History of Colorado

In the history of Colorado, the first inhabitants of what was to become the were the. The earliest explorers of European extraction to visit the area were. During the period 1832 to 1856 a number of traders, trappers, and settlers including the and the Americans established  and small settlements along the, and on the  near the. Prominent trading posts were and  on the Arkansas and  on the South Platte. The organization of the Colorado Territory included land from the western portion of, the eastern portion of , the southwestern portion of , and a small portion of northeastern on February 28, 1861. 

Territory of Colorado
The was a historic,  of the  that existed between  and. Its boundaries were identical to the current. The territory ceased to exist when Colorado was admitted to the Union as a state on,. The territory was organized in the wake of the, which had brought the first large concentration of white settlement to the region. The creating the territory was passed by  and signed by President  on, , during the secessions by  states that precipitated the. The organization of the territory helped solidify control over a mineral rich area of the. Statehood was regarded as fairly imminent, but territorial ambitions for statehood were thwarted at the end of by a  by President. Statehood for the territory was a recurring issue during the administration, with Grant advocating statehood against a less willing Congress during.

Colorado becomes a state
declared Colorado a state on August 1, 1876. One century after the birth of the nation, Colorado became known as the "Centennial State." The borders of the new state coincided with the borders established for the Colorado Territory. Women won in Colorado in 1893. Colorado was the first state in the union to grant this right to women through a popular election. (Wyoming approved the right of women to vote in 1869 through a vote of the territorial legislature.) Governor campaigned for the Constitutional amendment granting women the right to vote in Colorado. Governor Waite is also noted as one of the few elected officials ever to call out the to protect miners from a force raised by mine owners. Governor Waite belonged to the.

Mining in Colorado
Participants in the from 1858 to 1861 were called, and many of the new arrivals settled in the  area. Gold in paying quantities was also discovered in the, and by 1860 the population of Central City was 60,000. In 1879, silver was discovered in, resulting in the.

Many early mining efforts were cooperative ventures. However, as easy-to-reach surface deposits played out, miners increasingly turned to. Such industrial operations required greater capital, and the economic concept of resulted in periodic conflicts between the mine owners, and the miners who increasingly sold their labor to work in the mines.

As the mines were dug deeper, they became more dangerous, and the work more arduous. In the 1890s many Colorado miners began to form unions in order to protect themselves. The mine operators often formed mine owners' associations in response, setting up the conditions for a conflict. Notable labor disputes between hard rock miners and the mine operators included the of 1894 and the  of 1903-05.

began soon after the first settlers arrived! Although the discovery of coal did not cause boom cycles as did the precious metals, the early coal mining industry also established the conditions for violent confrontations between miners and mine owners. The usual issues were wages, hours, and working conditions. Early coal mining in Colorado was extremely dangerous, and the state had one of the highest death rates in the nation. Coal miners also resented having to pay for safety work such as timbering the mines, and they were sometimes paid in scrip that had value only in the company store.

A strike in 1913 resulted in the 1914. Another coal strike in 1927 is best known for the first. In 1933, federal legislation for the first time allowed all Colorado coal miners to join unions without fear of retaliation.

Like all resource extraction, is a boom or bust industry, and over the years many small towns were established, then abandoned when the ore ran out, the market collapsed, or another resource became available. There were once more than a hundred coal mines in the area north of Denver and east of Boulder. They began to close when natural gas lines arrived. Coal and precious metals are still mined in Colorado, but the mining industries have changed dramatically in recent decades.

Old industry gives way to new: tourism and recreation
Some hard rock mining communities such as, , and have found new life as , cultural centers, or  towns; others never recovered and became s.

Colorado rejects the Olympics
In 1972, Colorado became the only state to reject the award as the site of the after they had been granted. The relocated the  to,  after Colorado voters rejected a bond issue to raise money for expenses related to hosting the event. No venue had rejected the award before nor has any venue since.

Historic Native American tribes

 * &mdash; Inhabited the in the 18th century, then migrated southward to, , and , leaving a void on the plains that was filled by the Arapaho and Cheyenne from the east.
 * &mdash; -speaking tribe that migrated westward to the base of the in the late 19th century and settled on the  and the . They were relocated entirely out of Colorado in 1865 following the.
 * &mdash; Closely related to the Arapaho, and spoke a similar language. Like the Arapaho, they migrated westward in the 18th century to the base of the Rockies. They often lived in bands interspersed among the Arapaho, and were also relocated out of Colorado in the 1860s.
 * &mdash; they inhabited intermountain valleys along the north edge of the state, especially in the valley, up through the late 19th century. Areas included  and.
 * &mdash; an established tribe in the for many centuries. They often clashed with the Arapaho and Cheyenne, and resisted the encroachment of these tribes into the mountains. Until the 1880s, the Ute controlled nearly all of Colorado west of the, a situation that eroded after the silver boom of 1879. After clashing with white settlers in the 1880s in the , they were nearly entirely relocated out of the state into , except for a small reservation in southwestern Colorado.