Colorado Facts and Trivia

Colorado Facts & Trivia

The highest suspension bridge in the world is over the Royal Gorge near Canon City. The bridge spans the Arkansas River at a height of 1,053 feet.

Old Town Fort Collins was the inspiration for California's Disneyland Main Street.

Colorado has more microbreweries per capita than any other state. Fort Collins has the most microbreweries per capita in Colorado.

Since the Winter Games began in 1924, 133 Coloradoans have been Olympians. Steamboat Springs has produced 37 Winter Olympians, more than any other town in North America.

royalgorgebridge-1929-DPL.jpg (219x173 -- 9508 bytes)

Royal Gorge Bridge in 1929, courtesy Denver

Public Library

The Colorado Department of Transportation plows 5.8 million miles of highway each year. Forty-six plows serve Interstate 70 between Denver and Vail.

Harry Pritchard was attacked by a wild animal in the mountains north of Buena Vista, Colorado in October 1904. Pritchard described the animal as having the appearance of a huge orangutan. A posse of hunters prepared to go into the mountains to capture the freak. They returned saying they found nothing, but "large footprints" that were lost in the higher rocked mountains.

Rufus T. Owens launched a submarine into Missouri Lake, three miles north of Black Hawk in the autumn of 1898. The craft, christened the Nautilus , immediately sank to the bottom of the lake. Owens left Central City within a year, never to be seen by locals again.

A watchman lived in the tunnels under the State Capitol building from the day it opened until his death 30 years later. He scrounged for food, wore the same overalls and never openly spent money. He took his pay to the bank each month and exchanged it for silver dollars. When he died, searchers combed the tunnel looking for his silver, but they never found it.

Legend has it that the "face on the barroom floor” at the Teller House Hotel in Central City was painted by Herdon Davis in 1936. He'd been hired to help with the remodeling of the hotel. However, when he fell out of grace with the owner, Anne Evans, he was banned from the Teller House, and decided to leave a memento. The face painted is that of his wife, Edna Juanita Davis, and it had the intended effect, infuriating Evans.

As the Railroad progressed toward Denver in the mid-1860s, thousands of railroad workers had to be fed. A "catering" firm hired scores of hunters, most notably William Frederick Cody. In 17 months on the job, Cody roamed the plains, killing buffalo to feed the railroad crews. He actually counted the number of buffalo who died at this hand -- a staggering 4,280, earning him the name "Buffalo Bill". Throughout his life, he was a courier, pony express rider, stagecoach driver, wagon master, trapper, hunter and Wild West Show promoter -- ntroducing Annie Oakley Buffalo Bill Cody is buried atop Lookout Mountain, west of Denver, overlooking the Plains he loved so dearly.

Butch Cassidy in 1893.

This image available for photographic prints and downloads HERE!

Butch Cassidy committed his first bank robbery in Telluride in 1889. Cassidy and his gang often hid in remote Brown's Park in northwestern Colorado.

The Colorado legislature debated long and hard over which classical female figure should grace the top of the dome on the Capitol. With no agreement in sight, a glass globe was finally chosen to top off the Statehouse.

According to legend, a gold stash wrapped in a donkey skin lies buried atop Round Hill in Chaffee County.

When Denver built the Denver International Airport, "DIA" it required the moving of 110 million cubic yards of earth even though it's on a relatively level site. That is approximately one-third the amount of earth moved to build the Panama Canal. The airport is the largest airport in the country (53 square miles).

Colorado is the highest of the 50 states, with an average altitude of 6,800 feet.

A ghost known as Rufus is said to haunt the Royal Hotel, built in 1903 in Yampa Colorado. Legend says Rufus has lived there since 1918. Some say he died there during the 1918 flu epidemic, when the hotel was a temporary infirmary. Others say he was shot when caught cheating at cards.

The highest paved road in North America is the Road to Mt. Evans off I-70 from Idaho Springs. The Road climbs up to 14,258 Ft. above sea level.

The town of Boone, Colorado in Pueblo County was first called Booneville or Boonetown and took its name from founder and postmaster Albert Gallatin Boone. He was not only the grandson of Daniel Boone, but also "a noted trapper, trader and Indian agent in his own right."

Threats of Indian raids nearly always evoked panic in early Colorado. One day in Denver, the town drunk found a spent arrow and pushed it through his hat. He rode through town on his mule howling, "The Indians are coming!" Terrified settlers fled to a downtown stockade. The drunk made the rounds of empty saloons, drinking free. Another inebriate in Central City tried the same trick. It worked for him, also.

Jesse James's killer, Bob Ford, was himself gunned down in Creede. It happened when Ed O. Kelly, the marshal of nearby Bachelor, came into town, said he was a friend of the James brothers, then shot Ford, who was the owner of a bar and brothel, in the face.

State Senator S.T. Taylor reported spotting a UFO in the skies over La Veta at 10:30 a.m. November 25, 1955. He said the UFO was dirigible-shaped - fat in front and tapered toward the tail, was luminous green-blue and jellylike. Further, he reported that the object was diving at a 45-degree angle, then flattening out to a 45 degree before it disappeared about five seconds later.

Leadville is North America's highest incorporated town (10,152 feet).

Continued Next Page

Robert Ford was the "dirty little coward" who shot

Jesse James in the back.

This image available for photographic prints and downloads HERE!

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