Stephen Leonard

Stephen Leonard, Ph.D., is an emeritus professor in the Department of History at Metropolitan State University of Denver. His areas of research and expertise focus on the history of Colorado, Denver, and the United States. He is currently teaching Colorado and the Nation.

Leonard has been teaching history at MSU Denver since August 1966 and has no plans of retiring. He also served for 15 years on the Denver Landmark Commission.

Leonard has authored or co-authored nine books in his time at MSU Denver. One of them, “Trial and Triumphs,” a history of the Depression in 1930s Colorado, won several awards; another, “Lynching in Colorado, 1859-1919,” was well-received in the scholarly community. His book “Colorado: A History of the Centennial State” is a popular college-level textbook. More recently, Leonard co-authored “A Short History of Denver” in 2016.

Leonard received his doctorate in American History from Claremont Graduate School in 1971, his master’s in American Studies from the University of Wyoming in 1965, and his bachelor’s in History from Regis College in 1964.