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,…

Appointed by President Andrew Johnson in 1865, Alexander Cummings (1810–79) was the third governor of the Territory of Colorado. Originally from Pennsylvania, Cummings gained his office as governor in 1865 largely because he served the Union during the…

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…

Byron White (1917–2002) was Colorado’s first-ever US Supreme Court justice, serving from 1962 to 1993, as well as a nationally known college athlete for the University of Colorado and a star pro football player. As a justice, White was remembered for his…

Carrie Clyde Holly (1856–1943) of Pueblo County was elected to the state House of Representatives in 1894, making her one of the first three female legislators in the United States. In 1895 Holly became the first woman to get a bill she drafted made into…

Dean Reed (1938–86) was a singer-songwriter and actor from Denver who enjoyed a stint of popularity in the 1960s and 1970s before experiencing a slow slide into obscurity by the end of his life. Best known for his time spent living and recording in the…

Diana DeGette (1957– ) is a lawyer and politician who has represented Colorado’s First Congressional District—the city of Denver—in the US House of Representatives since 1997. A member of the Democratic Party, DeGette is known for her ardent support of…

The Hispano farmer and sheep rancher Don Felipe de Jesus Baca (1829–74) was one of the first settlers of the Purgatoire River valley, one of the most important developers of Trinidad, and a member of the Colorado Territorial legislature. He is the…

Eliza Pickrell Routt (1839–1907) was the first First Lady of the territory and later state of Colorado in 1875–79 and 1891–93. A strong supporter of women’s suffrage, she used her position as wife of Governor John Long Routt to advocate for expanded…

Standing less than five feet tall and weighing around 100 pounds, Ellis Meredith was a tiny woman, but she took large strides to improve life for the women of Colorado. The daughter of a well-known suffragette and pioneer resident of Montana, Emily R…

Frances S. Klock (1844–1908) was one of the first three women—along with Clara Cressingham and Carrie Clyde Holly—to serve as a state legislator in the United States. The three ran for office in 1894, one year after women in Colorado achieved the right…

Gary Hart (1936 –) is a former US Senator from Colorado, serving from 1975 to 1987, and two-time presidential hopeful who became embroiled in one of the first modern political sex scandals. The so-called “Monkey Business” scandal set the tone for future…

Gertrude Hill Berger Cuthbert (1869–1944) was a Denver socialite and philanthropist. Born into a prominent family, she inherited drive and ambition from her successful parents and established a legacy for herself in politics, suffrage, and local…

Helen Ring Robinson (c. 1860–1923) was the first woman elected to the Colorado State Senate in 1912 and the second woman elected to any state senate in the nation. In her role as senator during the Progressive Era, she was a passionate advocate for…

Henry Moore Teller (1830–1914) was a successful Colorado businessman, lawyer, and politician. His business and legal interests, which included mining and helping to organize the Colorado Central Railroad, were surpassed only by his political achievements…

James Quigg Newton, Jr. (1911–2003) was a distinguished lawyer, politician, and philanthropist who served as mayor of Denver (1947–55), president of the University of Colorado (CU; 1956–63), and the head of several national charitable foundations. As…

Jane Woodhouse McLaughlin (1914–2004) moved Colorado toward a more rights-based society for individuals with mental illness. As an assistant city attorney for Denver, first president of the Colorado Association for Mental Health, and a Democratic state…

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…

Joseph “Joe” D. Neguse (1984–) is a politician who represents Colorado’s Second Congressional District, which includes Boulder, Fort Collins, and most of the northern Front Range. A member of the Democratic Party, Neguse is the first African American…

John Evans (1814–97) served as second governor of Colorado Territory, from 1862 to 1865. His role in precipitating the massacre of peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians at Sand Creek in November 1864 forced him to resign. A doctor and Methodist minister…

John Wright Hickenlooper II (1952– ) is a Colorado businessman and politician who served as mayor of Denver from 2003 to 2011 and forty-third governor of the state from 2011 to 2019. In 2020 Hickenlooper was elected to the US Senate. In 1988 he founded…

John Long Routt (1826–1907) was Colorado’s last territorial governor and first state governor. A popular politician, he was elected to two separate, two-year terms as governor and is remembered for his leadership in bringing Colorado to statehood. He…

John R. Smith (1860–1927) was Colorado’s chief state prohibition officer during the years 1923–25. He successfully rooted out black-market alcohol crime but received harsh public criticism for his often-unconstitutional methods. He brought his friends on…

Josephine Aspinwall Roche (1886–1976) was a Colorado industrialist, labor advocate, and politician known for her role in reforming the Colorado coal industry in the 1930s. The daughter of a wealthy coal baron, Roche improved miners’ working conditions…

Ken Buck (1959–) is an attorney and politician from Weld County. He represents Colorado’s Fourth Congressional District in the US House of Representatives, an office he has held since 2015, winning reelection in 2016 and 2018. Since March 2019, Buck has…

The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) is an American white supremacist and terrorist organization whose history includes two distinct waves of activity. The first KKK was created in Tennessee in 1866 and was not active in Colorado. A chapter was not established in the…

Major Lafayette Head (1825–97) was an Indian agent to the Ute tribe for nine years after serving in the Mexican American War. In 1877, he became the first lieutenant governor of Colorado. He was influential in the early development of towns across the…

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…

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…

Michael Hancock (1969– ) is the forty-fifth mayor of Denver, elected in 2011. Currently in his third term, Hancock succeeded fellow Democrat John Hickenlooper and interim mayor Guillermo Vidal. Widely seen as a pro-growth mayor, Hancock is credited with…

Mike Coffman (1955–) is a Colorado politician who is currently the mayor of Aurora, his childhood hometown. From 2009 to 2019, Coffman served in Congress, representing Colorado’s Sixth Congressional District, which includes Aurora. He also previously…

Minnie Reynolds Scalabrino (1865–1936) was a newspaperwoman, candidate for political office, and lifelong suffragette in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth. She played an important role in the women’s suffrage movement in Colorado and worked…

Nathaniel Peter Hill (1832–1900) was a mining entrepreneur and US senator from Colorado. In the 1860s, Hill, an accomplished chemist and metallurgist, bought mining interests in Black Hawk and developed the first successful smelter in Colorado,…

Neil Gorsuch (1967–) is an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Born in Denver to a prominent legal and political family, he moved as a teenager to Washington, DC, where his mother, Anne Gorsuch, served in the administration of…

The Non-Partisan Equal Suffrage Association was the main organization in Colorado working toward granting women the right to vote. The association and its precursors were influential for more than thirty years, from Colorado’s failed suffrage referendum…

Otto Mears (1840–1931) was a Colorado businessman who played a key role in the removal of the Nuche (Ute) people and is best known for building more than 450 miles of toll roads and railroads on the Utes’ former lands in the southern and…

Patricia “Pat” Stryker (1956–) is a Colorado-based businesswoman and philanthropist. With an estimated net worth of $2.6 billion, Stryker has donated more than $195 million to charity in her lifetime, mostly through the Bohemian Foundation, her Fort…

Patricia (Pat) Scott Schroeder (1940–) represented Colorado’s First Congressional District—the city of Denver—in the US House of Representatives from 1973 to 1997. The first female US Representative elected in Colorado, she championed liberal issues,…

Ralph Lawrence Carr (1887–1950) was governor of Colorado from 1939 to 1943. Carr is remembered for his outspoken criticism of the federal government’s internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, even though a regional concentration camp, Amache…

Robert Walter Speer (1855–1918) served as mayor of Denver for two terms, from 1904 to 1912, then was reelected in 1916, serving another two years as mayor before passing away in 1918 during the Spanish influenza pandemic. Speer is remembered primarily…

Sadie Likens (c. 1840–1920) was a prominent officer of the court in Denver’s formative period, served as Colorado’s first prison matron, and was also known for her charitable work on behalf of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and other women’s…

Samuel Hitt Elbert (1833–99) was the sixth governor of the Colorado Territory (1873–74) and was elected as one of the first justices on the Colorado Supreme Court after statehood in 1876. The son-in-law of territorial governor and businessman John Evans,…

Holding political offices in Wisconsin and Colorado throughout his life, Samuel G. Colley (1807–90) is best known for serving as Indian Agent for the Upper Arkansas Indian Agency from 1860 to 1865. He was responsible for managing the Cheyenne and Arapaho…

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…

At the memorial service for long-time congressman Wayne Aspinall in 1983, Colorado Governor Richard Lamm said, “you can’t take a drink of water in Colorado without remembering Wayne Aspinall.” Wayne Norviel Aspinall (1896–1983) was born in Ohio and…

William Austin Hamilton Loveland (1826–94) was a leading businessman, railroad executive, and politician in early Colorado. A well-traveled man by early adulthood, Loveland arrived in Colorado during the Colorado Gold Rush. He played a critical role in…

William Gilpin (1815–94) served as the first governor of Colorado Territory in 1861–62. A gifted speaker with a flair for the dramatic, Gilpin was a firm believer in Manifest Destiny and in Colorado’s importance to the young American West. As governor…

General William Larimer, Jr. (1809–75), was a prominent nineteenth-century town promoter, prospector, and legislator in the Kansas and Colorado Territories. He is known for establishing the city of Denver. Larimer’s life serves as an example of the…