Five surprising facts you probably didn’t know about Colorado history
As Colorado celebrates 150 years of statehood, an MSU Denver historian shares the overlooked stories that reveal how the state became what it is today.
Colorado marks its 150th anniversary Aug. 1, with celebrations taking place across the state. But according to Derek Everett, Ph.D., senior lecturer in Metropolitan State University of Denver’s History Department, some of Colorado’s most fascinating stories have been hiding in plain sight.
Everett, a Colorado native, is writing the first new narrative history of Colorado in roughly 50 years, a project in partnership with History Colorado and University Press of Colorado. The book draws on decades of new scholarship to tell a broader, more complete story of the people, cultures and events that shaped the state.
“History is all about interpretation,” Everett said. “And interpretation changes because the questions we ask about the past are changing.”
Here are five surprising facts Everett said help explain Colorado’s past — and its future.
1. The oldest-known T. rex fossil was discovered in Colorado — and forgotten for more than a century.
In the 1870s, a student hiking South Table Mountain near Golden found what appeared to be an ordinary tooth. His professor, a leading paleontologist, suspected it belonged to a dinosaur and sent it to Yale University.
The fossil then disappeared into the university’s collections for more than 100 years.
When researchers rediscovered it within the past decade, they determined it belonged to a Tyrannosaurus rex, making it the oldest-known T. rex fossil ever identified.
2. Colorado was at the center of one of science’s fiercest rivalries.
During the late 1800s, museums competed aggressively for dinosaur skeletons, sending fossil hunters across Colorado to claim valuable discoveries.
According to Everett, the competition — known as the “Bone Wars” — became so intense that rival expeditions sabotaged one another.
“These rival expeditions weren’t always scholarly,” he said. “Around Cañon City in Fremont County, fossil hunters destroyed competing excavation sites, used dynamite to blow up fossil beds and intentionally ruined discoveries so rival museums couldn’t claim them.”
3. Colorado’s history didn’t begin with the Gold Rush.
Many people think Colorado’s story started when prospectors arrived during the Pikes Peak Gold Rush.
Everett said the reality is much more complex.
In the early 1840s, nearly two decades before the gold rush, explorer John C. Frémont documented a remarkably diverse Colorado while traveling along the South Platte River. In a single day, he encountered formerly enslaved mountain man James Beckwourth, Hispano fur traders, Indigenous families, settlers from New England and mixed-race families whose histories stretched back generations.
“What’s fascinating to me,” Everett said, “is that one ordinary day captures an already vibrant, multicultural Colorado.”
4. Sugar beets helped build modern Colorado.
One of Everett’s favorite chapters of Colorado history centers on an unlikely crop.
By the 1920s, Colorado produced about 60% of the nation’s sugar, with vast fields stretching across the South Platte and Arkansas River valleys.
The industry attracted workers from across the United States and northern Mexico, many of whom settled permanently and helped shape Colorado’s Hispanic communities.
Everett points to Medal of Honor recipient Joe Martinez as one example. Martinez worked in the sugar-beet fields before serving in World War II. Today, a statue honoring him stands outside the Colorado State Capitol.
5. Colorado has never relied on just one industry.
Mining may dominate popular images of Colorado’s past, but Everett said reinvention has always defined the state.
Over 150 years, Colorado has continually shifted from mining to agriculture, military investment, aerospace, outdoor recreation, technology and other industries.
“Colorado has never been defined by a single industry,” Everett said. “Colorado is this constant state of reinvention.”
That adaptability, he said, will be just as important during the next 150 years as Colorado confronts challenges such as climate change, water shortages, wildfire, housing affordability and continued population growth.
Despite those challenges, Everett remains optimistic.
“The fact that there’s motivation there,” he said, “that’s the most important thing. That’s the foundation that you have to build on.”
