The region that is today the U.S. state ofColorado has been inhabited byNative Americans and theirPaleo-Indian ancestors for at least 13,500 years and possibly more than 37,000 years.^[1][2] The eastern edge of theRocky Mountains was amajor migration route that was important to the spread of early peoples throughout the Americas. TheLindenmeier site inLarimer County containsartifacts dating from approximately 8720 BCE.

When explorers, early trappers, hunters, and gold miners visited and settled in Colorado, the state was populated by American Indian nations.Westward expansion brought European settlers to the area and Colorado'srecorded history began with treaties and wars with Mexico and American Indian nations to gain territorial lands to support the transcontinental migration. In the early days of the Colorado gold rush, Colorado was aTerritory of Kansas andTerritory of Jefferson. On August 1, 1876, Colorado was admitted as a state, maintaining its territorial borders.

• Ancestral Puebloans — A diverse group of peoples that lived in thevalleys andmesas of theColorado Plateau
• Apache Nation — AnAthabaskan-speaking nation that lived in theGreat Plains in the 18th century, then migrated southward toTexas,New Mexico, andArizona, leaving a void on the plains that was filled by the Arapaho and Cheyenne from the east.
• Arapaho Nation — AnAlgonquian-speaking nation that migrated westward to the base of theRocky Mountains in the late 19th century and settled on thepiedmont and theeastern plains. They were relocated entirely out of Colorado in 1865 following theColorado War.
• Cheyenne Nation — An Algonquian-speaking nation very closely related to the Arapaho. 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.
• Comanche Nation — ANumic-speaking nation that lived on theHigh Plains of southeastern Colorado. Closely related to the Shoshone, they acquired the horse from theSpaniards and roamed the southernGreat Plains. The Comanche were removed toIndian territory.
• Shoshone Nation — A Numic-speaking nation that inhabited intermountain valleys along the north edge of the state, especially in theYampa River valley, up through the late 19th century. Areas includedNorth Park andBrowns Park.
• Ute Nation — A Numic-speaking nation that has lived in the Southern and the WesternRocky Mountains for many centuries. It's believed that the ancestors of the Ute first arrived in Colorado anywhere from 2000 to 1000 years ago.^[3] Their leaders were Chief Ouray and his wife Chipeta. They often clashed with the Arapaho and Cheyenne, and resisted the encroachment of these nations into the mountains. Until the 1880s, the Ute controlled nearly all of Colorado west of thecontinental divide, a situation that eroded after the silver boom of 1879. After clashing with white settlers in the 1880s in theMeeker Massacre, they were nearly entirely relocated out of the state intoUtah, except for two small reservations in southwestern Colorado.

The firstEuropeans to visit the region wereSpanish conquistadors.Juan de Oñate who lived until 1626, founded what would become the Spanishprovince ofSanta Fé de Nuevo México among thepueblos of theRio Grande on July 11, 1598. In 1787Juan Bautista de Anza established the settlement of San Carlos near present-day Pueblo, Colorado, but it quickly failed.^[4] This was the only Spanish attempt to create a settlement north of the Arkansas River. Colorado became part of the Spanish province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México as part of theViceroyalty of New Spain.^[5] The Spaniards traded withNative Americans who lived there and established theComercio Comanchero (Comanche Trade) among the Spanish settlements and the Native Americans.^[6]

In 1803 the United States acquired a territorial claim to the eastern flank of theRocky Mountains by theLouisiana Purchase from France. However, the claim conflicted with Spain's claim tosovereignty over the territory.Zebulon Pike led aU.S. Armyreconnaissanceexpedition into the disputed region in 1806. Pike and his troops were arrested by Spanishcavalry in theSan Luis Valley, taken toChihuahua, then expelled fromMexico.

Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla declared Mexico'sindependence from Spain on September 16, 1810. In 1819, the United States ceded its claim to the land south and west of theArkansas River to Spain with theAdams-Onís Treaty, at the same time purchasingFlorida. Mexico finally won its independence with theTreaty of Córdoba signed on August 24, 1821, and assumed the territorial claims of Spain. Although Mexican traders ventured north, settlers stayed south of the37th parallel north until the United States signed a peace treaty with theUte Nation in 1850.

During the period 1832 to 1856, traders, trappers, and settlers establishedtrading posts and small settlements along theArkansas River, and on theSouth Platte near theFront Range. Prominent among these wereBent's Fort andFort Pueblo on the Arkansas andFort Saint Vrain on the South Platte. The main item of trade offered by the Indians was buffalo robes,^[7] seeEarly history of the Arkansas Valley in Colorado andForts in Colorado.

In 1846 the United States went to war with Mexico. Mexico's defeat forced the nation to relinquish its northern territories by theTreaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. This opened theSouthern Rocky Mountains to American settlement, including what is now the lower portion of Colorado. The newly gained land was divided into theTerritory of New Mexico and theTerritory of Utah, both organized in 1850, and theTerritory of Kansas and theTerritory of Nebraska, organized in 1854. Mostsettlers avoided the ruggedRocky Mountains and headed forOregon, theDeseret, orCalifornia, usually following theNorth Platte River and theSweetwater River toSouth Pass in what is nowWyoming.

On April 9, 1851, Hispanic settlers fromTaos, New Mexico, settled the village ofSan Luis de la Culebra, then in theNew Mexico Territory, but now Colorado's first permanentEuropeansettlement.

On June 22, 1850, a wagon train bound for California crossed theSouth Platte River just north of the confluence withClear Creek, and followed Clear Creek west for six miles. Lewis Ralston dipped his gold pan in a stream flowing into Clear Creek, and found almost $5 in gold (about a quarter of a troy ounce) in his first pan. John Lowery Brown, who kept a diary of the party's journey from Georgia to California, wrote on that day: "Lay bye. Gold found." In a notation above the entry, he wrote, "We called this Ralston's Creek because a man of that name found gold here.”

Ralston continued on to California, but returned to 'Ralston's Creek' with theGreen Russell party eight years later. Members of this party foundedAuraria (later absorbed into Denver City) in 1858 and touched off the gold rush to the Rockies. The confluence of Clear Creek andRalston Creek, the site of Colorado's first gold discovery is now inArvada, Colorado.

In 1858, several parties of gold seekers bound for theCalifornia Gold Rushpanned small amounts of gold from various streams in theSouth Platte River Valley at the foot of theRocky Mountains in then westernKansas Territory, now northeast Colorado. The gold nuggets initially failed to impress the gold seekers, but rumors of gold in the Rocky Mountains persisted, and several small parties explored the region. In the summer of 1857, a party ofSpanish-speaking gold seekers from theNew Mexico Territory worked aplacer deposit along theSouth Platte River about 5 miles (8 km) aboveCherry Creek (in what is today theOverland Park neighborhood ofDenver.)^[8]

The following year,William Greeneberry "Green" Russell led a party ofCherokee gold seekers from theState of Georgia to search for gold along the South Platte River. In the first week of July 1857, Green Russell and Sam Bates found a small placer deposit near the mouth ofLittle Dry Creek (in present-dayEnglewood) that yielded about 20 troy ounces (622 grams) of gold, the first significant gold discovery in the Rocky Mountain region.

News of this discovery soon spread and precipitated thePike's Peak Gold Rush.^[9] An estimated 100,000 gold seekers flocked to the region over the next three years. Theplacer gold deposits along the rivers and streams of the region rapidly played out, but miners soon discovered far more valuable seams ofhard rockgold,silver, and other minerals in the nearby mountains. This gold rush helped to attract people to the state and resulted in a population boom.

TheProvisional Government of the Territory of Jefferson was organized on October 24, 1859,^[10] but the new territory failed to secure federal sanction. The Provisional Government freely administered the region despite its lack of official status until the U.S.Territory of Colorado was organized in 1861.

TheTerritory of Colorado was a historic,organized territory of the United States that existed between 1861 and 1876. Its boundaries were identical to the currentState of Colorado. The territory ceased to exist when Colorado was admitted to the Union as a state on August 1, 1876. The territory was organized in the wake of the 1859Pike's Peak Gold Rush, which had brought the first large concentration of white settlement to the region. The organic act^[11] creating the territory was passed byCongress and signed by PresidentJames Buchanan on February 28, 1861, during the secessions bySouthern states that precipitated theAmerican Civil War. The organization of the territory helped solidifyUnion control over a mineral rich area of theRocky Mountains.

Statehood was regarded as fairly imminent, as during the run-up to the1864 presidential election theRepublican–controlled Congress was actually eager to get two more Republican senators and three more electoral votes for President Lincoln's re-election bid. Territorial GovernorJohn Evans persuaded Congress to adopt an enabling act, but a majority of the 6,192 Coloradoans who voted, in a population of around 35,000, turned down the first attempt at a state constitution and the second attempt at statehood.^[12] Later, at the end of 1865, territorial ambitions for statehood were thwarted again, this time by aveto by PresidentAndrew Johnson. Statehood for the territory was a recurring issue during theUlysses Grant administration, with Grant advocating statehood against a less willing Congress duringReconstruction.

TheColorado War (1863–1865) was an armed conflict between the United States and a loose alliance among theKiowa,Comanche,Arapaho, andCheyenne nations ofNative Americans (the last two were particularly closely allied, which is unusual since the various tribes were notorious for inciting violence against each other). The war was centered on theEastern Plains of theColorado Territory and resulted in the removal of these fourNative American peoples from present-dayColorado to present-dayOklahoma. The war included a particularly notorious episode in November 1864 known as theSand Creek Massacre. The battle, initially hailed by the U.S. press as a great victory, was later learned to be one of genocidal brutality. The resulting hearings in theUnited States Congress regarding the malfeasance of the U.S. Army commander,John Chivington, were a watershed in the white views of theIndian Wars at the close of theAmerican Civil War. In 1868 the U.S. Army, led byGeorge Armstrong Custer, renewed the conflict against the Arapaho and Cheyenne at theBattle of Washita River.

TheUnited States Congress passed an enabling act^[13] on March 3, 1875, specifying the requirements for theTerritory of Colorado to become a state. On August 1, 1876 (28 days after theCentennial of the United States), PresidentUlysses S. Grant signed Proclamation 230^[14] admitting the state of Colorado to the Union as the38th state and earning it the moniker "Centennial State". The borders of the new state coincided with the borders established for the Colorado Territory.

Women wonthe right to vote in Colorado viareferendum on November 7, 1893. Colorado was the first state in the union to grantuniversal suffrage through a popular vote. (The territory of Wyoming approved the right of women to vote in 1869 through a vote of the territorial legislature.) GovernorDavis H. Waite, a left-wing Populist, campaigned for the amendment but he a year later he blamed the women voters for defeating his reelection campaign.^[15] Waite favored labor unions and is one of the few American state governors ever to call out the statemilitia to protect miners from a force raised by mine owners in theCripple Creek miners' strike of 1894.^[16]

Participants in thePike's Peak Gold Rush from 1858 to 1861 were calledFifty-Niners and many of the new arrivals settled in theDenver area. Gold in paying quantities was also discovered in theCentral City area. In 1879, silver was discovered inLeadville, resulting in theColorado Silver Boom.

Many early mining efforts were cooperative ventures. However, as easy-to-reach surface deposits played out, miners increasingly turned tohard rock mining. Such industrial operations required greater capital, and the economic concept ofmineral rights 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, creating the conditions for conflict. In 1880, Colorado GovernorPitkin, a Republican, declaredmartial law to suppressa violent mining strike atLeadville.^[17] In the 1890s many Colorado miners began to form unions in order to protect themselves. The mine operators often formedmine owners' associations in response, setting up the conditions for a conflict. Notable labor disputes between hard rock miners and the mine operators included theCripple Creek strike of 1894 and theColorado Labor Wars of 1903–04.

Coal mining in Colorado 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, but miners were also concerned about issues of fairness, and company control over their personal lives.

Early coal mining in Colorado was extremely dangerous, and the state had one of the highest death rates in the nation. During the three decades from 1884 to 1914, more than 1,700 workers died in Colorado's coal mines.^[18] 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, with the cost of goods set by the company.

TheColorado Coalfield War, centered around the 1913-1914United Mine Workers of Americastrike against theRockefeller-ownedColorado Fuel and Iron company, saw dozens die in battles on the Southern Colorado coalfields. TheLudlow Massacre became the peak of the violence, whenColorado National Guard and militia fired into a tent colony of strikers, in which many children were killed. The violence would continue untilWoodrow Wilson sent federal soldiers to disarm both sides.^[19]

Another coal strike in 1927 is best known for Colorado's firstColumbine massacre. In 1933, federal legislation for the first time allowed all Colorado coal miners to join unions without fear of retaliation by instituting penalties for mine owners who obstructed collective bargaining.

Like all resource extraction, mining 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 ofBoulder. The mines 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.

Reports of the revival ofmolybdenum mining in 2007 resulted in ambivalent responses^[20] withLeadville welcoming the opening of the mine atClimax,^[21][22] but strong opposition inCrested Butte over proposed operations atMount Emmons.^[23] Opinion inRico, site of the Silver Creek stockwork Molybdenum deposit^[24] is more divided. There, land slated for development is being bought up by a mining company.^[25]

Today there are many small mining towns scattered throughout Colorado, such as Leadville, Georgetown, Cripple Creek, Victor, and Central City. Although many of the mines no longer operate, the remnants of the operations can be seen in the form of mine shafts, outbuildings, and mounds of rock extracted from the hills. Many former mining towns turned to gambling to draw visitors, with Blackhawk and Cripple Creek serving as good examples. The 19th century ended with a difficult law-and-order situation in some places, most notably,Creede, Colorado, where gunmen likeRobert Ford (the assassin ofJesse James) and con artist likeSoapy Smith reigned.

Starting in the 1860s, whentuberculosis (TB) was a major deadly disease, physicians in the eastern United States recommended that their patients relocate to sunny, dry climates for their lungs. As a result, the number of people with tuberculosis, called "lungers", in the state grew alarmingly and without the services or facilities to support their needs. Not knowing how to manage a population of homeless, ill people, many were taken to jail. Because of the number of people with TB and their families who came to Denver for their health, by the 1880s it was nicknamed the "World's Sanitarium". Cynthia Stout, a history scholar, asserted that by 1900 "one-third of Colorado's population were residents of the state because of tuberculosis."^[26][27]

In 1913 through 1914 theColorado Coalfield War^[28] occurred. It started as a strike and ultimately ended in defeat for the union ending with 232 deaths,^[29] and crippling labor organizing in the state's mines for the next decade.^[30]

In the early 1920s, theKu Klux Klan suddenly built a large membership hostile to Catholics. Its leaders tried to gain political influence but they were unable to get any proposals enacted into law. The members quit and the KKK died out by the late 1920s.^[31]

From 1927 to 1928,a statewide coal strike occurred shutting down all mines. It was sponsored by a upstart rival of the main miners' union and demanded better wages and conditions.^[32] During it, theColumbine Mine massacre andWalsenburg Hall killings occurred, where strikers were shot down by guards and policemen.^[33][34] For one particular incident inTrinidad, the mayor was accused of deputizing members of the KKK against the striking workers.^[35] The strike ended with a significant victory for the union in May 1928, with an increase in wages and the return of organized labor in the state's coal industry.^[36]

The 1930s saw the beginning of the ski industry in Colorado. Resorts were established in areas such asEstes Park,Gunnison, and onLoveland Pass.^[37] During WWII, the10th Mountain Division establishedCamp Hale to train elite ski troops.^[38]

In the 1940s, the Republican governor of Colorado,Ralph Carr, spoke out against racial discrimination and against the federal internment of Japanese-Americans duringWorld War II.

In 1967, GovernorJohn A. Love signed the nation's first liberalized abortion law.^[39] The late 1960s saw violence in Denver, in the form of race riots, and college buildings being burned by radicals. TheFamily Dog Denver music venue opened that year, ushering in the hippie movement in the state, to the great consternation of city and state leaders and parents, leading to several municipal and federal court cases. It also made Colorado a major music destination thereafter.^[40]

In the 1960s and 1970s, Colorado was an epicenter for theChicano Movement. Colorado has a significant population ofMexican-American, Hispanic and Chicano people. Major events that affected the Chicano Movement happened in Colorado, such asCorky Gonzales' Crusade for Justice andThe Plan Espiritual de Aztlán, the deaths ofLos Seis de Boulder, and the death ofRicardo Falcón.^[41] Leaders of the movement worked with national figures likeCesar Chavez and the lettuce workers strike, and Coloradans held their own actions like theKitayama Carnation Strike.

In 1972, Colorado became the only state to reject the award of hosting theOlympic Games after they had been granted. When Representative Lamm led a successful movement to reject a bond issue for expenses related to hosting the event, theInternational Olympic Committee relocated the1976 Winter Olympics toInnsbruck, Austria. No venue had rejected the award before nor has any venue since.

In 1999, theColumbine High School massacre became the most devastating high-school massacre in United States history until theMarjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018.^[42]

On July 20, 2012, not far from the location of the aforementioned massacre atColumbine High School, 12 people were killed and 70 people were injured^[43] in the2012 Aurora, Colorado shooting, whenJames Eagan Holmes, a formerneuroscience doctoral student, walked into anAurora, ColoradoCinemark movie theater with multiple firearms, and started shooting at random at people trying to escape during a midnight Thursday showing ofThe Dark Knight Rises, killing 12 people and injuring 70 others.^[44] It was the deadliest shooting in Colorado since the Columbine High School massacre and, in terms of both the dead and wounded in the number of casualties, was the largest single mass shooting in U.S. history.^[45]

Colorado is now 1 of 15 states^[46] that have legalized both medical and recreationalmarijuana, allowing them to tax the product. As of July 2014, six months after recreational shops began sales of marijuana in Colorado, the state has enjoyed a tax revenue of 45 million with 98 million expected by the end of the calendar year. This is in addition to increased economic revenues from "pot tourists."

As of July 9, 2020, theCOVID-19 pandemic has affected over 35,000 people in Colorado and killed 1,544.^[47]

As of August 2022, over 1.6 million cases of COVID-19 had been reported in Colorado with over 13,000 deaths.^[48]

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• Abbott, Carl, et al.Colorado: A History of the Centennial State, 2005, textbook; 553 pages,ISBN 0-87081-800-7
• Andrews, Thomas G.Killing for Coal: America’s Deadliest Labor War (Harvard University Press, 2008).
• Andrews, Thomas G. " 'Made by toile'? Tourism, labor, and the construction of the Colorado landscape, 1858–1917."Journal of American History 92.3 (2005): 837–863.online
• Athearn, Robert G.Rebel of the Rockies: A History of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad. 1962.
• Baker, James H., and Leroy R. Hafen, eds.History of Colorado. 5 vol State Historical Society of Colorado, 1927, with many short biographical sketches
• Bancroft, Hubert Howe,History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, 1540-1888 (1890) 828 pages; famous classic;online edition
• Belew, Ryan, and John L. Rury. "Inequality in the American West: schooling at a Colorado coal camp in the early twentieth century."History of Education 51.5 (2022): 649–669.
• Berwanger, Eugene W.The Rise of the Centennial State: Colorado Territory, 1861–76, (2007) 208 pages
• Bruno, Jasmine E., María E. Fernández-Giménez, and Meena M. Balgopal. "Identity theory in agriculture: Understanding how social-ecological shifts affect livestock ranchers and farmers in northeastern Colorado."Journal Of Rural Studies 94 (2022): 204–217.online
• Carber Jr, Frank H. "Colorado Volunteers: Why They Joined to Fight in the Civil War."The Springs Graduate History Journal 3.1 (2022): 47–74.onlineArchived 2023-07-01 at theWayback Machine
• Cassels, E. Steve.The Archeology of Colorado. Boulder: Johnson Books, 1983
• Collier, Grant, and Joseph Collier.Colorado Yesterday and Today (2005)online
• Collins, Richard, and Dale Oesterle.The Colorado State Constitution (Oxford University Press, 2020).
• Cronin, Thomas E. andRobert D. Loevy.Colorado Politics & Government: Governing the Centennial State, (1993)
• Ellis, Elmer.Henry Moore Teller: Defender of the West. (1941).
• Ellis, Richard N., and Duane A. Smith.Colorado: A History in Photographs. (1991).
• Freeman, John F. and Mark E. Uchanski.Adapting to the Land: A History of Agriculture in Colorado (University Press of Colorado, 2022)online
• Gulliford, Andrew.Boomtown Blues: Colorado Oil Shale, 1885-1985. 1989.
• Hafen, Le Roy R.Colorado: The Story of a Western Commonwealth. 1933.
• Hogan, Richard.Class and Community in Frontier Colorado. 1990.online
• Junne Jr, George H. "The Modern Civil Rights Movement in Colorado." inBlack Americans and the Civil Rights Movement in the West (2019): 107+online.
• Lamm, Richard D., and Duane A. Smith.Pioneers and Politicians: 10 Colorado Governors in Profile. 1981. popular
• Lecompte, Janet.Pueblo, Hardscrabble, Greenhorn: The Upper Arkansas, 1832-1856,University of Oklahoma Press, 1977, hardcover, 354 pages,ISBN 0-8061-1462-2
• Lorch, Robert S.Colorado's Government. 5th ed. 1991. textbook
• Noel, Thomas J., and Carol Zuber-Mallison.Colorado: A Historical Atlas (2nd edition 2019)online

• Ormes, Robert M.Guide to the Colorado Mountains. 7th ed. 1979.
• Parsons, Eugene.The Making of Colorado: A Historical Sketch (1908) 324 pagesonline edition
• Philpott, William.Vacationland: Tourism and Environment in the Colorado High Country (University of Washington Press; 2013) 488 pages; the post 1945 transformation of a once isolated and little-visited region into a major ski and tourist destination
• Radelet, Michael.The history of the death penalty in Colorado (University Press of Colorado, 2017).
• Rohrbough, Malcolm J.Aspen: The History of a Silver Mining Town, 1879-1893. 1986. scholarly study
• Scamehorn, Lee.High Altitude Energy: A History of Fossil Fuels in Colorado (2002)
• Scamehorn, Lee.Mill & Mine: The Cf&I in the Twentieth Century (1992)online
• Schulte, Steven C.Wayne Aspinall and the Shaping of the American West (2002)online
• Schulten, Susan. "The Civil War and the Origins of the Colorado Territory,"Western Historical Quarterly (Spring 2013) 44#1 pp 21–46.
• Sheflin, Douglas.Legacies of Dust: Land Use and Labor on the Colorado Plains (U of Nebraska Press, 2019).online
• Smith, Duane A.The Trail of Gold and Silver: Mining in Colorado, 1859–2009 (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2009. xiv, 282 pp.)ISBN 978-0-87081-957-5
• Smith, Duane A.Henry M. Teller: Colorado's Grand Old Man, 2002
• Sprague, Marshall.Money Mountain: The Story of Cripple Creek Gold (1979)
• Steinel, Alvin.History of agriculture in Colorado: a chronological record of progress in the development of general farming, livestock production and agricultural education and investigation, on the western border of the great plains and in the mountains of Colorado, 1858 to 1926 (1926)online

• Ubbelohde, Carl, Maxine Benson, and Duane Smith.A Colorado History. 8th ed. 2001. textbookonline
• Varnell, Jeanne.Women of Consequence: The Colorado Women's Hall of Fame, Johnson Press, Boulder, 1999,ISBN 1-55566-214-5.
• Varsanyi, Monica W. "Hispanic racialization, citizenship, and the Colorado border blockade of 1936."Journal of American Ethnic History 40.1 (2020): 5-39.online
• Wei, William.Becoming Colorado: The Centennial State in 100 Objects (University Press of Colorado, 2021)online.
• Wiatrowski, Claude.Railroads of Colorado: Your Guide to Colorado's Historic Trains and Railway Sites, Voyageur Press, 2002, 160 pages,ISBN 0-89658-591-3
• Wickens, James F. "The Depression and New Deal in Colorado," in John Braeman et al. eds.The New Deal: Volume Two - the State and Local Levels (1975) pp 269–310
• Wright, James Edward.The Politics of Populism: Dissent in Colorado. (1974). on 1890s;online

• Wyckoff, William (1999).Creating Colorado: The Making of a Western American Landscape, 1860-1940. Yale UP.ISBN 0300071183.
• Zappia, Natale A.Traders and raiders: The Indigenous world of the Colorado Basin, 1540-1859 (UNC Press Books, 2014).

• Ubbelohde, Carl, ed.A Colorado Reader (2nd ed 1964)
• Fossett, Frank.Colorado: A Historical, Descriptive and Statistical Work on the Rocky Mountain Gold and Silver Mining Region (1878) 470 pagesonline edition
• Fossett, Frank.Colorado, Its Gold and Silver Mines: Farms and Stock Ranges, and Health and Pleasure Resorts (1880),online edition
• Parsons, Eugene.A Guidebook to Colorado (1911) 390 pagesonline edition

• State of Colorado website
• History Colorado website
• Colorado State Guide, from the Library of Congress

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• History of Colorado
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