Also see Specific Destinations, Travel and Location Humor.

Page Toppers

• Boulder Skies
• Colorado Christmas
• Colorado Country Morning
• Colorado Moon
• Colorado's Calling
• In Dear Old Colorado
• I'd Rather Be in Colorado
• I'll Meet You in Denver
• Moonlight on the Colorado
• Pikes Peak or Bust
• Ripples of the Colorado
• This Ain't the Denver I Remember
• Where the Columbines Grow

Quotes

• Colorado men are we, from the peaks gigantic, from the great sierras and the plateaus, from the mine and from the gully, from the hunting trail we come, Pioneers! O Pioneers! (Walt Whitman)
• Passing through your wonderful mountains and canyons I realize that this state is going to be more and more the playground for the whole republic...You will see this the real Switzerland of America. (Theodore Roosevelt)
• Well, we have this place in Telluride, Colorado. It's somewhere I can just get away and relax and think. (Joe Cocker)
• Victor was a wonderful sight, a town of Western-style buildings perched incongruously in a high green valley of the most incredible beauty. (Bill Bryson)

Colorado Symbols

• Nicknames: Centennial State; Silver State; Colorful Colorado; Buffalo Plains State; The Highest State; Switzerland of America
• Motto: Nothing without Providence
• Colors: Blue and White
• Song: Where the Columbines Grow
• Folk Dance: Square Dance
• Animal: Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep
• Bird: Lark Bunting
• Fish: Greenback Cutthroat Trout
• Insect: Colorado Hairstreak Butterfly
• Tree: Colorado Blue Spruce
• Flower: White and Lavender Columbine
• Grass: Blue Grama Grass
• Fossil: Stegosaurus
• Gemstone: Aquamarine
• Mineral: Rhodochrosite
• Rock: Yule Marble
• Pro Sports Teams: CO Rockies (baseball), Denver Nuggets (men's basketball), CO Xplosion (women's basketball), Denver Broncos (football), CO Avalanche (hockey)

Facts About Colorado

• Capital: Denver
• Residents: Coloradans
• State Name Origin: a Spanish word for the color red that referred to the water in the Colorado River
• Admitted to Statehood: 1 Aug 1876
• Order of Admission: 38th state
• Length: 380 miles
• Width: 280 miles
• Area: 104,094 square miles
• Size Rank: 8
• Number of Counties: 65
• Streams and Rivers: 107,403 miles
• Nearly twenty rivers have headwaters that begin in CO, the Continental Divide directs each river's course.
• Geographic Center: 30 miles NW of Pike's Peak in Park Co.
• Mean Elevation: 6,800 feet (highest mean elevation of any state)
• CO contains 75 percent of the land area of the U.S. with an altitude over 10,000 feet
• Highest Point: Mt. Elbert, 14,433 feet
• More than 1,000 Rocky Mountain peaks reach over 10,000 feet high, and 54 tower are 14,000 feet
• Lowest Point: Arikaree River, 3,315 feet
• Agricultural Products: food products, cattle
• Commercial Products: tourism, printing and publishing, instruments and industrial machinery, electronic equipment, metal products, oil, coal
• Average Annual Rainfall: 15.3 inches
• Average Winter High Temperature: 10-40 degrees
• Record Low Temperature: -61 degrees (1 Feb 1985 Maybell)
• Average Summer High Temperature: 75-85 degrees
• Record High Temperature: 118 degrees (11 Jul 1888 Bennett)
• Official Language: English
• More information about Colorado

from Where the Columbines Grow

(words and music by A.J. Fynn)

Where the snowy peaks gleam in the moonlight,
above the dark forests of pine,
And the wild foaming waters dash onward,
toward lands where the tropic stars shine;
Where the scream of the bold mountain eagle,
responds to the notes of the dove
Is the purple robed West, the land that is best,
the pioneer land that we love.
(chorus)

Let the violet brighten the brookside,
in sunlight of earlier spring,
Let the fair clover bedeck the green meadow,
in days when the orioles sing,
Let the golden rod herald the autumn,
but, under the midsummer sky,
In its fair Western home, may the columbine bloom
till our great mountain rivers run dry.

Chorus:
Tis the land where the columbines grow,
Overlooking the plains far below,
While the cool summer breeze in the evergreen trees
Softly sings where the columbines grow.

Items of Interest

• The most famous of the Rocky Mountains is Pike's Peak, discovered by U.S. Army Lieutenant Zebulon M. Pike in 1806. Over 400,000 people ascend Pikes Peak each year.
• The highest suspension bridge in the world, 1,053 feet above the Arkansas River, is in Royal Gorge near Canon City.
• Colorado is the home of the U.S. Air Force Academy, the U.S. Mint, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
• The tallest sand dune in America is in Great Sand Dunes National Monument outside of Alamosa. It covers 46,000-acres and has sand peaks that are 700 feel high. It was formed by ocean waters and wind more than one million years ago.
• Mesa Verde is the site of a four-story city carved in the cliffs by the Ancestral Pueblo people between 600 and 1300 A.D. No one knows what caused the sudden disappearance of the thousands of inhabitants who created the structures.
• Colorado has more micro-breweries per capita than any other state.
• The Kit Carson County Carousel in Burlington, made in 1905, is the oldest wooden merry-go-round in the US. It is the only wooden carousel in America still with its original paint.
• The world's largest natural hot springs pool located in Glenwood Springs.
• Colorado's southwest corner borders Arizona, New Mexico and Utah the only place in America where the corners of four states meet.
• The World's First Rodeo was held on July 4th, 1869 in Deer Trail. Every year Denver hosts the world's largest Rodeo, the Western Stock show.
• "Beulah red" is the name of the red marble that gives the CO State Capitol building in Denver its distinctive look. It took six years (1894-1900) to cut, polish, and install the marble in the Capitol. All of the "Beulah red" marble in the world went into the building so it cannot be replaced, at any price. The 13th step of building is exactly one mile above sea level.
• Denver has the largest city park system in the nation with 205 parks in the city limits and 20,000 Acres of parks in the nearby mountains.
• Colfax Avenue in Denver is the longest continuous street in America.
• The Dwight Eisenhower Memorial Tunnel between Clear Creek and Summit counties is the highest auto tunnel in the world.
• The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.
• Leadville is the highest incorporated city in the United States at 10,430 feet elevation.
• The world's largest flat-top mountain is in Grand Mesa.
• Denver is one of the places that claims to be where the cheeseburger was invented. The trademark for the name Cheeseburger was awarded in 1935 to Louis Ballast.
• The highest paved road in North America, 14,258 feet above sea level at its highest point, is the Road to Mt. Evans off of I-70 from Idaho Springs.
• Hundreds of thousands of valentines are re-mailed each year from Loveland.
• Fountain was selected as the United States' millennium city because it best symbolizes the overall composition of America. According to Census Bureau statistics it best represents the population make-up of the US.

Notable Natives

Some of these were born here, others just lived a while in the state.

• Tim Allen (1953- ) - actor (Denver)
• Katherine Lee Bates - wrote America the Beautiful after being inspired by the view from Pikes Peak
• Ben Nighthorse Campbell (1933- ) - first Native American to serve in the U.S. Senate in 1992
• M. Scott Carpenter (1925- )- one of the first seven astronaut, second American to orbit the earth (Boulder)
• Lon Chaney (1883-1930) - actor (Colorado Springs)
• Adolph Coors (1847-1919) - founder of the Adolph Coors Company in Golden
• William Harrison "Jack" Dempsey (1895-1953) - boxer, world heavyweight champion 1919-26 (Manassa)
• Ralph Edwards - entertainer (Merino)
• John Elway (1960- ) - Denver Broncos quarterback
• Douglas Fairbanks (1883-1939) - actor (Denver)
• Eugene Fodor (1950- )- concert violinist
• Gene Fowler - author
• Lawrence H. Gipson - historian (Greeley)
• Horace Greeley - publisher
• Eric Hawkins - choreographer
• John Henry "Doc" Holliday (?-1887) - well-know wild-westerner (died in Glenwood)
• Willard Libby (1908-1980) - Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, discovered radio-carbon dating (Grand Valley)
• Ted Mack - television host (Greeley)
• Ouray (1833-1880) - Ute leader
• Florence Sabin (1871-1953) - first woman elected to the National Academy of Sciences (Central City)
• Robert J. Seiwald - inventor (Fort Morgan)
• Byron Raymond White - supreme court justice (Fort Collins)
• Paul Whiteman (1890-1967) - jazz conductor, musician (Denver)

The Colorado State Flag
The flag, adopted in 1911, has three alternate stripes of equal width, the two outer stripes are the same blue as the US flag and the middle stripe is white. The blue symbolizes clear skies, the white represents snow-capped mountains. Near the staff end of the flag is a red C, (the same red as the US flag and representing the state's soil). Filling the open space inside the C is a golden disk (symbolizing abundant sunshine).

You Might Be From Denver If...

• Bear chases are televised for hours.
• "Damn Rockies" is an expression you use when you can't find a parking spot Downtown.
• During a thunderstorm you wonder which I-25 underpass is flooding.
• If it rains more than two days straight you compare the weather to being in Seattle.
• If the humidity gets above 25 percent, you consider it muggy.
• A pass does not involve a football or dating.
• People driving on the 16th Street Mall are considered "tourists".
• The biggest event of the year is the Western Stock Show.
• The only RTD bus you've been on is the 16th Street shuttle.
• The top of your head is bald, but you still have a pony tail.
• The two major newspapers have the same owner, yet one insists on making its on rules regarding what to call the new stadium.
• There is not enough money in the world to get you to move to the Springs.
• When giving directions, you never say "Turn left, turn right", it's always go West, then South.
• When the Broncos are losing you refer to them as the "Donkeys".
• You actually think 5-Points is a ghetto.
• You are the third car to run a red light after it has changed.
• You carry your $3,000 mountain bike atop your $500 car.
• You consider LoDo a tourist trap with expensive condos.
• You have a broken windshield.
• You have absolutely no recognizable accent.
• You have been skiing less than three times in your life.
• You hear the number "82" and grab a shovel. (as in Blizzard of '82)
• You know that "The Narrows" refers to I-25 between University and Broadway.
• You know where the city ended when you were a kid, and would never move further out than that boundary.
• You merge onto the highway at 15 miles an hour.
• You never plan a picnic between 3:30 and 6:00 in Spring or Summer months.
• You only go to Lodo when friends are in from out of town.
• You say things like "I don't care how big Parker is, it's still a one-horse town".
• You see no reason to travel to Aurora.
• You tell your husband to pick up Granola on his way home and he stops at the day care center.
• You think most of the people in Colorado Springs are religious freaks.
• You think only stupid people get lost in this town.
• You think the rest of the freaks live in the "Independent Republic of Boulder."
• You voted for higher taxes to fund Coors field, but voted down taxes for public transportation.

Songs about Colorado

• Apples Won't Grow in Colorado Snow - Jim Weatherly (1976)
• Coast of Colorado, The - Skip Ewing (1989)
• Colorado - Flying Burrito Brothers (1971)
• Colorado Calling - Anthony Armstrong Jones (1972)
• Colorado Calling Me - Jim and Jesse (1980)
• Colorado Christmas - The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (1997)
• Colorado Country Morning - Pat Boone (1980)
• Colorado Exile - Jim Post (1974)
• Colorado Girl - Townes Van Zandt (1969)
• Colorado Moon - Tim Malchak (1987)
• Colorado Side, The - Russell Smith (1989)
• Colorado Trail - Connie Dover (1994)
• Colorado Wind - Chuck Pyle (2001)
• Cool Colorado - Saul Broudy (1983)
• Going Back to Colorado - Zephyr (1971)
• I Guess He'd Rather Be in Colorado - John Denver (1971)
• I Wonder How it is in Colorado - Gene Watson (1978)
• In My Colorado Home - Sons of the San Joaquin (1995)
• Lucky Old Colorado - Merle Haggard (1990)
• Rocky Mountain High - John Denver (1973)
• Waltz of Colorado - Shorty Long (1950)

Songs about Colorado Cities

• Aspen, Colorado - Tony Joe White (1968)
• Boulder Skies - Pure Prairie League (1972)
• Boulder to Birmingham - Emmylou Harris and Mark Knopfler (2006)
• Pueblo Waltz - Townes van Zandt (1978)
• Romance in Durango - Bob Dylan (1976)
• Stranger From Durango - Richie Allen (1963)

Songs about Denver

• Comin' Down From Denver - Hoyle Nix (1958)
• Denver - The Gatlin Brothers (1984)
• Denver Belle - Steve Kaufman (2007)
• Denver Dream - Donna Summer (1974)
• Denver Rain - Michael Stanley (1972)
• Get Out of Denver - Bob Seger (1974)
• I'll Meet You in Denver - Bonnie Guitar (1969)
• Lights of Denver - Tom Astor (1982)
• Rain Falls in Denver - Johnny Dollar (1969)
• Shot Down in Denver - Sha Na Na (1975)
• This Ain't the Denver I Remember - Pirates of the Mississippi (1991)