People

Alcohol prohibition in Colorado (1916–33) disrupted social and gender relations in ways that would shape the state long after the law was repealed. Not only did women help enact the law, but they also helped enforce the law and even broke it, taking advantage of a new outlaw industry. Women...

Mark Emery Udall (1950–) is a former US representative (1999–2008) and senator (2009–14) from Colorado. A member of the Democratic Party , Udall comes from a prominent political family in the American West. His father was former senator Morris Udall; his uncle was three-term congressman Stewart Lee...

Jared Schutz Polis (1975– ) is the forty-third governor of Colorado , elected in 2018. A member of the Democratic Party , Polis formerly represented Colorado’s Second Congressional District and served on the State Board of Education . Polis is a progressive and the state’s first openly gay governor...

Bob Beauprez (1948–) is a rancher and former banker and politician from Boulder County . He represented Colorado’s Seventh Congressional District from 2003 to 2007 and ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2006 and 2014. A devout Catholic and member of the Republican Party , Beauprez has long...

Thomas Jacob "Dr. Colorado" Noel, a Professor of History and Director of Public History, Preservation & Colorado Studies at the University of Colorado Denver, is the author of more than fifty books. He was a longtime Sunday columnist for the Rocky Mountain News and The Denver Post and appears...

Agapito Vigil (1833–?) was a delegate to the Colorado Constitutional Convention in 1875­–76, representing Las Animas and Huerfano Counties, and a member of the state’s First General Assembly, representing Conejos County . At the constitutional convention, he joined Henry Bromwell as the only two...

Margaret West Norton Campbell (1827–1908) was an ardent advocate of women’s rights and one of the nation’s most sought-after suffrage speakers. In Colorado she was instrumental in the 1877 campaign for women’s suffrage . The measure failed, but her work paved the way for suffrage to be enacted in...

Sarah Platt Decker (1855–1912) was a beloved leader of women, known nationwide for her advocacy of women’s suffrage and social reform. Her influence was instrumental in the 1893 vote that gave Colorado women equal suffrage. She later became the founder and first president of the Woman’s Club of...

Lucy Stone (1818–93) was an orator, abolitionist, and suffragette who founded the American Woman Suffrage Association. In 1877 she campaigned for a women’s suffrage referendum in Colorado alongside fellow suffrage champion Susan B. Anthony . Although the 1877 measure was defeated, Stone and Anthony...