Topic
History and culture
Mining towns and railroads, landmarks and museums, festivals, food, and the local-color stories that make each corner of Colorado make sense.
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Local notes
More history and culture notes
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History and culture
Why Hinsdale County exists, and where its name comes from
Hinsdale County was created in 1874 during the silver rush and named for George A. Hinsdale, with Lake City growing up where a toll road met the mines.
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Why Pueblo Is Called the Home of Heroes
Four Medal of Honor recipients came from one Colorado steel town, and Pueblo built two downtown spots to honor them.
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Why Silverton sits where it does: hard-rock mining in the San Juans
Silverton grew up as a hard-rock mining town in the high San Juan Mountains, and that mining past still shapes the county's roads, sites, and identity.
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Riverbend Ponds turns old gravel pits into wetland habitat
Riverbend Ponds Natural Area in Fort Collins is seven old gravel-mine ponds reborn as Poudre River fishing, birding, and wetland habitat.
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Westcliffe grew up around a railroad depot
The Denver and Rio Grande railroad reached the Wet Mountain Valley in the early 1880s, and the historic depot near downtown, restored by a local effort, is a reminder of why the town sits where it does.
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A 1914 pack trip recorded Arapaho place names near Estes Park
In 1914, Arapaho men joined a Colorado Mountain Club pack trip through the Estes Park region so Arapaho place names and trails could be recorded, work later published as 'Arapaho Names and Trails.'
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A beloved Genoa roadside landmark is coming back to life
Near Genoa off I-70, the historic World's Wonder View Tower is a 1920s roadside attraction famous for a long-standing 'see six states' claim, now reopening after a major historic restoration.
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A flood is the reason Fort Collins sits where it does
Fort Collins grew up around an Army post that was moved downstream after an 1864 flood washed out the earlier camp near Laporte, and the county seat followed the new fort a few years later.
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Animas City came first, then Durango, then they became one
Animas City was an older settlement just north of Durango that lost out when the railroad chose a new townsite in 1880, and the two eventually merged into modern Durango.
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Aspen began as a silver mining camp
Aspen grew out of a 1880s silver boom in the Roaring Fork Valley, and the 1893 silver crash that followed shaped the town long before skiing arrived.
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At Soapstone Prairie, a spear point in a bison's spine rewrote the past
At the Lindenmeier site in Fort Collins's Soapstone Prairie Natural Area, a stone point lodged in the backbone of an extinct bison helped prove people hunted here at the end of the Ice Age, roughly 10,000 years ago.
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Barney Ford's house in Breckenridge tells a Black pioneer's story
The Barney Ford House Museum in Breckenridge preserves the home of a formerly enslaved man who became a businessman and civil rights advocate in early Colorado.
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Boreas Pass Road was once a high narrow-gauge railroad
The gravel road over Boreas Pass between Breckenridge and Como follows the old grade of the Denver, South Park & Pacific narrow-gauge railroad.
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Burlington's Old Town Museum is a walkable village of restored plains buildings
The Old Town Museum in Burlington gathers restored turn-of-the-century buildings on one historic site, giving a close look at early life on Colorado's plains.
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Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument honors the 10th Mountain Division
Camp Hale, just over the divide from Summit County, was the World War II training ground for the Army's mountain troops and is now a national monument managed by the Forest Service.
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Cattlemen's Days, the rodeo Gunnison has run since 1900
Each July, Gunnison stages Cattlemen's Days, a working-ranch rodeo it traces back to 1900 and bills as Colorado's oldest.
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Coal, ore, and rail explain the Gunnison Country map
Mining and the railroads that served it help explain why Gunnison, Crested Butte, and the smaller camps sit where they do.
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Como exists because of a narrow-gauge railroad, and its stone roundhouse still stands
Como was a junction town on the Denver, South Park and Pacific narrow-gauge railroad, and its 1880s stone roundhouse, depot, and hotel complex are listed on the National Register.
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Costilla County sits inside the Sangre de Cristo National Heritage Area
Much of Costilla County lies within the Sangre de Cristo National Heritage Area, a Congress-recognized cultural region that ties together San Luis, Fort Garland, and other historic sites.
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Craig keeps David Moffat's private railcar, the Marcia
In Craig sits the Marcia, a Pullman-built private railcar named for David Moffat's daughter, a piece of the railroad history that the county is named after.
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Dove Creek: the county seat that calls itself the Pinto Bean Capital
Dove Creek is the seat of Dolores County and grew up around dryland bean and grain farming, which is why it bills itself as the Pinto Bean Capital of the World.
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Downtown Trinidad is a National Historic District called El Corazon de Trinidad
The brick-paved heart of downtown Trinidad is a listed National Historic District, which can affect how older buildings there are changed or restored.
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Durango's Main Avenue is a designated historic district
Downtown Durango's Main Avenue is a recognized historic district whose buildings record the town's mining-era beginnings and later growth as a regional hub.
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Durango's old smelter site has a uranium-era cleanup history
A former Durango smelter became a World War II-era uranium mill, and its cleaned-up tailings were moved to a disposal cell in Bodo Canyon now managed by the U.S. Department of Energy.
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