As Colorado approaches its Aug. 1 birthday, let’s celebrate 150 years by exploring our state. Whether you were born and raised in Colorado or just moved here, there’s a good chance you don’t know all the interesting facts about our state.
First, Colorado’s shape is not the simple rectangle we all thought. It’s actually a 697-sided polygon shape (a hexahectaenneacontakaiheptagon). Although latitude and longitude defined its borders, 19th century surveyors were using limited technology and created numerous small zigzags. That turned the straight lines into many short, straight segments between boundary markers.
Superlatives
Colorado’s average elevation is 6,800 feet above sea level, far higher than the nation’s average of 2,500 feet. Wyoming is next with 6,700 feet, followed by Utah (6,100), New Mexico (5,700) and Nevada (5,500). We have more 14ers (58), mountains rising higher than 14,000 feet, than any other state.
The nation’s largest elk herd, more than 25,000 animals, roams the White River National Forest.
North America’s tallest sand dunes are found at the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve, where the largest dunes rise approximately 750 feet from their base to their crest.
The Mount Blue Sky Scenic Byway is North America’s highest paved road, reaching an elevation of 14,130 to 14,140 feet. The 49-mile road ascends from Idaho Springs to Mount Blue Sky (formerly Mount Evans), providing access to high-altitude scenery in warmer months.
Grand Mesa, the world’s largest flat-top mountain, has an area of about 500 square miles and stretches for about 40 miles east of Grand Junction between the Colorado and Gunnison rivers.
Glenwood Springs has the world’s largest hot springs pool; it measures 405 feet long by 100 feet wide and holds more than 1 million gallons of mineral water.
Pagosa Springs is home to the world’s deepest geothermal pool; the Mother Spring is more than 1,002 feet deep. During a 2020 study, the plumb line failed to reach the bottom, making its true depth unknown.
At 11,000 feet in altitude, the Eisenhower-Johnson Memorial Tunnel is the highest auto tunnel in the world. It carries Interstate 70 from Silver Plume to Silverthorne.
Leadville is the highest incorporated city in the United States, at 10,430 feet above sea level.
The Kit Carson County Carousel in Burlington dates back to 1905, making it the oldest wooden merry-go-round in the United States. It features 46 hand-carved wooden animals crafted by the Philadelphia Toboggan Co.
The longest continuous street in the United States is Colfax Avenue (U.S. Route 40) in the Denver metropolitan area, spanning nearly 50 miles. It stretches east-west from Golden, through Lakewood and Denver, all the way into Aurora.
Colorado Connections
Damon Runyon (author, “Guys and Dolls”) grew up in Pueblo and, around 1895, began working as a journalist at age 15.
Douglas Fairbanks (actor, swashbuckler in silent movies) was born in Denver in 1883.
Lon Chaney (actor, called “The Man of a Thousand Faces”) was born in Colorado Springs in 1883.
Jack Dempsey (world heavyweight champion, active 1919-1926) was born in Manassa in 1895.
Mary Chase (author, 1945 Pulitzer Prize for “Harvey”) was born in Denver in 1906.
Robert Heinlein (author, “Stranger in a Strange Land”) lived in Colorado Springs 1948-1965.
David Packard (co-founded Hewlett-Packard in 1939) was born in Pueblo in 1912.
Byron “Whizzer” White (Supreme Court Associate Justice 1962-1993) was born in Fort Collins in 1917.
Ken Curtis (actor, Festus on “Gunsmoke”) was born in Lamar in 1918.
Dan Rowan (co-host, “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In” TV show, 1967-1973) grew up in Pueblo.
Jack Swigert (astronaut, Apollo 13) was born in Denver in 1931.
Flip Wilson (hosted his own TV show 1970-1974), a Fort Carson soldier, honed his comedy at the Cotton Club in Downtown Colorado Springs in the 1950s.
Joe Cocker (British rock legend) spent more than 20 years at his estate in Crawford, where he died in 2014.
Cassandra Peterson (“Elvira, Mistress of the Dark”) grew up in Colorado Springs and graduated from Palmer High School in 1969.
Tim Allen (actor, “Home Improvement” and “Toy Story”) was born in Denver in 1953.
Tony Goldwyn (actor, “Scandal” and “Law & Order”) attended the Fountain Valley School, graduating in 1978.
Felicity Huffman (actor, “Desperate Housewives”) grew up in Snowmass in the 1970s.
Dean Winters (actor, “Mayhem” in Allstate commercials) graduated from Colorado College in 1986.
Mike Brown (New York Knicks coach) lived in Colorado Springs in the early 1980s.
Amy Adams (actor, “Cape Fear”) grew up in Castle Rock and graduated from Douglas County High School in 1992.
It Happened Here
Theodore Roosevelt (U.S. president 1901-1909) visited Colorado many times for official business and vacations. Legend has it that he said, “This is the ride that bankrupts the English language!” after taking the Colorado Springs & Cripple Creek Railroad (now Gold Camp Road) to visit the gold mines around Victor.
Woodrow Wilson (president 1913-1921) gave his final in-person speech in Pueblo on Sept. 25, 1919, while promoting the League of Nations. He collapsed afterward, and his train was rushed back to Washington, D.C., where a stroke in early October paralyzed his left side. His wife, Edith Bowling Galt Wilson, and other confidants concealed the severity of his condition; he served the remainder of his term “partially impaired.”
Dwight Eisenhower (president 1953-1961) married Mamie Doud in 1916 in Denver, and in 1955 had a heart attack after playing golf there. He spent seven weeks recovering and running the country while hospitalized in Aurora.
Denver is the only city to ever reject hosting the Olympics after winning the official bid. Awarded the 1976 Winter Games in 1970, Colorado voters passed a referendum in 1972, banning public funds for the event. The Games were then relocated to Innsbruck, Austria.
A Smidgen of History
San Luis was established April 5, 1851, making it the state’s oldest continuously occupied town. Originally settled as San Luis de la Culebra (St. Louis of the Snake) by Hispano farmers from Taos, New Mexico, the statutory town was officially incorporated in 1885.
The state has approximately 1,500 ghost towns, a legacy of the silver and gold rush days. Some are little more than a single tumbledown shack.
Pueblo is known as the Home of Heroes because, at one time, it was the only U.S. city to be the hometown of four living Congressional Medal of Honor recipients. They were: William J. Crawford, Army during World War II; Carl L. Sitter, Marines in Korea; Raymond G. “Jerry” Murphy, Marines in Korea; and Drew D. Dix, Army in Vietnam. They are memorialized in bronze statues at the Home of Heroes Plaza in Downtown Pueblo.