Colorado LegiSource

An informational and educational resource for the Colorado General Assembly by the Office of Legislative Legal Services.

Category: History

  • Have roads. Will travel.

    Have roads. Will travel.

    by Patti Dahlberg

    According to the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) Historic Timeline featured on its website, CDOT has been around in some form or another since 1910 – amazingly, only about six years after the first automobile reportedly showed up in Colorado and about 15 years after the first sale of an American-made gasoline car. The introduction of the automobile in Colorado and the commitment to improving the roads “paved the way” for easier travel throughout the state. In many ways, the story of CDOT is the story of the state of Colorado opening its doors for all to explore and enjoy. With the founding of the department, Colorado soon became a tourist destination.

    Purportedly, the first automobile in Colorado appeared in 1904 in Louisville. The first reported trip up a mountain road made by an automobile seems to have taken place in June of 1910, when Francis Percy “Frank” Loveland, the grandson of Colorado pioneer businessman W.A.H. Loveland, of Loveland Pass and the city of Loveland fame, drove up an old carriage road (with a 2,000 foot elevation change) from the Denver-metro area to the top of Mount Falcon (near Red Rocks). The 24-year-old drove his Stoddard-Dayton touring car from Morrison to the Mount Falcon summit (elevation 7,851 feet) in about 20 minutes. An hour earlier, he had set another record by driving from the Capitol building to Morrison in only 29 minutes.

    So how did we get all these roads that take us just about anywhere we want to go to? It started in the late 1870s with the “Good Roads Movement.”  Through this movement, which lasted into the 1920s, farmers’ and bicyclists’ organizations advocated for the investment of state and federal money in improving roads outside of the cities. At the time, the rural roads were dirt or gravel, which meant mud in winter, dust in summer, and slow travel year round. Obviously, these roads were generally bad for bringing goods to market and, of course, for bicycling. And in the mountains, wagon roads could be difficult to navigate and unusable for large portions of the year. When automobiles appeared on the scene, the automobile lobbies wholeheartedly joined in the movement.

    Colorado’s Legislature created its first State Highway Commission in 1909, charging it with the responsibility of establishing a network of state primary roads. In 1913, the Legislature created a series of registration and licensing fees as a funding source for the improvement of the Commission’s proposed 4,380-mile primary road system. The fees varied from $2.50 to $10 (from around $40 to $160 in today’s dollars) depending on the vehicle’s horsepower. By 1915, Colorado’s proposed highway system grew to 5,844 miles, but only about 2,600 miles of those roads were constructed and only 196 miles of them were actually surfaced.

    By the time Congress passed the Federal Aid Road Act of 1916, which provided federal matching funds for state highway projects, Colorado had already been busy constructing roads and mountain passes. In fact, a new automobile road over Wolf Creek Pass was opened to traffic that same year. In 1917, the Legislature reorganized its State Highway Commission into the State Highway Department and passed legislation to create a state highway fund to distribute state and federal funds to develop and maintain Colorado’s highway system. By 1918, the Highway Department laid the first concrete road in the state, which ran from Littleton to Denver along Santa Fe Drive. A year later, Colorado was one of the first four states to pass a gasoline tax, one-cent per gallon (the average price at the time was 25 cents/gallon, $3.22 per gallon in today’s dollars), to raise revenue for a special road fund.

    In 1921, the Legislature, largely in response to the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads’ (BPR) willingness to provide federal aid to states, reshaped and expanded the bureaucracy of the State Highway Department. In 1922, Colorado voters deemed transportation important enough to approve $6 million in bonds for highway construction, which would be over $1 billion today. The BPR approved Colorado’s first federally aided road system, covering 3,332 miles. By 1929 the Colorado State Highway system had grown to 9,203 miles, and by 1938 it was almost 12,000 miles.

    Mountain Roads, Scenic and Historic Byways

    Colorado is home to 26 Scenic and Historic Byways, around half of which are also designated as National Scenic Byways and recognized for their outstanding scenic and historic attributes. Colorado has more national designations than any other state. In 1924, the State Highway Department completed the “Million Dollar Highway,” the Scenic Byway through the San Juan Mountains in Southwestern Colorado on U.S. 550. In 1927, the Mount Evans Highway was completed and opened for travel to an elevation of 14,130 feet, just below the 14,264-foot summit of the mountain. It remains the highest elevation for a paved highway in North America.

    The first automobile crossed Loveland Pass on September 29, 1929, and in that same month work on Trail Ridge Road – the highest continuous paved road in the United States, had begun. The Great Depression brought in federal work projects to help Colorado continue to construct and maintain its mountain highways, as anyone who has driven over Trail Ridge Road and read any of the signs knows. Between 1938 and 1940, Colorado completed the roads over Berthoud Pass (U.S. Hwy 40), Monarch Pass, and the original highway (U.S. Hwy 6) over Vail Pass. Gold prospectors may have brought skiing to the Colorado Rockies in the 1860s, but it was passable mountain roads that enabled it to become the popular winter sport that it is today.

    The boring of the westbound Straight Creek Tunnel (later to be named the Eisenhower Memorial Tunnel) through the Continental Divide to align I-70 near Vail with the existing U.S. Hwy 6 started in 1963 and finished in 1973. The eastbound bore of the Continental Divide tunnel opened in 1979 and was named in honor of former U.S. Senator and Colorado Governor Edwin C. Johnson. The combined tunnels are now officially known as the Eisenhower-Johnson Memorial Tunnel complex.

    And then there’s the crown jewel of Colorado mountain highways – I-70 through Glenwood Canyon. Construction began on “the final link” of west-bound I-70 through the canyon in 1980. Less than 15 miles long, the segment was completed in October of 1992 for around half-a-billion dollars. One of the biggest challenges CDOT faced was how to squeeze a four-lane freeway into a gorge barely wide enough to accommodate the existing two-lane highway and how to do so with minimal impact to the environment. CDOT’s solution was clever: construct two roadways, one nearly on top of the other. The final design features an elevated roadway with 40 bridges and viaducts spanning more than six miles between sections. Construction materials included 15 miles of retaining walls, two 4,000 foot tunnels, 150,000 newly planted trees and shrubs, 30,000 tons of steel, and 810,000 tons of concrete. Soon to be 30 years old, the Glenwood Canyon portion of I-70 is not only a beautiful stretch of road, but considered by many to be a modern marvel. The two-tiered elegantly sculpted highway through the Colorado River gorge remains a vital transportation corridor and a popular tourist attraction. The 12.5-mile engineering feat has received a presidential commendation and numerous design awards. It has been featured in books and in a museum exhibit on 20th century engineering achievements.

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  • Throwback Thursday – The Colfax Avenue Shootout

    Throwback Thursday – The Colfax Avenue Shootout

    by Patti Dahlberg

    DENVER, Dec. 18, 1922 – As a Federal Reserve Bank truck sat outside the U.S. Mint in Denver to pick up a weekly cash shipment for transport to various area banks, a black Buick touring car with drawn curtains slowly pulled up beside it. According to witnesses, three or four masked men jumped out of the car while one remained behind the wheel. One of the masked men ran to the rear of the reserve truck, yelled at the guards, fired at and fatally wounded the guard at the back of the truck, and shot out the back doors and windows of the truck. One man quickly lifted bags of money out of the truck and threw them into the Buick while the other masked men sprayed the Mint building exits and windows with bullets from sawed-off shotguns. Alarm bells clanged and Mint guards and employees grabbed rifles and began firing out windows and doors.

    Within seconds, bullets were peppering West Colfax Avenue, hitting the side of the Mint building and several other nearby buildings. According to the Dec. 19, 1922, New York Times:

    So terrific was the gunfire that forty bullet holes can be counted in the transoms above the main entrance to the mint and in the windows of the second story. Bullets riddled windows in various stores and apartment houses across the street and there were many narrow escapes from bullets. One shot went through a window in Sylvania Hotel, at Court Place and West Colfax Avenue, and shattered a picture on the wall.

    The shootout lasted only about ninety seconds before the getaway driver took off, ran another vehicle into a fire hydrant (adding to the confusion and mayhem), and sped away east on Colfax Avenue with an estimated $200,000 in $5 bills. Witnesses reported that while fleeing the scene, one of the bank robbers stood on the car’s running board[1], presumably to fire back at the Mint guards, but was instead shot and seriously wounded before being pulled back into the car.

    The entire event was over in five minutes. Charles T. Linton, who died in the shootout, is the only Federal Reserve guard to lose his life during a bank robbery. Hailed by many as the “wildest gun battle in Denver history,” the robbery was also reported by the Cheyenne Wells Record (December 21, 1922) to be the first successful Mint holdup in U.S. history and the largest robbery in Denver.

    In the aftermath of the robbery, witnesses came forward to help investigators with descriptions and drawings of the thieves and the number of robbers involved went from four to seven. Roads in and out of Denver were shut down and according to the New York Times: “Tonight every highway in the State is guarded and police and Federal authorities have armed squads out in pursuit of an automobile occupied by seven men who were seen speeding northward soon after the robbery. One of the occupants was bleeding profusely, having been wounded in the jaw by one of the mint guards, it is believed.”

    In the ensuing investigation, the robbers were tracked from Omaha to Chicago, then to St. Paul, before the trail went cold. Then on January 14, 1923, investigators discovered the getaway car in an old garage on Gilpin Street in Denver. Inside the car was a frozen body identified through fingerprints as Nicholas “Chaw Jimmie” Trainor, a.k.a. James Sloan. It was determined that Trainor had been mortally wounded during the robbery and his body left behind as the rest of the gang escaped. Once Trainor was identified, police suspected that Harvey Bailey, a known associate of Trainor’s, was likely to have been involved in the robbery. In spite of offering rewards of more than $10,000, none of the other robbers were positively identified. The discovery of the getaway car led investigators to other leads in the case including a trunk filled with firearms, ammunition, photographs, and letters.

    Secret Service agents recovered about $80,000 of the stolen mint money in a Minnesota hideout, along with $73,000 in negotiable bonds from an Ohio robbery. Since Trainor and Bailey were both considered suspects in that Ohio heist, which predated the Denver robbery, police became further convinced of Bailey’s involvement in the Mint robbery. According to the police, the thieves fled to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area with the money, which was given to a “prominent Minneapolis attorney.” Bailey fell off police radar in late 1922 and continued evading capture until his eventual arrest and conviction in 1933. He later died in 1979.

    In 1934, twelve years after the robbery, the remaining robbers were identified. The Denver Police Chief at the time, Albert T. Clark, released a statement announcing that five men, as well as two women, had colluded in the robbery. According to an article printed in California’s Healdsburg Tribune, Clark also disclosed that, of the individuals involved, only two remained alive, and both were serving life sentences for other crimes. The police added that the other members of the gang had died violently. According to the police, Harvey Bailey had driven the car and was serving a life-sentence in Alcatraz for the kidnapping of an Oklahoma City millionaire. James Clark was serving a life-sentence in the Indiana State Penitentiary for bank robbery. Other gang members, Harold Burns and Frank McFarland “The Memphis Kid” were dead. Nicholas Trainor/James Sloan had been found dead in the getaway car shortly after the robbery and the bullet-riddled body of his common-law wife, Florence Thompson, was found in 1927. Harold Burns’ wife, Margaret, was found shot and burned in 1932. The case of the Denver Mint robbery was considered closed without a single person ever charged in connection with the theft.

    Two earlier attempts to rob the Denver Mint fail

    The first attempt to rob the Denver Mint was a year or so after the Mint was established, when James D. Clark, a.k.a. Small Bad Jim, landed a job at the Mint. He kept it simple – stuff your pockets with as much as you can and get out of town fast. In February of 1864, he left work with $37,000 in gold and treasury notes. Reportedly, the gold bars were so heavy he started dropping them in the Cheesman Park area on his way out of town. When he was captured, officials recovered about $32,000, the remainder remained missing. After his arrest, Clark escaped from jail but was eventually rearrested, tried for his crime, and banished from the territory.

    The next attempt was in 1920 when Orville Harrington, also a Mint employee, attempted to steal gold bars by wrapping them in newspaper and stuffing them into the hollow shank of his wooden leg. He successfully smuggled out 40 gold bars, worth about $81,000, to his house and buried them in his yard. He was caught when a fellow employee witnessed him putting gold bars in his wooden leg. He was tried for his crime and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

    But before there was a Denver Mint —

    Printing your own money – the early days of the Colorado Frontier

    Founded in July 1860 by Austin M. Clark, Milton E. Clark, and E.H. Gruber, the Clark, Gruber & Co. Bank and Mint was located on the corner of 16th and Market, and served several functions, including bank, assayer’s office, and money factory. At the time, Denver was teeming with precious metals mined in the mountains and extracted in frontier smelting plants. While plenty of local businesses used bags of gold dust for currency, the demand for cash and coins remained high. Clark and Gruber’s private bank and mint gave prospectors a place to safely deposit their earnings and turn their precious metals into currency. The enterprise, which was legal, served an important role in keeping cash flowing on the streets of Denver and helped establish financial norms and standards within the community.

    Clark and Gruber’s operation proved to be very popular, generating more than $3 million worth of business in their first two years. A $10 gold piece from Clark and Gruber’s was regarded as a reliable form of currency that could be used locally and transported to other parts of the country without losing value.

    In 1862, Congress passed a bill that allowed the government to purchase Clark and Gruber’s operation and turn it into an official U.S. Mint, and in 1864, Congress passed a law banning private mints, ending the era of frontier money.

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    [1] A long, narrow board that is attached to the side of a vehicle to make it easier for people to get in and out.

     

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  • Bone-Dry Laws: The Sobering Truth of Colorado’s Prohibition Era

    by Alana Rosen and Nate Carr

    If you have ever tasted a Gin Rickey, a Sidecar, or an Old Fashioned, then you have sampled a popular cocktail created during the Prohibition Era. The Prohibition Era, which lasted as a federal ban from January 17, 1920, until December 5, 1933, is remembered for the underworld nightlife of jazz clubs, flappers, and bootleggers and is now, over 100 years later, often romanticized.[1] Recently, the glamorization of the Prohibition Era has even inspired a resurgence of speakeasies, Roaring ’20s costume parties, and the modern-day film interpretation The Great Gatsby with heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio. Despite the fascination with this era, Prohibition was propelled by more sober reasoning.

    The Temperance Movement was a driving political force to pass prohibition legislation. In Colorado and across the country, the Temperance Movement included a number of diverse organizations, such as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, religious leaders, itinerant preachers, suffragists, and progressive-minded community members. Temperance reformers believed alcohol was the cause of social problems, and with its eradication, “America would be fully cleansed of sin”.[2] In Colorado, women gained the right to vote in statewide elections in 1893, and many women advocated to ban alcohol because of the link between drinking and domestic violence at home. As early as 1907, temperance reformers in Colorado celebrated the passage of anti-saloon legislation.

    In 1907, the Colorado General Assembly passed the first bone-dry law, an act allowing political territories to vote to outlaw the sale of alcohol within the territory.[3] By 1910, 20 out of 25 counties that voted on the question of whether to become anti-saloon territories, chose to become anti-saloon territories. Denver was among the five holdouts. Despite fervent efforts, temperance reformers were unsuccessful in convincing the electorate to add a prohibition amendment to the Colorado Constitution. But that all changed in 1914.

    In 1914, Colorado voters passed a constitutional amendment limiting alcohol in the state except for medicinal or sacramental reasons by a vote of 129,589 to 118,017.[4] The constitutional amendment, Article XXII, took effect on January 1, 1916. Under Article XXII, no person, association, or corporation could manufacture for sale or gift, or keep for sale or gift, any intoxicating liquor, except in limited situations.[5]

    The City and County of Denver, however, disagreed with Article XXII and continued to issue licenses to businesses to sell intoxicating liquors under its home-rule authority found in Article XX of the Colorado constitution. This disagreement resulted in the Colorado Supreme Court case, People ex rel. Carlson v. City Council of Denver.[6] The Court held that Denver was not exempt from the Article XXII, and the city was required to cancel issued liquor licenses.

    In 1915, the Colorado General Assembly went a step further and passed Senate Bill 80 (S.B. 80), which enacted laws against the possession, distribution, and advertising of intoxicating liquors. S.B. 80 also outlined law enforcement’s duty to search, seize, and destroy intoxicating liquors. If an officer had personal knowledge or reasonable information that intoxicating liquors were kept in any place, the officer could search a business with or without a warrant. The law, however, exempted private residences from these searches. It was reported that on the last night of legal alcohol, December 31, 1915, the New Year’s Eve passed quietly, more like a wake than a celebration to ring in a new year.

    Later, in 1917, the Colorado General Assembly passed House Bill 164 (H.B. 164), which further limited the importation of intoxicating liquors, reduced the amount of alcohol each household could possess, and created a permit system that made enforcement of the law more efficient.[7] Under H.B. 164, it was unlawful for any person to receive at any one time more than two quarts of intoxicating liquor other than wine or beer, except in circumstances when the intoxicating liquor was consumed for medicinal or sacramental purposes, six quarts of wine, or 24 quarts of beer.

    Finally, on November 5, 1918, the Colorado General Assembly adopted an all-encompassing prohibition on intoxicating liquors.[8] The new law strictly limited possession of intoxicating liquors to druggists and broadened the search and seizure powers of law enforcement, including the ability to seize any device used to carry liquor, including automobiles.

    Meanwhile, despite the goal to reduce public drunkenness, arrests for drunken disorderly conduct increased during this period. Local crime organizations brewed, transported, and distributed intoxicating liquors. Parents even made bootleg liquor at home to ensure their children would not be poisoned by bad liquor made by underground organizations, though improperly brewed homemade distillations could contain highly toxic methanol or traces of lead from the still. Ingesting such impurities could lead to abdominal pain, anemia, renal failure, hypertension, blindness, and death.

    Although Coloradans were imbibing intoxicating liquor behind closed doors, Colorado’s bone-dry laws did not repeal until December 1933. The repeal followed approval of the 21st Amendment to the United States Constitution, which repealed the 18th Amendment, the constitutional provision that prohibited the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors. There was a final push by temperance reformers to maintain the bone-dry laws, but in 1933 Colorado voters passed Amendment Seven, finally repealing Prohibition in Colorado.

     

    [1] The 18th Amendment to the Constitution prohibited the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors…” The states ratified the 18th Amendment on January 16, 1919. On October 28, 1919, Congress passed the Volstead Act, which provided for the enforcement of the 18th Amendment. Prohibition ended on December 5, 1933, with the ratification of the 21st Amendment.

    [2] PBS, Roots of Prohibition, https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition/roots-of-prohibition/ (accessed November 2, 2021).

    [3] 1907 Colo. Sess. Laws 495.

    [4] Dick Kreck, High, Dry Times as Prohibition Era Sobered Denver, Denver Post (July 3, 2009).

    [5] Colo. Const. of 1915, art. XXII, § 1.

    [6] People ex rel. Carlson v. City Council of Denver, et al, 60 Colo. 370, 153 P. 690 (Colo. 1915).

    [7] 1917 Colo. Sess. Laws 280.

    [8] 1919 Colo. Sess. Laws 461.

     

  • Throwback Thursday: Extreme Weather a Century Ago

    Throwback Thursday: Extreme Weather a Century Ago

    by Patti Dahlberg

    Colorado’s weather has set numerous records for highs, lows, and coldest months on record over the past year or so. Just two years ago, we experienced an unheard of “bomb cyclone” snowstorm, severely testing Coloradans’ ability to navigate gusting winds, at times up to 96 mph, creating blizzard conditions, and virtually shutting down all transportation in Denver. The bomb cyclone designation referred to the 30-degree drop in the barometric pressure that day, to 970.4. (Low barometric pressures are typically associated with Category 2 or 3 hurricanes.) It was a record day in Colorado for extreme weather, but 1921 also had its share of extreme weather records in Colorado and across the country.

    Grays Harbor, Washington. The year started with the “Great Blowdown.” Around noon on January 29, 1921, the wind began hitting Grays Harbor, at that time considered the largest lumber shipyard in the world. By 2:00 p.m., the Olympic Peninsula felt the full force of an extreme windstorm, considered by some a cyclone and by others a tornado. Hurricane-force winds raked the shores of the Pacific Northwest from central Oregon to the Canadian border. The storm came without warning, and within a few hours gusts were reaching an estimated 150 mph — estimated, because the instrument measuring the wind gusts was carried away after measuring 126 mph. The storm blew down timber in a 2,000-square-mile area, toppling more than 40 percent of the trees on the southwest side of the Olympic Mountains. Some of the trees blown over measured 12 feet in diameter, with top-heavy and shallow-rooted great spruces particularly vulnerable. Hundreds of farm and forest animals were killed by falling tree branches and flying debris, but amazingly, only one person was killed during the storm, although several were injured.

    Silver Lake, Colorado. On April 14 and 15 of 1921, a major winter storm slammed the Front Range of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, leaving more than 6 feet of snow in a 24-hour period. The 75.8 inches of measured snow that fell in a 24-hour period at Silver Lake in Boulder County remains the record for the most snowfall in a 24-hour period in the United States. Silver Lake’s snow totals continued to grow to 87 inches in 28 hours, and then 95 inches in 32 hours (that’s almost 8 feet of snow). Meanwhile, in Denver, only about 10 inches of snow fell, but the 50-mph winds accompanying the storm created snowdrifts throughout the city, some as high as 7 feet, and caused damage to trees, utility poles, and buildings.

    Pueblo, Colorado. During a typical summer cloudburst, more than half an inch of rain may fall in a matter of minutes, and that is exactly what happened in Pueblo on June 3, 1921, this time creating devastating consequences for the city. Beginning the day before, torrential rains began swelling creeks and streams throughout the Arkansas River drainage system. Fountain Creek, running south from Colorado Springs, overflowed its banks, and mountain tributaries of the Arkansas River reached flood stage. Mountain reservoirs failed, and a cresting flood, over 15 feet deep at times, moved swiftly down the Arkansas River on the afternoon of June 3, sweeping through Pueblo’s business and commercial district that evening. Two thousand railcars were smashed, overturned, or carried away. Eight of the nine bridges across the Arkansas River and Fountain Creek were seriously damaged or washed away. Hundreds of buildings were lost, including more than 500 houses and almost 100 businesses. Fires raged in the upper floors of flooded structures as houses and boxcars floated down Pueblo’s South Union Avenue. Telephone lines were destroyed, so there was little to no communication between Pueblo and the rest of the state. There was no official rainfall report for Pueblo at the time, but records from private citizens indicated that a total of 6 inches or more fell between June 3 and June 5.

    The 1921 Pueblo flood was the worst disaster in the history of Colorado. The floodplain covered more than 300 square miles, and the flood toll stood at 262 people dead, missing, or unaccounted for. The actual death toll was likely much higher because for several years, human remains were found many miles downstream. Much of the downtown area was destroyed, farmlands east and south of the Steel City were flooded, irrigation structures were wrecked, and Pueblo’s economy was dealt a long-lasting blow. Subsequent estimates of property damages and losses from the flood ranged from $13 to $19 million in a city whose assessed valuation in 1921 was just over $33 million. The 1921 flood was the worst of many floods on the Arkansas River, which averaged one flood every 10 years until the Pueblo Dam was completed in 1975.

    Tampa Bay, Florida. On October 25, 1921, Tampa Bay suffered the most destructive hurricane to hit the area since 1848. A 10- to 12-foot storm surge destroyed substantial portions of the seawall along coastal locations. Many vessels were smashed against the docks by the waves, and area citrus crops were destroyed. Powerful winds brought heavy damage to structures along the bay. Without the weather forecasting support of the satellites, radar, computer graphics, and mathematical models we have today, advance warning for such an event was extremely difficult. Most hurricane “forecasting” at that time was based on data from previous hurricanes moving through the Gulf of Mexico, which normally landed far north of the Tampa area. There were eight confirmed fatalities, mostly from drowning.

    Outer space (yep – outer space). From May 13 to 16, 1921, one of the two largest known solar storms burst from the sun and soared across space to create some havoc on Earth. This 1921 solar storm, called the New York Railroad Storm because of the disruption to trains in New York City following a fire in a control tower on May 15, unfolded in two phases, unleashing an opening burst of disruption before intensifying into a full-fledged superstorm. In reconstructing the timeline of the storm from scientific journals, newspapers, and other sources, it is believed that three major fires erupted on the same day. One, sparked by strong currents in telegraph wires at a railroad station in Brewster, N.Y., burned the station to the ground. The second fire destroyed a telephone exchange in Karlstad, Sweden, while the third occurred in Ontario. Telegraph systems and telephone lines were disrupted in the U.K., New Zealand, Denmark, Japan, Brazil, and Canada. It wasn’t all bad news: many locations around the world recorded sightings of spectacular auroras. Auroras were recorded near Paris, in Arizona, and in Samoa, which is not far from the equator. It is widely believed that if the 1921 storm occurred today, there would be widespread interference with our modern technology systems and widespread disruption of services.

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  • A Journey of 14,000 Feet Begins With a Single Step, or “How to (Re)Name a Colorado Mountain”

    by Conrad Imel

    In 1861, when botanist Dr. Charles C. Parry was on his first botanical exploration of the Rocky Mountain region in Colorado, two tall mountain peaks attracted the doctor’s attention. Following the practice among botanists to name new plants after each other, Dr. Parry named the peaks after two of his colleagues, Asa Gray and John Torrey. Today, Grays Peak and Torreys Peak, the two “14ers” that sit just west of Denver, are popular with hikers, in part because their proximity allows a hiker to summit both in one day. If you (or anyone in OLLS… hint, hint) wanted to name a mountain after a colleague, how would you go about it? The answer is a little fuzzy, but let’s see if LegiSource can help make sense of it.

    Neither the state nor the federal government has the exclusive authority to name a mountain, so the General Assembly could take steps to rename a mountain for state purposes. But it’s likely the best approach is to work through the federal board responsible for naming geographic features for federal purposes. The names bestowed by the federal board are used on federal maps and often followed by state and local governments.

    Federal renaming process

    Geographic names, including names of mountains, specifically established by federal law or executive order are official for federal purposes and can only be changed by federal law or subsequent order. But many federally recognized geographic names aren’t established by Congress or the President, they are approved by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names (BGN). Congress established the current BGN in 1947 to promote uniformity within the federal government in naming geographic features. The BGN’s decisions only apply to the federal government; state and local governments generally use the federal names, but there is no law requiring them to do so.

    The BGN does not create names for geographic features; it approves or rejects names proposed by others, based on the BGN’s principles, policies, and procedures. For domestic names, anyone can suggest a name for approval by submitting a proposal online or printing and completing a Domestic Geographic Name Proposal form. After receiving a suggestion, the BGN will conduct an investigation to ensure the suggestion conforms to BGN policies. It will also receive input from the general public; state naming authorities; interested federal, state, and local agencies; and federally recognized Indian tribes.

    You probably haven’t noticed any changes to the names of Colorado landmarks lately, and there’s a reason for that. As part of the name change process, the BGN works with the state naming authority in the state where the geographic feature resides. Colorado’s state naming authority was disbanded in 2013, so the BGN ceased working on name changes for features within the state. But fear not, on July 2, 2020, Governor Polis established a new Colorado Geographic Naming Advisory Board that will work with the BGN. BGN staff has met with Colorado’s board to discuss a strategy for addressing the backlog of pending Colorado renaming cases, and the Colorado board recently made its first name change recommendation. On September 16, 2021, the Colorado Geographic Naming Advisory Board recommended changing the name of Squaw Mountain in Clear Creek County to Mestaa’ėhehe Mountain.

    State Geographic Naming

    Since the federal government does not have exclusive authority to name a geographic feature, states like Colorado can name (or rename) a mountain for state purposes. While there is no formal Colorado process for changing a name, there are historic examples where the General Assembly named a Colorado mountain peak, including some that occurred after the establishment of the modern BGN. The General Assembly adopted joint resolutions to name Mount Evans in 1895; rename Mount Wilson as Mount Franklin Roosevelt in 1937; and, in 1978, rename Lone Eagle Peak (named to honor Charles A. Lindbergh who had been known by the nickname “Lone Eagle”) as Lindbergh Peak. The 1978 Lindbergh Peak resolution directed that a copy of the resolution be sent to the BGN. In 1949, the General Assembly passed a bill to rename Veta Peak as Mount Mestas.

    More recently, in 1995, the Colorado Senate approved a resolution supporting the efforts to name a mountain peak in honor of one of Colorado’s legendary early mountain climbers, Carl Albert Blaurock. Eight years later, on October 1, 2003, to honor Blaurock’s legacy of climbing, the BGN approved naming a 13,616-foot peak in Colorado’s Collegiate Peaks range as Mount Blaurock.

    Another wrinkle in a state-specific renaming is that some mountains are in similarly named federal lands. For example, Mount Evans sits in the federal Mount Evans National Wilderness Area. Even if Colorado changed the name of the mountain for state purposes, it could not change the name of the national wilderness area, which was designated by Congress.

    Because it would not affect federal maps, signage, documents, or federally named lands, an exclusively state-based solution may not be the best approach for widespread acceptance of a new mountain name. Instead, working through the BGN’s process will get your (or your colleague’s) name on the map. While the federal renaming process can be lengthy, the first step is simple: head to the BGN’s website to review its policies and make a suggestion. If you’re a member of the General Assembly who would like to draft a resolution to change a mountain name at the state level, or suggest or support a federal change, please contact OLLS to put in your request.

    Research from Nate Carr and Jacob Baus was used in this post.

     

  • The Mighty Colorado River – Once Known as Merely Grand

    by Patti Dahlberg

    Today the name “Colorado” runs continuously with the mighty river that originates in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains and runs south and west for 1,450 miles through Utah and Arizona and along the Nevada and California borders before heading into the Gulf of California in northwestern Mexico. But this was not the case before 1921.

    For many years, various explorers wandered through the West naming landmarks as they went along. The river beginning at the Continental Divide in northwest Colorado and flowing south and west out of the state was called the Grand River. The river’s name then changed from “Grand” to “Colorado” where the Green River met it in southeastern Utah continuing on through the Grand Canyon and out to sea. Prior to being called the Grand River around 1836, portions of the river had also been known as the Rio San Rafael River, the Bunkara River, the North Fork of the Grand River, and the Blue River. The “Colorado” in the river’s name is Spanish for the “color red,” referring to the river’s muddy color flowing through the canyons in Arizona and Utah, but “Colorado” was just the final name in the long line of labels for this amazing river over the years. In the 16th century, Spanish explorers called the river Rio del Tizon, which translated to River of Embers or Firebrand River. Later, some portions of the river may have been Rio de Buena Guia, Rio Colorado de los Martyrs, Rio Grande de Buena Esperanza, Rio Grande de los Cosninos, and the El Rio de Cosminas de Rafael as explorers discovered those portions. But by the time John Wesley Powell navigated and mapped the Grand Canyon in 1869, “Colorado” was the accepted name of the river flowing through the canyon.

    The Colorado River is known for its dramatic canyons and whitewater rapids, however, the river is not one single channel running from the Continental Divide, slicing through the Grand Canyon, and on to the sea. The river consists of many major tributaries merging together to form the Colorado River Basin. The Basin’s 246,000-square-mile drainage area includes parts of seven states—Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and California and forms 17 miles of the international boundary between the United States and Mexico. The river supplies water to more than 40 million people and 90% of the nation’s winter vegetable production and is justifiably considered by many to be the “Lifeline of the Southwest.” Today a system of dams, reservoirs, and aqueducts control much of the Colorado and its tributaries, diverting most of its flow for agricultural irrigation and domestic water supply. The Colorado’s large flow and steep gradient is used for generating hydroelectric power, and dams regulate the water flow to meet power demands in much of the western states. Unfortunately, high water consumption has dried up the lower 100 miles (160 km) of the river, which has rarely reached the sea since the 1960s.

    But for roughly six million years before the dams, the unfettered and free-flowing Colorado River cut deep gorges in the land, and not just through the Grand Canyon. Along the waterways joining the Colorado —the Virgin, Kanab, Paria, Escalante, Dirty Devil, and Green rivers from the west, and the Little Colorado, San Juan, Dolores, and Gunnison from the east — many narrow, winding, deep canyons  were also carved, such as Colorado’s stunning Black Canyon of the Gunnison River. Canyons cut by the rivers in Arizona and Utah include Marble Canyon, Glen Canyon, and Cataract Canyon, with the longest of these unbroken trunk canyons being the spectacular and much loved Grand Canyon. It shouldn’t be surprising that the Colorado and its tributaries flow through or near many national parks, monuments, and recreational areas.[i]

    The Name Change

    In 1921, U.S. Representative Edward T. Taylor of Colorado petitioned Congress to rename the Grand River as the Colorado River. The Glenwood Springs resident and former Colorado State Senator could not accept that the Colorado River name started in Utah and not in his beloved state. “It is absurd for one part of any stream to be given one name and the rest of the stream another name.” Congressman Taylor loved Colorado and already had a reputation for getting up on the House floor to make five to ten minute speeches about his beautiful state. He took the renaming of the Grand portion of the river as a personal mission. It was Taylor’s strong sense of state pride and historic knowledge that helped persuade Congress to change the river’s name . . . and maybe a decade of speeches and tenacity helped too.

    On February 18, 1921, Congressman Taylor appeared before the Congressional Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce regarding House Joint Resolution 460 “Renaming of the Grand River, Colo.” (See hearing report/transcript, H.J.R. 460 starts on page 14.) Based on his opening statement and answers to committee questions, Congressman Taylor came prepared to argue why the Colorado River name should flow continuously with the river that originates in Colorado and continues west to the sea. He provided national and regional history, local context, precedent, testimonials, statistics and measurements, and even threw in an international treaty for good measure. In his opening statement, he described the Colorado River as “the Nile of America,” and said it “is by far the most picturesque, scenic, unique, marvelous, and famous river in the world.” As for the state of Colorado, Taylor said, “… for the past 60 years, “Colorado” has meant the heart of the Golden West, the actual top of the world, the land of sunshine, good health, and gorgeous scenery, the summer playground of the Nation, the Switzerland of America, the bright jewel set in the crest of this continent, where it shines as the Kohinoor of all the gems of this Union; the sublime Centennial State.”

    It did not concern Taylor that traditionally the longest tributary is regarded to be a river’s headwater or origin and the Green River—originating in Wyoming—was actually twice as long as and had a larger drainage basin than the Grand River.. Taylor backed up his claim for Colorado state superiority with volume statistics showing that the shorter Grand River (350 miles long) contributed more water to the mighty Colorado. According to information from the Colorado Historical and Natural History Society contained in the hearing report, the Grand River provided 40% of the Colorado River’s water flow, and when combined with water flow from the San Juan, Yampa, White, and other Colorado rivers, water from the state of Colorado provided closer to 60% of the river’s flow. The Natural History Society report also noted that the Green River receives more than a third of its water flow from Colorado’s Yampa and White rivers.

    But Taylor may have found his most persuasive argument in the record of the U.S. Senate’s proceedings from 1861 when the Senate named the Colorado Territory. As introduced and passed by the House, the name in the bill for the proposed new territory was the “Territory of Idaho”, other names reportedly considered were Jefferson and Arcadia. In the Senate, however, the name “Idaho” was stricken and “Colorado” inserted “for the reason that the Colorado River arose in its mountains, hence there was a peculiar fitness in the name.”

    Colorado’s 23rd General Assembly sent its support for renaming the Grand to the Colorado in Senate Bill 79 (later approved on March 24, 1921), the reengrossed version was included, along with various letters of endorsement, in the official Congressional Committee hearing report. After receiving support from governors and state assemblies in Colorado and Utah for the renaming of the Grand, Congress officially renamed the interstate waterway. The Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce ended its report to the House of Representatives with this statement: “There being no apparent reason sufficient in the judgment of your committee to counteract the expressed desire of the people of the State of Colorado to have this change made, your committee unanimously recommends the approval of this resolution.” On July 25, 1921, the 66th Congress passed the resolution renaming the Grand River, in spite of some lingering objections from some Wyoming and Utah representatives.

    No worries, Colorado does still have its share of Grand – you only have to look around to see that. But more specifically there’s also the Grand Ditch, which pulls water from the Colorado River to the eastern slope; Grand Junction, at the confluence of the Gunnison and the then “Grand” Rivers; and, of course, Grand County.

    The Colorado River Story Continues

    The Colorado River may be one of the most litigated rivers in the world and, as the demand for Colorado River water continues to rise, the level of development and control of the river continues to generate controversy.

    In 1922, the Colorado River Compact divided the river into the lower compact states—Arizona, California, and Nevada—and the upper compact states—Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. It was the first time more than three states negotiated an agreement among themselves to allocate the waters of a river. At that time the total annual flow of the Colorado River was estimated to be close to 16.5 million acre-feet ( an “acre foot” is the amount of water required to cover one acre to a depth of one foot) at Lees Ferry, AZ., of which 15 million acre-feet were divided between the lower and the upper compact states. A treaty in 1944 allocated 1.5 million acre-feet of water per year to Mexico. It was later realized that the initial estimate of Colorado River water volume in the 1922 compact was based upon an abnormally wet period and that substantially less water was available than the amounts specified in the agreements. In 2019, after several years of negotiations and in response to ongoing drought conditions and the increased potential for water supply issues, the upper and lower basins began implementing drought contingency plans to manage water demand.

    Sources:

     

    [i] National monuments, parks, and recreation areas located in the Colorado River Basin:

    • Arches National Park
    • Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park
    • Bryce Canyon National Park
    • Curecanti National Recreational Area
    • Canyonlands National Park
    • Dinosaur National Monument
    • Glen Canyon National Recreation Area
    • Grand Canyon National Park
    • Lake Mead National Recreational Area
    • Natural Bridges National Monument
    • Rocky Mountain National Park
    • Zion National Park

     

  • Throwback Thursday: Looking Back at 1921 and the Twenty-third General Assembly – Part 2

    Throwback Thursday: Looking Back at 1921 and the Twenty-third General Assembly – Part 2

    by Patti Dahlberg

    In the first part of our look back at 1921 and the Twenty-third General Assembly, we learned that the “Roaring Twenties” we associate with economic prosperity and freewheeling social spirit started out with America struggling with a faltering economy and growing social unrest. By the time the General Assembly was gaveled into order the first week of January 1921, the Dow Jones had been spiraling downward for 12 months, the nation had suffered the worst terrorist attack in its history, and Colorado’s rural economy was faltering.

    The General Assembly convened at “12 o’clock, noon” on Wednesday, January 5, 1921. At the time, the Colorado Constitution required the legislature to convene on the first Wednesday in January. In the House of Representatives, Mr. R.L. Shaw, the acting Chief Clerk of the House of the twenty-second General Assembly, called the House to order and read the official announcement from the Secretary of State’s office designating the members elected to the House. Mr. Shaw was then elected as temporary Chief Clerk (later elected the permanent Chief Clerk) for the twenty-third General Assembly and roll was called. Representative Godsman was unanimously elected as temporary speaker and escorted to the podium to make a few remarks. A committee on credentials was selected to certify the Secretary of State’s list of elected members, and another committee was appointed to inform the Supreme Court that the members of the House were ready to receive their oath of office. After the oath was administered, Representative Roy A. Davis of El Paso County was elected to preside as Speaker of the House and took the oath of office. (Photo from Presidents and Speakers of the Colorado General Assembly, Denver, Colorado, 2016 Edition.)  The 1921 House convening day session ended by adjourning in memory of Charles A. Raye, former Representative from Las Animas County.

    Down the hall, the Senate was called to order by Lieutenant Governor George Stephan, presiding as the Senate President. (Before 1974, the constitution required the state’s Lt. Governor to serve as President of the Senate, voting only when needed to break a tie.) Roll for the holdover Senators was called, and the Senate President appointed several temporary staff members, including Mr. N.N McLean as temporary Secretary of the Senate (later elected the permanent Secretary). The Senate Secretary read the Secretary of State’s official announcement designating the newly elected Senators. A committee on credentials was selected to certify the Secretary of State’s list of elected members, and another committee was appointed to inform the Supreme Court that the newly elected Senators were ready to receive their oath of office. After the oath was administered, the new roll was called. The next order of business was election of a President pro tem of the Senate. Francis J. Knauss was elected with 24 votes and escorted before the bar of the Senate to receive the oath of office. Several days later, on Tuesday, January 11 (the 7th Legislative Day), a joint session was convened to introduce and administer oaths of office to the re-elected Governor Shoup and the newly elected Lt. Governor Earl Cooley, as well as other elected state officials. Lt. Governor Cooley was then presented with the Senate gavel to begin his duties as Senate president. (Photo from Presidents and Speakers of the Colorado General Assembly, Denver, Colorado, 2016 Edition.) 

    On the third legislative day, Friday, January 7, 1921, the honorable Oliver H. Shoup, 22nd Governor of Colorado, addressed a joint session of the House of Representatives and the Senate. He began his address with “Great responsibility at all times rests on those charged with the duty of making and enforcing laws, and it is not an exaggeration to say that this responsibility rests heavy at this time both in State and Nation. The situation is hopeful rather than alarming, but must engage our most serious thought and consideration.” The state and national economy was suffering, and quoting from a recently attended Governor’s conference, he said, “The financial situation in the whole country is cause for the gravest concern but not for despair. All lines of business are realizing heavy losses, but the swift decline of prices of farm commodities to far below the cost of production threatens a national disaster. The situation demands infinite patience and forbearance and supreme wisdom and courage. Nothing but evil can result from anger or fear.”  He made a public appeal for individuals and communities to do all they could to help their neighbors and neighborhood businesses, and “to not destroy” good people because they cannot immediately meet obligations. He encouraged the General Assembly to legislate what relief it could to assist the people of Colorado, in particular farmers and stock growers who were especially hard hit.

    Governor Shoup outlined legislative actions that he considered most important.  He asked for highway legislation for the state to construct and maintain public roads and highways, and to assign highway oversight responsibility to a state official who would report directly to him. He encouraged the Legislature to introduce a series of bills to consolidate state departments to eliminate work duplication. The Governor indicated that a new code was needed to systematize the state’s administrative work and asked the General Assembly to “submit to the people a proposal for a constitutional convention” to make the necessary changes to the state’s constitution. He proposed that the state’s budget process allow for more input from the Governor’s office and state departments and that the State Auditing Board be abolished in favor of a Central Purchasing Agency.

    Other concerns were the disparity in teacher salaries across the state, term limits for public officials, protecting investors from the sale of worthless securities, job training and vocational education, and the need for more child welfare laws and for better laws to protect Colorado’s game and fish. He applauded the National Guard for its assistance in monitoring domestic disturbances and protecting life and property during the Tramway strike and asked for an appropriation to construct National Guard armories. He announced the revival of the Colorado Rangers (established in 1861, they served as the State’s first statewide law enforcement agency) and asked the legislature to appropriate the necessary funds for it. The Governor recommended an increase in the state’s low inheritance tax and suggested that state revenue could also be increased by gathering more accurate property information. He called for the legislature to appropriate money for higher education to help cover expenses until the mill levy money recently approved by voters would become available in 1922.

    The members of the Twenty-third General Assembly introduced 632 House bills and 468 Senate bills, enacting 252 of them. During its 91 days of session that year, the General Assembly passed several bills appropriating money for the Agricultural College and its various satellite stations, the Fort Lewis School, Colorado School of Mines, University of Colorado, University of Colorado Medical School, and the State Teachers College of Colorado. Other bills passed included a bill appropriating money for constructing armories for the National Guard or other military forces in Colorado and a bill relating to the National Guard of Colorado, which named the Governor as the Commander in Chief except when the guard was acting on behalf of the Federal Government. The legislature also passed bills that divided the State into four congressional districts, prohibited the practice of clairvoyancy, updated inheritance tax laws, equalized teacher salaries, required the teaching of Colorado history and civil government in public schools, and changed the name of the Grand River to the Colorado River. Several bills establishing game reserves throughout the state passed, as did several bills regarding highway laws, including the creation of the State Highway Department and some “Rules of the Road”. Several water bills passed: One appropriating money for the “Protection of Waters” to investigate and prepare to defend water rights; several authorizing various commissioners to negotiate water rights compacts between Colorado and neighboring states regarding the Arkansas, Colorado, La Plata, Laramie, and South Platte rivers; and several more regarding irrigation districts. The General Assembly passed Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 3 “Submitting to the qualified electors of the State of Colorado the question of holding a convention to revise, alter and amend the Constitution of the State of Colorado”. The ballot question was one of 10 ballot measures voted on in 1922 and lost 63% to 36%.

    The legislature also passed several “relief” bills appropriating money for individuals, including one for Mrs. Edna B. Mulnix whose 11-year-old son was crushed by an elevator at the State Capitol Building the year before. The legislature passed several constitutional amendments, including amendments regarding property rights of aliens, establishing the elections of county officials, putting certain educational institutions under the management and control of the state, and setting terms of office for state officers, all to be voted on by Coloradans at the next general election. The legislature enacted a bill appropriating money for “correct lists” of the battles in which Colorado solders participated and of the names of Colorado soldiers who died or were killed in Civil War battles to be placed on tablets on the Monument to Colorado Soldiers on the west side of the Capitol Building. And the legislature adopted Senate Joint Resolution No. 19, placing a memorial stained glass window for David Halliday Moffat in the Senate chambers. On the last day of session, the House and Senate, between forming conference committees and adopting and rejecting reports and concurring and receding from positions, received “some candy for the lady members and clerks, some cigars for the men and some apples for all” as a show of appreciation and finally adjourned sine die at midnight on April 5, 1921.

    How does this compare to today?

    Luckily, we are not recovering from a devastating world war but we have experienced the devastation of a worldwide pandemic and the emotional and economic hardships resulting from losing family members and closing businesses. It has also been quite the year of social unrest. Based on the legislative leadership’s remarks at the beginning of the 2021 session, the top issues facing the legislature are helping the state recover from the current public health crisis, ushering in a quick economic recovery, getting any stimulus money to those who need it as quickly as possible, and assisting unemployed Coloradans. Other issues include addressing disparities in the health care system, criminal justice reform, law enforcement reform, lowering the cost of living, adequate highways and roads, meeting energy needs, and addressing systemic discrimination. The times may have changed, but many of the issues remain much the same.

    Sources:

    https://lawcollections.colorado.edu/colorado-house-and-senate-journals/

    https://lawcollections.colorado.edu/colorado-session-laws/

    http://www.leg.state.co.us/lcs/ballothistory.nsf/

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Mounted_Rangers

  • Throwback Thursday: Looking Back at 1921 and the Twenty-third General Assembly – Part 1

    by Patti Dahlberg

    If we went back fifty regular legislative sessions and one hundred years, what would we find?

    In Colorado, as a result of the November 1920 election (the first national election in which women were able to vote), Republicans retained control of the Colorado House of Representatives with 58 Republicans to seven Democrats, and Democrats lost control of the Colorado Senate with 24 Republicans to 11 Democrats.

    Coloradans passed four ballot measures:

    Six ballot measures failed:

    • Four initiatives: “Practice of chiropractic and providing for the regulation and licensing thereof”, “Creating the County of Limon”, “Creating the County of Flagler”, and “Providing for the construction of the Moffat, Monarch, and San Juan tunnels and a bond issue therefor”; and
    • Two referred measures: “Increasing the salaries of the Governor, the Secretary to the Governor, Justices of the Supreme Court, and judges of the district courts” and “Increasing the number of county judges”.

    So what was the economic, political, and social climate in America leading up to the 1921 legislative session?

    In September of 1920, America suffered the worst terrorist attack in its history (at least until the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing) when a large explosive on a horse-drawn carriage was detonated on a busy Wall Street corner. The explosion killed 38 people and injured hundreds of others. In Colorado, the Denver Tramway Strike of 1920 left seven people dead and 50 injured. The Ku Klux Klan, founded during Civil War Reconstruction and known for violence against Blacks, reemerged in the 1920s and started targeting immigrants and certain religious organizations. The Klan tied their messages to the issues of prohibition and clean living. Finding a more mainstream audience as a result, they became involved in local and state politics in many states. Several race riots took place across the country, most notably the Tulsa race massacre where mobs of white residents destroyed 35 square blocks of a predominantly Black business district, leaving at least 35 people dead, and more than 800 people hospitalized. Historians now believe that up to 300 people may have died due to the violence.

    On a brighter note, women won the right to vote when the 19th Amendment was ratified by two-thirds of the states on August 18, 1920, (Colorado ratified the 19th Amendment on December 15, 1919, during a special legislative session) and in the November election, Colorado elected three women to serve in the Colorado House of Representatives. Colorado actually initiated female representation in its House of Representatives in 1895 when the citizens elected Clara Cressingham, Carrie Holly, and Frances Klock. The electronic news media was born when a Pennsylvania radio station began airing regular news broadcasts.

    The economic prosperity and freewheeling social spirit associated with the Roaring Twenties started with a struggling economy. The Spanish flu pandemic killed around 675,000 Americans (50 million people worldwide) before it was all over. A great number of the flu deaths were among working-age adults, and economists have suggested that the flu was responsible for a six to eight percent decline in worldwide gross domestic product. In addition, the adjustment from a wartime to peacetime economy proved to be a shock to the U.S. economy. Factories had to shut down completely or shut down until retooled to produce other products. Another factor that may have contributed to the economic downturn was a surge in the civilian labor force created when the troops returned from the war, adding to unemployment numbers and wage stagnation. In 1918, the Armed Forces employed 2.9 million people, which fell to 380,000 by 1920. As Europe recovered from war devastation, its agricultural output increased, causing a decline in American agricultural commodity prices. The Dow Jones hit a peak of 119.6 on November 3, 1919, only to spiral downward for the next 20 months, finally bottoming out at 63.9 (a 47% decline) on August 24, 1921. 1920 was a terrible year for businesses; those that did not fail saw huge declines in profits. All these factors combined to cause a deflationary recession, later known as the Depression of 1920-1921, lasting from January 1920 to July 1921.

    In Colorado, probably few people anticipated the economic impact the end of the war would have on our state. After all, the farming and mining industries, which had ramped up production to meet wartime demand, enjoyed an initially strong post-war market demand. But as Europe recovered and Europeans became less dependent on America for food and other products, prices fell and food producers found themselves hard pressed, especially on the plains of northeast Colorado. They had borrowed heavily to expand and cash in on the wartime bonanza. As returns diminished, debts were more difficult to service, and Coloradans were hurting.

    In the second part of our look back at 1921 and the Colorado Legislature, we’ll take a closer look at the start of the 23rd General Assembly and how it met the challenges of its time.

    Sources:

    http://www.strongsisters.org/the-elected-women/

    http://www.leg.state.co.us/lcs/ballothistory.nsf/

    https://www.britannica.com/event/Wall-Street-bombing-of-1920

    https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/denver-tramway-strike-1920

    https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/flood-klan/

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depression_of_1920%E2%80%931921

    1921 Tulsa Race Massacre

     

     

  • Barney Ford: From Slavery to Successful Businessman

    by Ashley Athey

    If you take a drive up I-70 and visit Breckenridge, just off the main street you’ll see a little yellow Victorian house surrounded by modern restaurants and art museums. Step inside and you’ll be transported back in time to when Barney Ford was alive. But who was he? And why was he so important to our state’s history?

    Barney Ford was born into slavery in Virginia in 1822. His mother, Phoebe, prayed for her son to escape, and at the age of 17 Barney escaped his enslavement via the Underground Railroad and made it to Chicago.

    It was in Chicago that Barney met and married Julia Lyon (or Lyoni), who helped him pick out his middle and last names—as an enslaved person, he didn’t have them—and he chose Lancelot Ford. He worked as a barber and helped support the Underground Railroad and abolitionist efforts. But he dreamed of going west to California, and in 1851 the Fords set out together, traveling via ship from New York because traveling across the country as a former enslaved man was unsafe. When their ship stopped in Nicaragua, Barney and Julia went ashore and they fell in love with the area. Together they built a successful hotel and restaurant and stayed there for many years until a local civil war destroyed their businesses. The Fords left Nicaragua and, in 1860, moved to Colorado.

    Barney Ford was one of the first people to find and put a claim on the gold deposits in the land above Breckenridge, but Colorado law forbade a Black man from owning mining claims or homesteads. After being chased away and threatened in the middle of the night, Ford opened up a barbershop on Blake Street in Denver. Barney Ford was a savvy and intelligent businessman, and he ran many other successful businesses in Denver, including the People’s Restaurant and the Inter-Ocean Hotel. He even opened a second Inter-Ocean Hotel in Wyoming.

    In 1880, Ford returned to Breckenridge and opened Ford’s Chop House, making him the first Black business owner in the town. He built a five-room house in Breckenridge for his family, and he built it without a key room – a kitchen! Instead, his family ate food from the restaurant.

    In Denver, Ford was active in politics and fighting for the rights of Black men and women. He fought for their right to vote, their right to receive an education, and their civil rights. He helped other formerly enslaved individuals receive an education. And, in 1864, he was part of a contingent of Black pioneers who fought against statehood for Colorado because the amendment for statehood excluded voting rights for Black men. Ford taught evening classes to the community about the principles of democracy, and along with Henry O. Wagoner, his brother-in-law and a well-known Black abolitionist and journalist from Chicago, opened up a school for African American children.

    Barney Lancelot Ford died in 1902 in Denver at the age of 80. Ford was inducted into the Colorado Business Hall of Fame and the Colorado Black Hall of Fame, and he was honored with a stained glass portrait in the House Chamber of the Colorado State Capitol building. While many of the buildings he once owned have been torn down, both the original site of the People’s Restaurant at 1514 Blake Street in Denver and his Victorian cottage on Washington Street in Breckenridge still stand. The little yellow Victorian cottage is now the Barney Ford Museum, which visitors can tour daily.

     

    For more information on Barney Ford and his contributions to Colorado’s history, visit:

    https://www.coloradovirtuallibrary.org/digital-colorado/colorado-histories/beginnings/barney-ford-from-slavery-to-success/

    https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/barney-ford

    https://www.historycolorado.org/story/collections-library/2017/02/08/barney-ford-african-american-pioneer

  • Throwback Thursday 1920 – A Year of Unexpected Firsts

    by Patti Dahlberg

    The 1920 Summer Olympics, the first held after the end of the World War I, was awarded to Antwerp, Belgium in the hopes of bringing a spirit of renewal to a country left devastated by World War I (WWI). The games lasted from April 20 to September 12 (almost five months) and the themes centered on reconciliation between nations and remembering the victims. Although the countries defeated in WWI were not forbidden to attend the games, they were also not invited. Awarded the games in 1919, Belgium had only a short time to clear war rubble and construct new facilities and did an amazing job amidst the physical and economic chaos of post-war Europe. Granted, when the games started the athletic stadium was not yet completed and athletes were housed in crowded rooms furnished with folding cots, but that did not deter the more than 2,600 athletes representing 29 countries from participating. Unfortunately, spectator attendance was low as money was still scarce for most people, and in the final days of the games, organizers filled the stands with schoolchildren.

    The 1920 Olympics were the first games in which the now well-known Olympic flag with the symbol of five interlocking rings representing world unity and universality appeared. It was also the first time that one athlete took the Olympic oath on behalf of all the athletes and that doves, symbolizing world peace, were released during the opening ceremony. For those medal counters out there – the United States, Sweden, and Great Britain walked away from the games with the highest total medal counts overall, with 95, 64, and 43 respectively. (The 1916 Olympics, originally scheduled to be held in Berlin, Germany were canceled due to WWI [July 28, 1914 – Nov. 11, 1918]).

    Women achieved the right to vote. The United States women’s suffrage movement could be traced back to 1638, when Margaret Brent, a successful business woman in Virginia demanded the right to vote in the state’s House of Burgesses. By 1920, a mere 282 years later, nearly every state west of the Mississippi River allowed women to vote. Colorado gave women the right to vote in 1893. Finally, on August 18, 1920, the Tennessee House of Representatives voted 50-49 in favor of the 19th Amendment, which prohibited the denial of the right to vote based on sex. It was the last “yes” vote needed for ratification.

    By the way, the first woman to hold federal office was Jeannette Pickering Rankin, elected to the U.S. House Of Representatives from Montana in 1916. While in Congress, she introduced the legislation that eventually became the 19th Amendment to the Constitution.

    Ratification of the 19th Amendment made the 1920 election the first in which women had the right to vote in all 48 states, and women showed up at the polls to let their voices finally be heard. The total popular vote increased dramatically from 18.5 million in 1916 to 26.8 million in 1920. It was also the first election in which both the Republican and Democratic parties, anxious to attract women’s votes, sought prominent women to speak in support of their candidates. Among them was Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, sister of Theodore Roosevelt.

    The League of Women Voters (LWV), founded in 1920, about six months before the 19th Amendment was ratified, was created to educate women on election processes and help them exercise their new responsibilities as voters. The LWV, officially a nonpartisan entity, was also formed to lobby for favorable legislation on women’s issues. Originally, only women could join the league, but in 1973, the charter was modified to include men.

    A guy named Ponzi came up with a sales idea. In the early 1900s, countries around the world created an “international reply coupon” to simplify mailing items across national borders. These coupons could be bought in one country and then traded for postage stamps in another. Charles Ponzi, an Italian immigrant to the U.S. found a loophole in the system. Due to economic ruin in much of Europe after WWI, Ponzi realized that he could buy coupons in various countries at a reduced cost and redeem them in the U.S. for a return on investment. Because he wanted large returns, he needed large investments. He set up a business, hired agents to bring in new investors, promising large commissions for the money brought in. Word spread and investors brought in new investors who brought in new investors. Ponzi soon realized that profit was no longer a necessary ingredient for the company to operate as investors were essentially funding each other’s commissions. The system, of course, eventually collapsed, and Charles Ponzi was arrested on August 12, 1920, and charged with 86 counts of mail fraud.

    The birth of mass media? On election night, November 2, 1920, the first commercially licensed radio station to produce a news program, KDKA in Pittsburgh, PA, began broadcasting live results of the presidential election.  The radio station, broadcasting from the rooftop of a Westinghouse Electric building, timed the news launch to allow listeners to learn the results of the election closer to “real time” instead of waiting to read about it in newspapers the next day. The election-night coverage began at 6 p.m. and was broadcasted to an estimated 1,000 people. The four men on staff at the radio station that night read telegraph ticker election results over the air as the results came in. The newscast was a hit, changing the way people received information. News began to have a greater sense of immediacy; radio could share stories with the public as the stories unfolded.

    As word spread of this transmission of “breaking news” the “talking box” exploded in popularity. Within two years, Americans had bought 100,000 radios. By 1923, they bought 500,000, and by 1926, there were more than 700 commercial radio stations. According to Eric Burns, in his book “1920: The Year That Made the Decade Roar”, no other event of 1920 would have a greater effect on the future than the birth of radio and mass media.

    More Urban than Rural. The United States Census reported for the first time that more Americans lived in urban areas than in rural areas. At that time, “urban” was defined as any town with more than 2,500 people. The 1920 census also reported that the U.S. population was more than 100 million people for the first time – 106,021,537 people to be more exact. It was also the first census in which a state, New York, recorded a population of more than 10 million people. Overall, the U.S. population increased by 15%. Colorado’s population rose from 799,024 in the 1910 census to 939,629 in 1920, up almost 18%.

    The U.S. Constitution requires that seats in the House of Representatives be reapportioned according to state populations every ten years, based on the results of the decennial census. The census of 1920 was the first-ever exception to this redistribution of representation when members of Congress failed to agree on a reapportionment plan. The distribution of seats from the 1910 census remained in effect until 1933. In 1929, Congress passed the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929  to provide a permanent method of reapportionment and fixed the total number of representatives at 435.

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