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WikiProject Colorado
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WikiProject Colorado 
You need not be either an expert or a resident.
You only need an active interest in the Centennial State.
Request an article about a Colorado topic here or volunteer here.
Colorado Events
- Wikimedia US Mountain West Autumn 2024 online meeting, Tuesday, November 12, 2024, 8:00-9:00 PM MST
- Wikimedia US Mountain West Spring 2025 online meeting, Tuesday, May 13, 2025, 8:00-9:00 PM MDT
Previous events:
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Colorado events
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Colorado Facts
- Date admitted to Union: August 1, 1876 (38th State)
- Demonym: Coloradan
- Capital: Denver
- Elected state officers:
- Governor: Jared Polis (D) (2019–)
- Lieutenant Governor: Dianne Primavera (D) (2019–)
- Secretary of State: Jena Griswold (D) (2019–)
- Treasurer: Dave Young (D) (2019–)
- Attorney General: Phil Weiser (D) (2019–)
- Colorado General Assembly:
- Colorado Senate:
- D-23 R-12 (2023–2024}
- Colorado House of Representatives:
- D-46 R-19 (2023–2024}
- Colorado Senate:
- Colorado Supreme Court:
- Brian Boatright, Chief Justice (2021–)
- Monica Márquez (2010-)
- William Hood, III (2014–)
- Richard Gabriel (2015–)
- Melissa Hart (2017–)
- Carlos Samour, Jr (2018–)
- Maria Berkenkotter (2021–)
- U.S. Senators:
- Class 2. John Hickenlooper (D) (2021–)
- Class 3. Michael Bennet (D) (2009–)
- 1. Diana DeGette (D) (1997–)
- 2. Joe Neguse (D) (2019–)
- 3. Lauren Boebert (R) (2021–2025)
- 4. vacant
- 5. Doug Lamborn (R) (2007–2025)
- 6. Jason Crow (D) (2019–)
- 7. Brittany Pettersen (D) (2023-)
- 8. Yadira Caraveo (D) (2023–)
- Total area: 104,094 square miles (269,602 km2) (eighth most extensive state)
- Highest elevation: Mount Elbert 14,440 feet (4,401.2 m) (third highest state)
- Mean elevation: 6,800 feet (2,070 m) (highest state)
- Lowest elevation: Arikaree River 3,317 feet (1,011 m) (highest state)
- Population (2020 census): 5,773,714 (21st most populous state)
- Population density: 55.47 per square mile (21.40 km−2) (39th most densely populated state)
- Number of counties: 64 counties (including two consolidated city and county governments)
- Number of municipalities: 273 municipalities, comprising 2 consolidated city and county governments, 73 cities, and 198 towns
- Time zone: MST=UTC−07, MDT=UTC−06
- USPS code: CO
- ISO 3166 code: US-CO
- Adjacent U.S. states: Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah (tied for third most)
- State government website: Colorado.gov
- State tourism website: Colorado.com
State Symbols
Subcategories
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Featured article - 
U.S. Route 491 (US 491) is a north–south U.S. Highway serving the Four Corners region of the United States. It was created in 2003 as a renumbering of U.S. Route 666 (US 666). With the US 666 designation, the road was nicknamed the "Devil's Highway" because of the significance of the number 666 to many Christian denominations as the Number of the Beast. This Satanic connotation, combined with a high fatality rate along the New Mexico portion, convinced some people the highway was cursed. The problem was compounded by persistent sign theft. These factors led to two efforts to renumber the highway, first by officials in Arizona, then by those in New Mexico. There have been safety improvement projects since the renumbering, and fatality rates have subsequently decreased.
The highway, now a spur route of US 91 via its connection to US 191, runs through New Mexico, Colorado and Utah, as well as the tribal nations of the Navajo Nation and Ute Mountain Ute Tribe. The highway passes by two mountains considered sacred by Native Americans: Ute Mountain and an extinct volcanic core named Shiprock. Other features along the route include Mesa Verde National Park and Dove Creek, Colorado, the self-proclaimed pinto-bean capital of the world. (Full article...)
Selected mountain -
Selected biography -
Zebulon Montgomery Pike
Pike's second expedition crossed the Rocky Mountains into what is now southern Colorado, which led to his capture by the Spanish colonial authorities near Santa Fe, who sent Pike and his men to Chihuahua (present-day Mexico) for interrogation. Later in 1807, Pike and some of his men were escorted by the Spanish through Texas and released near American territory in Louisiana.
In 1810, Pike published an account of his expeditions, a book so popular that it was translated into several languages for publication in Europe. He later achieved the rank of brigadier general in the American Army and served during the War of 1812 until he was killed during the Battle of York in April 1813, outside the British colonial capital of Upper Canada. (Full article...)
Selected article -
Mount Elbert is the highest summit of the Rocky Mountains of North America. With an elevation of 14,440 feet (4401.2 m), it is also the highest point in the U.S. state of Colorado and the second-highest summit in the contiguous United States after Mount Whitney, which is slightly taller. The ultra-prominent fourteener is the highest peak in the Sawatch Range, as well as the highest point in the entire Mississippi River drainage basin. Mount Elbert is located in San Isabel National Forest, 12.1 miles (19.4 km) southwest (bearing 223°) of the city of Leadville in Lake County, Colorado.
The mountain was named in honor of a Colorado statesman, Samuel Hitt Elbert, who was active in the formative period of the state and Governor of the Territory of Colorado from 1873 to 1874. Henry W. Stuckle of the Hayden Survey was the first to record an ascent of the peak, in 1874. The easiest and most popular climbing routes are categorized as Class 1 to 2 or A+ in mountaineering parlance. Mount Elbert is therefore often referred to as the "gentle giant" that tops all others in the Rocky Mountains. (Full article...)
Selected image -
The Ancestral Puebloan Cliff Palace on Mesa Verde in Colorado as photographed by Gustaf Nordenskiöld in 1891.
National Parks in Colorado
The 23 national parks in Colorado:
- Amache National Historic Site
- Arapaho National Recreation Area
- Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site
- Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park
- Browns Canyon National Monument
- Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument
- Canyons of the Ancients National Monument
- Chimney Rock National Monument
- Colorado National Monument
- Continental Divide National Scenic Trail
- Curecanti National Recreation Area
- Dinosaur National Monument
- Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument
- Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve
- Hovenweep National Monument
- Mesa Verde National Park and World Heritage Site
- Old Spanish National Historic Trail
- Pony Express National Historic Trail
- Rocky Mountain National Park
- Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site
- Santa Fe National Historic Trail
- Yucca House National Monument
Interesting facts-
- The Lindenmeier Site in Larimer County includes a Folsom culture campsite radiocarbon dated to 8710 BCE, some 4706 years before the biblical creation.
- The French Republic concluded its sale of its colony of La Louisiane to the United States on December 20, 1803. The United States claimed the entire watershed of the Mississippi River as its territory. Spain claimed a large southwestern portion of the watershed as the trading and protective territory of its colony of Santa Fe de Nuevo México.
- On November 15, 1806, a U.S. Army reconnaissance expedition led by Captain Zebulon Pike first sighted the great summit of the Mexican Mountains that now bears his name.
- On February 26, 1807, Spanish cavalrymen arrested the Pike expedition in the San Luis Valley. The reconnaissance party was taken to Chihuahua, and then expelled from Mexico.
- William Bucknell and a party of frontier traders opened the Santa Fe Trail in 1821.
- Frontier trader William Bent operated Bent's Fort on the Santa Fe Trail from 1833 to 1849.
- The village of San Luis de la Culebra was founded on April 9, 1851, the first nonindigenous community in what would become Colorado.
- The discovery of gold by Green Russell along the South Platte River in July 1858 precipitated the Pike's Peak Gold Rush.
- The Provisional Government of the Territory of Jefferson governed the region from 1859 to 1861 without federal sanction.
- San Miguel, the original Costilla County seat, was later found to lie in New Mexico.
- Denver Union Station opened on June 1, 1881.
- Colorado became the first U.S. state to grant women the vote by popular referendum on November 7, 1893.
Did you know (auto-generated) -
- ... that Yemi Mobolade is the first Black person and the first non-Republican to be elected the mayor of Colorado Springs, Colorado?
- ... that the No. 1–ranked 2023 Colorado Mines Orediggers, "college football's nerdiest contender", featured players with pigtails and a drawn-on blue mustache, a friar's haircut, and Harry Potter cosplay?
- ... that "The Potato King of Colorado" survived a shipwreck, mined for gold in Australia, and helped establish an alcohol-free Methodist colony?
- ... that environmental journalist Gloria Dickie wrote her thesis on how cities in Colorado changed garbage laws to prevent bear incursions?
- ... that the 1976 Big Thompson River flood took place several hours before Colorado's 100th anniversary of statehood?
- ... that following the killing of Richard Ward by a Colorado sheriff's deputy, the deputy received an award for the injuries that he allegedly sustained during the incident?
- ... that Parkville lost out on becoming the Colorado Territory's capital by eleven votes and is now a ghost town largely buried under mining waste?
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