{"id":203010,"date":"2020-07-24T16:00:40","date_gmt":"2020-07-24T15:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.factstoryhub.com\/?p=203010"},"modified":"2025-02-17T13:58:59","modified_gmt":"2025-02-17T13:58:59","slug":"colorado-facts","status":"publish","type":[],"link":"https:\/\/www.factstoryhub.com\/colorado-facts\/","title":{"rendered":"15 Cool Facts About Colorado"},"content":{"rendered":"
Officially nicknamed the \u201cCentennial State,\u201d Colorado was the 38th state to join the United States of America on August 1, 1876.\n It has a population of 5,758,736 people, making it the 21st most populous state.\n Colorado is bordered by the states of Arizona, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming.\n With a total of 104,094 sq mi (269,837 km\u00b2) of land and water, it is the 8th largest state.\n The capital of Colorado is Denver, situated just northeast of the center of the state.\n Enough about the fast facts, though; let\u2019s get to know more about the Centennial State!\n The area that is known today as Colorado has been populated for much longer than you\u2019d expect.\n There\u2019s an archaeological site called the Lindenmeier site up in the north of the state on the border with Wyoming, which is full of artifacts dated as far back as 11,200 BC.\n The first people to inhabit the area were nomads who would follow herds of bison and have been identified as people of the Folsom Tradition because of the arrow tips they used.\n As with many other US states within the region, the first Europeans to reach Colorado were conquistadors.\n It\u2019s quite likely that in 1541 the famed Spanish explorer Francisco V\u00e1squez de Coronado crossed parts of the southeast corner of what we now know as Colorado when searching for a mythical city of gold.\n It wasn\u2019t until 1598, when Don Juan de O\u00f1ate Salazar founded the colony of Santa Fe de Nuevo M\u00e9jico, that parts of modern-day Colorado were claimed by Europeans.\n Although parts of modern-day Colorado were claimed by the Spanish in 1598, there was little attention paid to the region.\n While they did send a number of expeditions reaching further and further north, there was never a real push to settle down.\n Spain gave up its rights to the region to the French in 1800, and the French then sold it to the US as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.\n Over the next 20-30 years, fur trappers moved into the region to hunt beavers, but little else happened in the area.\n Zebulon Pike was ordered to mount an expedition to find the source of the Arkansas and Red Rivers, which led him into modern-day Colorado.\n On July 15, 1806, Pike set out on what came to be called the \u201cPike Expedition,\u201d in which he and his men discovered and attempted to scale what became known as \u201cPike\u2019s Peak.\u201d\n After giving up due to heavy snow and a lack of food, they headed south and set up a base to spend the rest of the winter in.\n It\u2019s unsure whether they had lost their bearings or whether the act was deliberate, but they had actually set up camp in Spanish territory!\n They were promptly arrested, detained in Santa Fe, and then released at the Louisiana border several months later.\n In 1849 gold was discovered in California, and the subsequent gold rushes in the region made history.\n As more and more people flocked to California, those hunting for gold started to widen their search further and further.\n One prospector called William Green Russell came upon a cache of gold worth multiple hundreds of dollars in Colorado, which then prompted a gold rush in the region.\n This was the beginning of the \u201cPike\u2019s Peak or Bust\u201d gold rush, in which around 50,000 people moved into the area.\n As a direct result of Russell\u2019s findings, a settlement was founded called Montana city in 1858, making it the first in a long line of settlements in the territory of Colorado.\n Extreme changes to the weather in Colorado are more than just common, they\u2019re pretty much expected!\n Unsurprisingly, though, the areas of Colorado with the most extreme weather issues are also the least populated.\n Part of the US\u2019s famous tornado alley covers Colorado’s Eastern Plains, a region of the US where frightful tornadoes are frequent.\n The eastern plains aren\u2019t just fraught with tornadoes, though \u2013 they also experience some of the biggest hailstorms in all of the US!\n At the beginning of the 20th Century, there was still a prominent mining industry, but life wasn\u2019t ideal for the miners.\n The quality of life of miners and their families living within so-called \u201ctent colonies\u201d was low, and labor conditions weren\u2019t much better.\n The Western Federation of miners attempted to fight against the injustice of it all but was met with military brutality.\n Strikes popped up and were promptly shut down with force for decades.\n Most people would assume that this daring sport would have originated somewhere like Texas, but no!\n The town of Deer Trail, Colorado, is one of the many towns claiming to have hosted the first rodeo in the world.\nColorado has been inhabited for more than 13,000 years!\n
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The first Europeans to explore Colorado were the Spanish.\n
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Not much happened in Colorado for 250 years after it was first explored by Europeans.\n
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The first US explorer to travel through Colorado got \u201clost\u201d and was arrested by the Spanish.\n
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Colorado has finally settled, thanks to a gold rush.\n
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Colorado is known for its extreme weather.\n
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Life in the mines of early Colorado was brutal.\n
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The very first rodeo is said to have been held in Colorado.\n
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