to the south. Durango became the base for the railroad's final push to reach Silverton.

To build the railroad through the Animas Canyon to Silverton, workers had to blast a shelf in the canyon wall high above the river.

The shelf above the Animas River, known as the Highline, has been a favorite spot for photographs of the train since its earliest years.

The first train rolled into Silverton in July 1882, less than a year after construction started north from Durango. Today the train remains vital to Silverton's economy, bringing in hundreds of thousands of tourists per year.

In the early 2000s, History Colorado constructed a replica of El Pueblo near the site of the original trading post. Located near the confluence of Fountain Creek and the Arkansas River, it consisted of a rough square of rooms arranged around a central courtyard.

El Pueblo was largely abandoned after 1854. By 1860, the city of Pueblo was taking shape at the same site. Pueblo's development buried all evidence of El Pueblo in the 1880s.

In the late 1980s, William G. Buckles and students at the University of Southern Colorado (now CSU–Pueblo) successfully identified the site of the original El Pueblo and began to excavate the structure's ruins. The dig is now protected by the William G. Buckles Archaeological Pavilion.

The William G. Buckles Archaeological Pavilion (pictured) is part of the larger El Pueblo Museum complex built in the early 2000s, which includes the museum, the pavilion, and a replica of the original trading post.

Eagle, one of several homestead towns settled along the Eagle River during the 1880s, went through several names before Eagle was chosen in 1905. This photo, taken around 1910, shows several businesses, including a general merchandise store (first building on left) and Frank's Restaurant (fourth or fifth building on right).

First developed as silver mining towns in the 1860s and 1870s, Georgetown and Silver Plume prospered until 1893. After World War II, they began to be recognized for their rich mining history, and in 1966 they were declared a National Historic Landmark.

Georgetown was named after George Griffith, who discovered gold in the area on June 17, 1859. The town grew quickly, but it did not really boom until silver was found nearby in September 1864.

During Georgetown's decades of prosperity in the 1870s and 1880s, the town's wealthy merchants and professionals built blocks full of elegant Victorian houses. None was more elaborate than William Hamill's mansion, which he gradually expanded over the 1870s with the help of architect Robert Roeschlaub.

Located about two miles up Clear Creek from Georgetown, Silver Plume developed as a more working-class town with a diverse population of miners that included many European immigrants.

Despite the short distance between Georgetown and Silver Plume, connecting the towns by rail proved difficult because of the steep climb. To solve the problem, the track was extended via a series of large curves and a full loop to reduce the average grade. Completed in 1884, it was abandoned in the late 1930s but rebuilt in the 1970s–80s by the Colorado Historical Society.

Since the 1950s Georgetown has been the focus of historic preservation efforts that have restored many downtown buildings and helped make the town a tourist destination throughout the year.

Built about 1894, Capilla de San Isidro is a Catholic church in Los Fuertes. Constructed in the Territorial Adobe style, it has adobe walls with a cement stucco coating as well as a gabled roof and cupola.

Capilla de San Juan Bautista was constructed in 1924–26 in La Garita in the San Luis Valley. It replaced a similar church that was built in 1879 and burned down in 1924.

Built in the 1950s, Iglesia de San Francisco de Assisi shows how the local parish adapted modern construction techniques such as concrete blocks and casement windows to traditional ecclesiastical architecture. The churchyard has a small model of the building (bottom left), which the community takes to San Luis during Holy Week for religious observances.

From 2005 to 2010, Benjamin and Carole Fitzpatrick funded the restoration of the Pedro Trujillo House. In addition to restoring the house's roof, doors, and windows, the project also stabilized the house on a new foundation and surrounded it with a fence to keep bison away.

Built in 1907-8 as a showcase for the company's products, the Van Briggle Memorial Pottery Building incorporated thousands of tile and terra cotta elements designed by Anne Van Briggle.

After Artus Van Briggle's death in 1904, Anne Van Briggle took over their pottery company and led it for the next eight years. She oversaw the planning and construction of the company's new headquarters, which served as a memorial to her late husband.

The Van Briggle Pottery featured giant kilns and smokestacks designed by engineer Frank Riddle to get better combustion with less smoke.

Now home to Colorado College's Facilities Services department, the Van Briggle Memorial Pottery Building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009.

Built in 1921–22, Ammons Hall was designed by Denver architect Eugene Groves. It served as a social center and athletic facility for women at Colorado Agricultural College (now Colorado State University).

By the 1930s, Ashcroft had at most a few residents left. But at the same time, interest in the area was spurred by the growth of skiing, with the Highland-Bavarian Corporation acquiring Ashcroft and planning an alpine ski resort nearby.

In the winter of 1973–74, Ashcroft's surviving two-story hotel building collapsed, spurring new restoration and preservation efforts by Ramona Markalunas and the Aspen Historical Society.

Ashcroft has nine surviving buildings arranged along a clearly defined main street. A parking lot and trail provide easy access to the town.

Today Cripple Creek's historic commercial buildings have been restored with money from casino gambling, which started in 1991.

Built in 1910, Guggenheim Hall was designed by James Murdock in the neoclassical style. The north facade features a two-story entry portico with four Corinthian columns.

After Inga Allison became permanent head of the home economics program in 1911, she expanded the program beyond the domestic sciences. She is known for her high-altitude cooking experiments.

The south side of Guggenheim Hall faces the Oval. In 1948 the arcade and patio were enclosed to provide extra office space.

Guggenheim Hall is now home to the Department of Construction Management, which in 2003 restored the building's interior and added efficient lighting and plumbing systems.

In 1878 Adeline Hornbek and her four children settled a homestead just south of Florissant. Their one-and-a-half-story log house had four bedrooms, a kitchen, and a parlor under a steeply pitched roof.

In 1973 the Hornbek House became part of Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. The National Park Service created a replica of Adeline Hornbek's homestead by moving other historic buildings in the monument to the sites of Hornbek's original ranch structures.

Located west of Independence Pass at an elevation of nearly 11,000 feet, the town of Independence was established in 1879. It thrived for a few years as a gold camp but declined sharply after hitting its peak in 1882.

Over the twentieth century, many of Independence's cabins and other buildings were lost to the harsh high-elevation climate, neglect, and looting.

Independence is accessible via Highway 82 between about Memorial Day and early November each year. It is still possible to discern the old road that went through town.

In 1973 Independence was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and in the early 1980s the Aspen Historical Society and other volunteer groups started to work with the US Forest Service to restore and preserve the surviving buildings.

Conceived and constructed by William "Cement Bill" Williams, the Lariat Trail climbs roughly five miles and 1,500 feet from Golden to the summit of Lookout Mountain.

After climbing north toward Clear Creek and making a series of hairpin turns, the Lariat Trail traverses south across Mt. Zion, passing just below the Colorado School of Mines "M."

Above Windy Saddle, the road passes Spring House, built in 1916 to provide a rest area for people and cars in need of water.

One of the earliest scenic mountain drives in Colorado, the Lariat Trail influenced later scenic roads such as the Pikes Peak Highway.

The Lariat Trail served as the northern entrance to Denver's new system of Mountain Parks and soon became a popular drive, attracting more than 116,000 cars in 1918.

The Sangre de Cristo mountain range protrudes nearly 7,000 feet above the San Luis Valley floor. The area remains rural and lightly populated, relying on agribusiness and tourism to support the local economy.

Trinidad Lake State Park hosts an exposure of the K-T boundary, which marks the shift from the Cretaceous Period to the Tertiary Period.

In 1889 Wallace de Beque built the de Beque House at the south end of the new town of DeBeque, which had been organized and named for him the previous year. One of de Beque's sons lived in the house until 1998, and it remains largely unchanged since de Beque's death in 1930.

The Fritchle 100-Mile Electric Automobile debuted in 1904, the brain child of automotive engineer Oliver Parker Fritchle. In 1908, Fritchle famously demonstrated the capabilities of his vehicle by driving it some 1,800 miles from Lincoln, Nebraska, to New York City.

Built in 1891, the mansion at 430 East Eleventh Avenue in Denver was originally the home of Senator Thomas Macdonald Patterson. It later became known as the Croke-Patterson mansion, and today operates as a hotel. It is regarded as one of Denver's most haunted buildings.

Aerial view of Lowry Air Force Base in Denver, where a B-29 bomber began its ill-fated flight on December 3, 1951. The subsequent crash led to questions about whether such a large military facility should be located so close to city neighborhoods.

Exterior view of the Denver Homeopathic Hospital and Medical College, built in 1898 at Park Avenue and Humboldt Street in Denver. Homeopathy, the practice of treating illnesses and other maladies with small amounts of toxic substances, was popular in Colorado and in the nation more broadly in the early twentieth century, but has since been disproved and abandoned.

A group of nurses pose outdoors near a building at the Homeopathic Hospital in Denver around 1900.

In October 1902, Justina Ford was licensed as the first black woman doctor in Colorado. Over the next fifty years, she delivered more than 7,000 babies and became a well-respected member of the Denver medical community.

Known by her patients as “The Baby Doctor,” Justina Ford worked as a doctor in Denver for more than fifty years. She was the city's first black female doctor.

In 1982 a private developer acquired the block where Justina Ford's house was located and planned to clear the whole area. Local residents lobbied to delay demolition and worked out an agreement to save the house by moving it to a different site.

In February 1984, the Justina Ford House was jacked up, placed on a wheeled platform, and towed about a mile to California Street. The house was renovated and became home to the Black American West Museum.

West-looking photo of downtown Colorado Springs in 1951, when the city had grown to a population of more than 45,000. Movies shown at the Peak Theater (left) include "When I Grow Up" and "This is Korea!"

Colorado City, now known as "Old Colorado City," was established in 1859 during the Colorado Gold Rush. The town supplied miners in South Park, which lay on the other side of Ute Pass to the west. The city joined Colorado Springs in 1917.

Portrait of twelve-year-old Eugenia Ransom Kennicott and a dog, Penny, by a picket fence in Westcliffe. An avid photographer, Eugenia lived with her family on a homestead in the Wet Mountain Valley in the early twentieth century. Her photos, along with the diary of her sister Anna, survive to this day and provide valuable insight into Colorado's homesteading era.

At the Kennicott home on their ranch in Westcliffe, Eugenia Kennicott reads a magazine on a brocade couch.

Anna and Eugenia Kennicott wade in Lake of the Clouds, near Electric Peak and Westcliffe.

Snow falls as a Hereford Heifer eats hay on a ranch just west of Fowler, in January 2007. The Painter family successfully raised and bred Hereford cattle in the early twentieth century, defying the grim prospects that most ranchers faced at the time.

Snow falls as a Hereford Heifer eats hay on a ranch just west of Fowler, in January 2007. The Painter family successfully raised and bred Hereford cattle in the early twentieth century, defying the grim prospects that most ranchers faced at the time.

Rio Grande County is the westernmost county in Colorado’s San Luis Valley.

Monte Vista was a blossoming agricultural community at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Saguache County, known as the northern gateway to the San Luis Valley, lies between the Sangre de Cristo and San Juan Mountain Ranges.

The boom town of Bonanza was a flurry of activity during its late nineteenth-century gold rush.

With a population of more than 60,000, Grand Junction is the largest city on Colorado's Western Slope. This photo looks northwest over the city, with the Colorado River hidden behind a strip of trees in the foreground. St. Mary's Hospital, one of the largest employers in the region, is the tall rectangular building at center, while the southern slopes of the Roan Plateau spread across the background.

By the time this photo of a busy downtown Grand Junction was taken - sometime between 1919 and 1926 - the city was already the commercial hub of the Western Slope, drawing produce from the surrounding farmland and hundreds of tourists who came to see Colorado National Monument.

Built in 1899, the Holly Sugar Factory in Grand Junction was the first such factory built in Colorado. It processed beets into sugar. The factory was shuttered during the Great Depression but reopened in the 1950s as a processing plant for uranium mined elsewhere on the Western Slope.

Elk in grassy field. 

Bull Elk courting Cow Elk in the Rocky Mountains. 

Clear Creek County, one of the original seventeen counties of the Colorado Territory, hosted major gold and silver booms from 1859-93.

View of downtown Idaho Springs, seat of Clear Creek County, c. 1900-10. The town was formed in 1859, at the height of the Colorado Gold Rush.

Portrait of David Moffat, Denver businessman, banker, and railroad builder.

David Moffat’s wife, Frances (Fanny).

The Moffat residence at 808 Grant Street in Denver's Capitol Hill neighborhood.

Park County encompasses South Park, a broad intermountain basin that holds the headwaters of the South Platte River.

Quigg Newton created the Mayor’s Committee on Human Rights, seen here meeting in Denver in 1947.

Mayor Quigg Newton holds a shovel at the groundbreaking for the Denver Coliseum, one of many municipal projects undertaken during Newton’s term as mayor.

Chaffee County was formed in 1879 and named for Jerome Chaffee, a mining investor and one of Colorado’s first US senators.

Mt. Elbert, located in Chaffee County, is the highest mountain in Colorado at14,440 ft. It is one of fifteen fourteeners in the county.

Ellison S. Onizuka earned bachelor's and master's degrees in aerospace engineering at the University of Colorado-Boulder before joining NASA. He was one of seven astronauts who perished in the 1986 explosion of the Challenger spacecraft.

Sedgwick County was officially established in 1889 and is named for Fort Sedgwick, a military post that protected travelers along the Overland Trail.

An image from the first organizational meeting of the Cañon City Klan No. 21 on Jan. 26, 1924, at the Natatorium, a public swimming pool at the corner of Dozier and Central.

Fremont County is named for John C. Fremont, an American explorer who led several expeditions in search of railroad routes through Colorado during the mid-nineteenth century.

Fremont County, named for the American explorer John C. Fremont, was established in 1861 as one of the original seventeen counties of the Colorado Territory.

Huerfano County is a crossroads of southern Colorado known for coal production in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Built in 1936–37 as a Public Works Administration project, the Florence Post Office was the first federal building in town.

Santa Fe–based artist Olive Rush painted the mural "Antelope" for the Florence Post Office. It was installed in the post office lobby in 1939.

The Hartman Gymnasium was originally built into an existing U-shaped brick school building on the site. The school was demolished in the 1980s, but the line between brick and limestone on the gym's exterior shows where the school surrounded the east end of the building.

Built as a WPA project in 1938, the Holly City Hall housed the fire and police departments, jail, and library for many decades and is now a museum operated by the Holly Historical Society.

Built in 1936–38 as a Works Progress Administration project, the Holly Gymnasium is made of local Niobrara limestone and continues to be used for athletic events, classes, and community gatherings.

Built in 1936–38 as a Works Progress Administration project, the Hugo Municipal Pool features an Art Moderne bathhouse originally made of adobe blocks (now partly replaced with concrete). The pool and bathhouse are still in use today.

The bathhouse at the Hugo Pool was designed by district WPA engineer Lloyd Heggenberger. Its flat roof, rounded corners, and horizontal bands of windows are all characteristic of the WPA Art Moderne style.

Built in 1936 as a Public Works Administration project, the Lamar Post Office was designed by Walter DeMordaunt in the Spanish Colonial Revival style—unusual for a small-town post office in Colorado.

Palmer's construction engineer, Edmond Cornelius van Dienst, designed a column of rocks representing the geologic history of the Pikes Peak region, which he installed near one of the park's lakes.

A massive flood of Monument Creek in 1935 caused extensive damage throughout Monument Valley Park. It took several years and more than $1 million to restore most of the park to its previous condition.

Today Morrison's one main street of historic commercial buildings is largely lined with restaurants and antique shops.

In its early years, Morrison's economy depended on the Denver, South Park & Pacific Railroad and George Morrison's quarries, which produced sandstone, limestone, and gypsum.

By the 1880s, Morrison had a population of about 500. Thanks to George Morrison, it had a bustling quarry industry, and it also served as a vital transportation link between farms and ranches in the mountains and markets on the plains.

Today most evidence of Mount Vernon has disappeared, but George Morrison's Mount Vernon House still stands as a private residence just south of Interstate 70. Much of the land that was once Mount Vernon is now preserved as part of Jefferson County Open Space's Matthews/Winters Park.

Silverton was established in 1874 and quickly became the social and economic center of the surrounding mining district.

Silverton is located in Baker's Park, where prospector Charles Baker discovered gold in 1860. The park is a valley formed where Cement Creek and Mineral Creek join the Animas River.

Silverton developed slowly until the arrival of the Denver & Rio Grande Railway in 1882 sparked a long boom. The town's population quickly doubled to about 2,000.

After World War II, passenger traffic started to increase on the narrow gauge railroad line from Durango to Silverton. By the 1960s, the railroad was actively courting tourists, and after Silverton's last major mine closed in 1991, the railroad's steady stream of tourists helped the town survive.

Today Silverton has a population of about 600 and is the only town in San Juan County. It was named a National Historic Landmark in 1961 and attracts many visitors interested in its history and natural beauty.

The State Soldiers' and Sailors' Home near Monte Vista was established in 1889 and opened in 1891, when the original hospital and barracks was built.

After the Soldiers' and Sailors' Home faced a financial crisis in the 1890s, it started to make itself more self-sufficient, in part by establishing an agricultural operation to provide the home with food and income. The home's dairy cows were highly regarded.

In 1928 the Soldiers' and Sailors' Home added a new infirmary to improve the home's medical care. At the time, the infirmary was one of the best medical facilities in the San Luis Valley.

During the early twentieth century, the Soldiers' and Sailors' Home expanded significantly with new cottages, apartments, and administrative buildings. The grounds were planted with trees, making it a pleasant place for Monte Vista families to have a picnic.

All forms of the drug popularly known as marijuana come from the female Cannabis plant, shown here growing indoors in Denver.

Hemp, a non-psychoactive form of Cannabis, is grown in Colorado for its strong fibers and nutrient-rich seeds.

Routt County was established in 1877 and named after John L. Routt, the first governor of the state of Colorado.

“Panoramic view of frame and log houses, churches and commercial buildings on Lincoln Avenue in Steamboat Springs (Routt County), Colorado. Shows the Yampa River in a valley and snow on mountains in the distance.”

Logo of the Water Resources Archive at Colorado State University in Fort Collins.

Delph Carpenter (standing, center) attended the golden wedding anniversary celebration of his parents, Leroy and Martha Carpenter, in April 1922, between compact negotiations.

Denver Post political cartoon depicting the state's attitude toward the Colorado River Compact (1925). Hundreds of clippings on compacts are present in the Carpenter Papers.

Carpenter's copy of the official Colorado River Compact (1922). The Commission agreed on a final draft November 24, 1922, which was ratified by six states and the federal government in 1929. Arizona ratified it in 1944.

After a 1990 state constitutional amendment allowed Central City and Black Hawk to have casino gambling in the name of historic preservation, Black Hawk let large modern casinos overtake its historic core.

Alice Polk Hill (1845-1921) was Colorado's first poet laureate, from 1919 to 1921.

After prospectors started moving to the Mount Pisgah area in 1891, two separate towns—Fremont and Hayden Placer—soon took shape. After about a year the towns merged to form Cripple Creek.

Soon Cripple Creek and the surrounding gold mines were booming, thanks in part to the decline of silver mining across the state in 1893.

Two fires raged through Cripple Creek in late April 1896.

The 1896 fires flattened much of Cripple Creek, especially in the downtown business district, and left half of its residents homeless.

After the fires, Cripple Creek quickly rebuilt in brick and stone. It reached the peak of its prosperity around the turn of the century, when Teller County separated from El Paso County and Cripple Creek became the county seat.

The Western Federation of Miners went on strike in 1903, sparking a bitter fifteen-month struggle with mine owners and the Colorado National Guard. Many died and hundreds of union members were deported in one of the most violent labor disturbances in state history.

Mining declined in the Cripple Creek district throughout the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, leaving only 2,000 people left in the area. At the end of the 1980s, residents turned to gambling as a way to develop the local economy and generate revenue for preservation.

The Denver Museum of Nature & Science (DMNS) is the largest natural history museum between Chicago and the West Coast of the United States.

The bronze sculpture of an American mastodon (Mammut americanum) is permanently installed outside the Museum.

More information about Snowmastonon sculpture.

The Discovery Zone is bursting with activities that help build a strong foundation of science skills in young children through hands-on, highly experiential Museum experiences. Exhibits, activities, and programs focus on science process skills, such as observing, quantifying, inquiring, analyzing, creating, and communicating. Children can "excavate" fossils, manipulate and observe water in action, experiment with building methods and materials, and conduct investigations and create art projects.

Male mountain lion in a tree after a winter snow.

A mule deer doe and yearling. Mule deer are commonly found throughout Colorado's mountains and foothills, and are most active at dawn and dusk.

Mule deer buck with two does

Mule deer buck and small does peeking through grass.

Mule deer seek lower-elevation winter ranges where plants (primarily shrubs) are more easily accessible. They are common in parks in front range in winter time. Roxborough Sate Park elevations range from 5,900 to 7,280 feet (1,800 to 2,220 m).

In Colorado higher elevations receive increased moisture during spring and summer and thus provide enhanced forage conditions for deer. Mule deer can often been seen on top of mountains. In this photo, the mule deer was found on the top of Trail Ridge Road (elevation is above 12,000 feet) in Rocky Mountain Nation Park.

Moose, the largest members of the deer family, can be found in densely forested areas across Colorado. Here, a male Bull Moose shows freshly exposed antlers.

Two bull moose stand in a field of wildflowers. The animals were introduced to Colorado in 1978; before then, breeding populations did not exist in the state.

A moose calf eats wildflowers. Female moose typically give birth to only one calf at a time, although the healthiest females can give birth to twins.

Douglas County, one of the original seventeen counties of Colorado, is located on the Palmer Divide, a ridge that separates tributaries to the South Platte and the Arkansas Rivers.

The Douglas County Courthouse was completed in 1890. It burned in 1978 as a result of arson.

The current façade of Union Station following the 2014 renovation.

View of the original Union Station, showing its original tower topped with a weathervane.

Post-fire Union Station with the completed clock tower, seen from the building’s Wynkoop Street side.

At 14,011 feet, Mount of the Holy Cross towers above the surrounding White River National Forest. The iconic, cross-shaped snowfield near the summit has drawn thousands of visitors since it was first photographed by William Henry Jackson in 1873. This photo dates to the late nineteenth century and may have been one of the first that Jackson took of the mountain.

Miners eat dinner at a camp in Eagle County, probably near Red Cliff.

In 1874 prospectors found silver ore on the west side of Battle Mountain near present-day Minturn. They set up a camp that became the town of Red Cliff in 1879. This early photo of Red Cliff shows some of the West's famous false-front buildings along the main street, as well as several buildings under construction, including a two-story structure at bottom left.

Three men pose for a picture near the summit of Mount of the Holy Cross.

The Eagle County town of Basalt, shown here around 1900, lies about a dozen miles northwest of Aspen at the junction of Fryingpan and Roaring Fork Rivers. The beehive-shaped structures in the foreground are ovens used to produce coke, a coal-based fuel that burns hotter and was sent to silver smelters in Aspen. The Roaring Fork River is seen at left, and the Fryingpan River flows through the foreground behind the coke ovens. A freight train rolls along tracks at center and houses are clustered on the hillside to the right.

The town of Vail was just beginning to develop in 1964, some three years after Tenth Mountain Division veteran Pete Seibert and other investors formed Vail Associates to develop a ski resort in the area. Interstate 70 runs across the background of the photo.

Today Mount of the Holy cross is one of the most popular 14er hike in Colorado and it is accessible from Tigiwon Road, south of Minturn, Colorado.

Built on the site of a failed casino complex and upscale suburban development, the Broadmoor opened in 1918 and is perennially ranked one of the top resorts in the United States.

In the 1880s, Count James Pourtales acquired 2,400 acres at the base of Cheyenne Mountain. He built a lake, platted an upscale suburban development, and built an elegant casino that opened in July 1891. The Georgian-style building included game and billiard rooms, ballrooms, dining rooms, a reading room, and a bar.

After the original Broadmoor Casino burned down in 1897, it was replaced by a smaller structure designed by Colorado Springs architect Thomas MacLaren.

In 1916 Spencer Penrose and several others acquired the old Broadmoor Casino site. They moved the casino and constructed a grand Italianate hotel covered in pink stucco, which opened in 1918.

In 1881 silver magnate Horace Tabor built his Grand Opera House in Denver at Sixteenth and Curtis Streets. The venue's performances enthralled audiences for the next nine years, until a competing opera house opened on Broadway in 1890 and Tabor lost his fortune in 1893. This photo of the Tabor Grand Opera House building, taken when it was used as a movie house in 1905, shows a marquee that reads "The Money Changers."

This 1890 panorama of Denver showcases the grandiosity of Horace Tabor's Grand Opera House, which rises above the surrounding buildings in the upper right of the frame.

Five Points originally developed as a streetcar suburb in the 1870s and 1880s. By the end of the century, wealthy residents were moving to mansions in Capitol Hill and blacks began to move to Five Points, which was close to the rail yards where many worked along the South Platte River.

In 1893 Denver Fire Station No. 3, located on Glenarm Place in the heart of Five Points, became the city's first all-black fire station.

Shorter Community African Methodist Episcopal Church moved into Five Points as the area became a predominantly black neighborhood. In the 1980s the church moved to a new location north of City Park, and its building became home to Cleo Parker Robinson Dance.

Known as the "Harlem of the West," Five Points was full of important jazz venues like Benny Hooper's Ex-Servicemen's Club.

During the first half of the twentieth century, Five Points became home to a growing number of black professionals and office workers. The American Woodmen Insurance Company employed more black office workers than any other business in Denver.

Taken in the early 1930s, this postcard depicts the visitor center at The Cave of the Winds.

Men pose by limestone formations in the Cave of the Winds (Manitou Grand Caverns) near Manitou Springs.

Founded in 1865 by freedmen in downtown Denver, Zion Baptist Church moved in 1911 to the former Calvary Baptist Church building in Five Points.

The building now occupied by Zion Baptist Church was originally constructed in 1890–93. Designed by Frank Jackson and George Rivinius, the building is a Romanesque Revival church with a rusticated stone exterior.

After it moved in 1911, Zion Baptist grew to more than 1,000 members. The congregation shrank in the early 1930s but then was rejuvenated by leaders William Young and Wendell Liggins. Here the church celebrates Young's fourth anniversary as pastor in 1938.

Wendell Liggins served as pastor of Zion Baptist from 1941 to 1991. He became a political force in Denver, serving on boards for the Regional Transportation District and the Denver Public Library.

Despite harsh conditions at an elevation of 10,000 feet, roughly forty early structures at St. Elmo remain intact. The Home Comfort Hotel/Stark Store (right) dates to 1885.

After World War II, property owners in St. Elmo organized as the St. Elmo Property Owners Association and began to care for public buildings such as the schoolhouse and the town hall (left).

Spencer Penrose (1865-1939) was an entrepreneur, gold miner, and philanthropist who made significant contributions to the Colorado Springs community, including the construction of the Broadmoor Hotel and the establishment of the El Pomar Foundation.

Among Penrose’s many contributions to Colorado Springs, was the Broadmoor Hotel, which remains one of the state's premier hotels.

Spencer Penrose accumulated quite a large fortune, and he used it to contribute to many prominent landmarks in the Colorado Springs area, including the Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun at Cheyenne Mountain. Spencer and Julie Penrose are interred in the chapel floor.

At 330 feet—375 counting its flagpole—the Daniels and Fisher Tower was the tallest building in Denver when it was completed in 1911. It could be seen for miles and became the definitive symbol of the city.

In 1975 the City of Denver acquired Four Mile House, which was opened to the public as a museum in 1978. Today the nonprofit Four Mile Historic Park Inc. cares for the property, which hosts a variety of public events and educational programs.

The suffragette leader barnstormed for women’s rights in Colorado.

Margaret Tobin Brown was one of many prominent Colorado women who campaigned for the right to vote in the late nineteenth century.

Signed portrait of Gene Cervi.

Josephine Aspinwall Roche (1886-1976) became a champion for workers' rights when she took over her father's coal company, Rocky Mountain Fuel, in 1928.

Great Sand Dunes National Park. In the background: Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

San Luis Valley and the Great Sand Dunes, with the Sangre de Cristo Range in background — Colorado.

Great Sand Dunes National Park

Jefferson County, popularly known as "Jeffco," lies west of Denver. It was established in 1861 as one of the original seventeen counties of the Colorado Territory.

Rio Blanco County, named after the Spanish word for "white river," was established in 1889.

Custer County is a rural, lightly populated county in south central Colorado.

The Teller County town of Victor was home to dozens of mining ventures during the Cripple Creek Gold Rush of the 1890s. This photo shows Victor Avenue at Third Street, as it appeared a year after the great Victor fire, which destroyed much of the city.

The Pikes Peak Range Riders, a rodeo promotion group, make an annual trek down Victor Avenue each summer.

Victor's Gold Rush Days festival dates to 1893 and is Victor's most popular annual event.

The city’s downtown district includes a variety of shops, restaurants, and cultural events.

In 2001, Colorado Preservation Inc. named Stranges Grocery as one of the state's Most Endangered Places, but by 2013 the organization successfully got the building listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

There are three tunnels on Rim Rock Drive: two tunnels on the west side and one on the east side of the park.

John Otto dedicated himself to protecting and promoting these spectacular ancient landscapes in western Colorado. He gave patriotic names, such as Independence Monument and Liberty Cap, to the various rock formations he encountered.

John Otto could think of nothing better than to advertise Monument Canyon from a flag waving on top of the 450-foot tall Independence Monument. He worked day after day for several weeks pounding iron pipes and carving out footsteps into solid rock to make it possible for any brave soul to get to the top. After successfully getting to the top of Independence Monument for the first time on June 8, 1911, John Otto started his tradition of raising an American flag on top of Independence Monument every year on the Fourth of July. (Source: Independence Day Tradition)

Colorado National Monument preserves one of the grand landscapes of the American West. But this treasure is much more than a monument. Towering monoliths exist within a vast plateau and canyon panorama. You can experience sheer-walled, red rock canyons along the twists and turns of Rim Rock Drive, where you may spy bighorn sheep and soaring eagles. (Source: National Park Services - Colorado National Monument)

The dramatic scenery at Colorado National Monument, including the vertical cliffs and monoliths are composed of the Triassic Wingate Sandstone which is overlain by the resistant, silica-cemented Kayenta Formation. (Source: National Park Services: Geology of Colorado National Monument)

The Denver & Rio Grande Railroad arrived in March 1883. Along with the irrigation ditches, the railroad’s arrival in Grand Junction was a crucial part of the rapid takeoff in Mesa County agriculture that occurred between 1890 and 1910.

The Tenth Mountain Division (hereafter, the Tenth), was US Army division created in 1941.

The Tenth is not an exclusively mountaineering and skiing division but rather a unit trained specifically to fight in harsh terrain.

By 1886 the Grand Valley Canal was completed, watering about 45,000 acres. But by the early 1900s the valley’s rampant agricultural growth demanded even more water, prompting several additional irrigation projects.

The Grand Valley, named for the Colorado River—once known as the “Grand River”—that runs through it, is located on the Western Slope of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. Averaging 4,700 feet in elevation and roughly twelve miles in width, the arid valley stretches some thirty miles between the towns of Palisade and Mack.

The Eisenhower-Johnson Memorial Tunnel (also known simply as the Eisenhower Tunnel) carries Interstate 70 traffic underneath the Continental Divide.

The 1.6-mile-long pair of tunnels, carrying two lanes of traffic east and west, respectively, is seventy miles west of Denver in Summit County and provides an important transportation link for Western Slope and Front Range commerce, the ski industry, and tourism throughout the state. At 11,155 feet above sea level, they are the highest vehicle tunnels in the world.

Interstate 70, completed in 1992, follows the Colorado River through picturesque Glenwood Canyon, meeting state route 82 in Glenwood Springs.

Garfield County in western Colorado includes some of the state's most popular natural attractions, including Hanging Lake, Trappers Lake, the Flat Tops Wilderness, Rifle Falls, and Glenwood Canyon.

Coal mining was an integral part of Colorado's industrial economy in the early twentieth century, but dangerous work conditions and low pay often led to strikes. Here, striking coal miners near Trinidad pose with weapons during the Coalfield War of 1913-14.

Portrait of Tom Tobin, the tracker and army scout who brought an end to the Espinosa gang's murderous rampage in Colorado in 1863.

Construction workers prepare to exit the site of the Denver Ordnance Plant, now the Federal Center. Working in three shifts daily, some 20,000 employees produced millions of rounds of ammunition for the US armed forces during World War II.

Construction workers excavate a trench near a dynamite house at the Denver Ordnance Plant in 1941. The bunker is a semi-subterranean structure with a concrete facade.

A self-portrait of Jesse Nusbaum, archaeologist and three-time superintendent of Mesa Verde National Park from 1921-46.

In 1924 Jesse Nusbaum took this photo of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (far left, bow tie), the wealthy industrialist who donated funds to help complete construction of the museum at Mesa Verde National Park.

Colorado Springs mining investor and real estate developer Verner Reed, Sr., entertains members of the Baker family of London on a horse-drawn stagecoach in Cripple Creek.

The mansion of Colorado Springs businessman Verner Zevola Reed lies at 537 Circle Drive in Denver. Today the building is privately owned.

At 6,765 feet, Mt. Garfield is the highest point on the Book Cliffs, which form the southern edge of the Roan Plateau. Named for former president James Garfield, the mountain is located just north of I-70 east of Grand Junction.

Ute people butcher cattle at the Los Pinos Agency between 1869 and 1874. After the US government forced them onto various reservations in Colorado, the Utes and other Indigenous nations sometimes received annual shipments of cash and supplies, generally referred to as "annuities," at government-operated Indian Agencies.

Elbert County, located on Colorado's Great Plains southeast of Denver, was established in 1874.

Elbert County, named for former Colorado territorial governor Samuel H. Elbert, covers 1,851 square miles on the Great Plains southeast of Denver.

William Jackson Palmer 1836-1909, founder of Colorado Springs, Colorado, builder of several railroads including the D&RGW.

William Jackson Palmer, American Civil War, 1861. He became a general during the war.

Coal miners, a boy, a teenager, and a young girl eat slices of bread near the remnants of the tent colony destroyed in the Ludlow Massacre in April 1914. After the massacre, the Rev. John O. Ferris of Trinidad led efforts to recover bodies.

Striking coal miners and their families gather at the Ludlow tent colony during the United Mine Workers' strike of 1914. Governor Elias Ammons deployed the National Guard to quell the strike, and a pitched battle between strikers and guardsmen broke out on April 20. Guardsmen burned the tent colony, and nineteen people, including more than a dozen women and children, were killed before day's end.

Smoldering frames and debris were all that remained of the Ludlow tent colony after National Guardsmen burned it down during the Ludlow Massacre on April 20, 1914. The colony had housed coal miners and their families, and more than a dozen women and children suffocated during the conflagration.

Coffins carrying the victims of the Ludlow Massacre are brought to the Catholic Church in Trinidad as hundreds of mourners look on. At least nineteen people, including thirteen women and children, were killed in the massacre.

Two National Guardsmen pose with rifles in the burned tent colony of Ludlow shortly after the massacre in 1914. The guardsmen, who were sent in by Governor Elias Ammons to keep peace during a strike between the United Mine Workers and Colorado Fuel & Iron, instead helped instigate the massacre on April 20 and burned the colony. Thirteen women and children died in the blaze.

Arthur Lakes, an English naturalist who came to Colorado in the 1870s, helped establish the modern American field of geology. Lakes, along with his students and colleagues at Colorado School of Mines, discovered hundreds of dinosaur fossils, and his research on mining and minerals proved essential to the mining industry in the American West.

Located along South Boulder Creek in Gilpin County, Lincoln Hills was established in the 1920s as the only black resort west of the Mississippi River.

Lincoln Hills was divided into roughly 1,700 narrow lots, which were advertised to blacks across the country. By 1928, about 470 lots had been sold. The onset of the Great Depression ended many dreams and meant that only a few dozen private cabins were actually constructed.

One key to the success of Lincoln Hills was its easy accessibility. The Denver & Salt Lake Railway stopped twice near the resort, making it possible to arrive in less than an hour from Denver or stop for a few days during a cross-country trip.