Wayne Wheelwright - 50 Quick Facts about Colorado

Title Page

50 QUICK FACTS ABOUT COLORADO

By

Wayne Wheelwright

Publisher Information

50 Quick Facts about Colorado

Published in 2013 by Andrews UK Limited

www.andrewsuk.com

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Copyright 2013 Wayne Wheelwright

The right of Wayne Wheelwright to be identified as author of this book has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyrights Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Facts

1. The area that is now the state of Colorado has been inhabited by man for around 13,000 years. The first people to live there were Native Americans and the Lindenmeier Site in Larimer County is an archaeological site that contains artefacts that go back as far as 8710BCE. European settlers were brought to the area by westward expansion and some of Colorados earliest recorded history covers treaties and wars over territory.
2. In 1849 and 1850 gold seekers heading towards the California Gold Rush found gold whilst panning streams in the South Platte River Valley at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. William Greenbury Russell led a party of Cherokee golf seekers from Georgia to search properly for gold along the river and found a small placer deposit in the first week around five miles above Cherry Creek.
3. The Territory of Colorado existed from 1861 to 1876 and its boundaries were the same as the current boundaries of Colorado today, the territory was admitted to the Union as a state on August 1 st , 1876 becoming the 38 th state of the United States.
4. The Colorado War was an Indian War between the white settlers and militia from the Territory of Colorado and its neighbouring regions and the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes. One of the notable acts during the Colorado war was an attack against the camp of Southern Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle that would come to be known as the Sand Creek Massacre. The battle was hailed in the press as a great victory but was later discovered to be and act of hideous brutality and genocide.
5. The gold seekers that took part in the Pikes Gold Rush were given the name Fifty-Niners and most of them settled in the Denver area. Substantial amounts of gold were discovered in the Central City area whilst large deposits of silver were found in Leadville leading to the Colorado Silver Boom. As mines were dug deeper and deeper the conditions became extremely hazardous leading to marshall law being declared in Leadville in 1880 to stop a violent mining strike which in turn led to many of the miners forming unions in the late 19 th century.
6. Soon after the first of the settlers in Colorado arrived, coal mining began. The early days led to violent confrontations between miners and the owners regarding low wages, long working hours and the dangerous working conditions. Coal miners were also expected to pay for the safety work like timbering the mines. During the coal mining days due to the inherent danger of coal mining Colorado had one of the highest mortality rates in the entire country.
7. In 1927 in the town of Serene in Colorado a fight between Colorado state police and a group of striking coal miners led to the unarmed miners being attacked with machine guns. The culprits are unknown as it was unclear if the machine guns were fired by guards working for the mine or the police themselves. The incident led to the deaths of six people and many more injuries and would come to be known as the Columbine Massacre.
8. In the 1860s when Tuberculosis was a global health problem, physicians in the eastern United States suggested that sufferers travel to sunny Colorado for their health and recuperation. This resulted in Colorado becoming home to more tuberculosis sufferers or lungers than it was equipped to handle and with no other way to handle the growing number of sick, homeless people sent many to jail. With the large number of sufferers travelling to Denver it was nicknamed the Worlds Sanitarium.
9. The end of the 19 th century saw Colorado in a difficult situation regarding lawlessness, most famously the assassination of the outlaw Jesse James by member of his gang Robert Ford in Creede and the conman Jefferson Randolph Soapy Smith who was most famous for his scam, the prize package soap sell racket and was believed to have had a major role in the organised crime of Denver and Creede in Coloarado.
10. Colorados ski industry started in the 1930s with resorts being set up in Estes Park in Larimer County, and Loveland Pass which is located in the Rocky Mountains of north-central Colorado. During World War II the 10 th Mountain Division originally activated as the 10 th Light Division (Alpine) established Camp Hale between Red Cliff and Leadville in the Eagle River Valley to train elite mountain troops.
11. Colorado became the only state ever to reject the award of hosting the Olympic Games in 1972. Representative Lamm led a movement to reject a bond issue to for expenses related to Colorados hosting of the event. The games were relocated to innsbruck in Austria and to this day Colorado is the only venue ever to reject the award.
12. In 1999 there was a school shooting in at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado. The attack was meticulously planned and included a fire bomb to keep firefighters distracted, bomb made of converted propane tanks in the school cafeteria, 99 explosive devises and bombs rigged in cars. The attack would come to be known as the Columbine High School Massacre where two senior students murdered twelve students and one teacher, also injuring another twenty four students. Following the attack the two senior students committed suicide.
13. During a midnight screening of the movie The Dark Knight Rises in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado on July 20 th , 2012 there was a mass shooting. A gunman set off tear gas grenades and started firing into the audience using multiple firearms leading to the deaths of twelve people and injuring seventy others. The gunman was arrested outside the cinema immediately following the cowardly attack.
14. Colorado has a very diverse geography containing vast and rugged mountain terrain, large plains, desert lands, canyons and mesas. Colorado is one of three states along with Wyoming and Utah that has only lines of latitude and longitude for its boundaries.
15. The highest point in the state of Colorado is Mount Elbert in Lake County which is also the highest point in the whole of the Rocky Mountains. The summit reaches up to 4401 metres and is one of over five hundred peaks in the state that are over 4000 metres. Colorado is the only state that is entirely above 1000 metres. The lowest point in the state is where the Arikaree River flows into Kansas on the eastern boundary of Yuma County which is 1010 metres.
16. Colorado is the eighth larges state in the country with an area of 104,094 square miles. Colorado has a width of 380 miles and a length of 280 miles. Colorado is the 22 nd most populous state in the country with a population of around 5.2 million people. The population density of the state is 49.3 per square mile which places Colorado 37 th in the country.
17. The state of Colorado is landlocked and is bordered by Wyoming in the north, Nebraska and Kansas to the north-east and east, New Mexico on the south, Arizona to the southwest and Utah to the west. Along with New Mexico, Utah and Arizona, Colorado meet at one common point known as the Four Corners which is known as the heart of the American Southwest.
18. the Rocky Mountains which are often known as the Rockies are a major mountain range that stretch over three thousand miles from British Columbia in Western Canada to New Mexico in the south west United States. The highest peaks off the Rockies lie in Colorado with Mount Elbert being the highest point of the range. people form all over the world visit the Rocky Mountains and some of the most popular sites are n Colorado including Pikes Peak, Royal Gorge and Rocky Mountain National Park.