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COColorado Fun Facts
The lowest ground in Colorado sits at 3,315 feet, where the Arikaree River crosses into Kansas. That low point is higher than the summit of the tallest mountain in 18 other states. Colorado starts where most states finish.
Facts most people get wrong
- Denver is not the highest state capital. Santa Fe sits near 7,200 feet and Cheyenne near 6,060, which leaves the Mile High City in third place.
- Colorado is not a rectangle. Nineteenth century crews set the boundary by hand and their errors became law. Mapped at survey precision, the state is a polygon with 697 sides.
- It did not legalize cannabis alone. Colorado and Washington passed ballot measures on the same day, November 6, 2012. What Colorado can claim is the first licensed recreational store, which opened January 1, 2014.
- The cheeseburger was not invented in Denver. Louis Ballast of the Humpty Dumpty Drive-In secured a 1935 trademark on the word. Cooks elsewhere were already melting cheese on beef, so Denver owns the name rather than the sandwich.
- The Pikes Peak gold rush happened nowhere near Pikes Peak. Wagons rolling west in 1859 carried the slogan "Pikes Peak or Bust," but the paying strikes were in Clear Creek and Gilpin counties, roughly 70 miles north of the mountain that got the credit.
- Rain barrels were illegal here until 2016. State water law assigns every drop to a downstream user, so catching runoff off your own roof counted as theft. A 2016 statute finally allowed two barrels holding 110 gallons combined.
Records and firsts
- Colorado has 53 peaks above 14,000 feet under the standard 300-foot prominence rule, more than any other state. Mount Elbert, at 14,440 feet, is the highest point in the entire Rocky Mountain chain.
- Leadville, at 10,152 feet, is the highest incorporated city in the United States.
- The Eisenhower Tunnel bores through the Continental Divide at 11,158 feet, the highest point on the Interstate Highway System.
- Royal Gorge Bridge, finished in 1929, hangs 956 feet above the Arkansas River and held the record for the world's highest bridge until 2001.
- In 1893 Colorado became the first state where male voters granted women the ballot by popular referendum. Wyoming arrived earlier, but through its legislature.
- Great Sand Dunes National Park protects the tallest dunes in North America, with Star Dune rising about 750 feet off the valley floor.
Geography that surprises
- Colorado and Wyoming are the only two states whose borders are defined entirely by lines of latitude and longitude.
- No river flows into Colorado. Every major waterway begins inside the state and leaves, which explains why Colorado spends so much of its legal budget on interstate water cases.
- At the Four Corners monument, Colorado touches Arizona at a single point. The marker sits east of where the 1875 survey meant to put it, and the Supreme Court ruled in 1925 that the monument is the legal corner regardless.
- Roughly 40 percent of the state is flat plains. Burlington, out on the Kansas line, still sits near 4,160 feet.
- Seven states share a border with Colorado: Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Utah and Arizona.
Where the name comes from
Colorado is Spanish for "colored red." Spanish explorers gave the word to a river running heavy with red silt through the canyons of present day Arizona and Utah, and Congress borrowed the river's name for the territory in 1861. That produced a strange gap: the stretch of water inside Colorado was called the Grand River until 1921, when Congress renamed the full length at the urging of a Colorado congressman. Rejected names for the territory included Jefferson, which an unrecognized provisional government used from 1859 to 1861, along with Idaho and Colona. Statehood arrived in 1876, exactly 100 years after the Declaration of Independence, which is where the Centennial State nickname comes from.
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Frequently asked questions
What is Colorado known for?
Colorado is known for having 53 peaks above 14,000 feet, more than any other state, for Denver sitting exactly one mile above sea level, and for opening the first licensed recreational cannabis stores in the country on January 1, 2014. It also holds the tallest sand dunes in North America at Great Sand Dunes National Park, where Star Dune rises about 750 feet.
Why is Denver called the Mile High City?
The 13th step of the Colorado State Capitol sits 5,280 feet above sea level, exactly one mile. Three different markers have been set on the capitol steps since 1909 because each new survey landed on a different step. Denver is still only the third highest state capital, behind Santa Fe near 7,200 feet and Cheyenne near 6,060 feet.
What is the weirdest law in Colorado?
Until 2016 it was illegal for most Coloradans to collect rainwater off their own roof. State water law assigns every drop to a downstream rights holder, so catching runoff counted as taking someone else's water. A 2016 statute finally allowed households two barrels holding 110 gallons combined.
Is Colorado a perfect rectangle?
No. Nineteenth century surveyors set the boundary markers by hand and the errors were later made legal. Measured precisely, Colorado is a polygon with 697 sides. Colorado and Wyoming are still the only two states whose borders are defined entirely by lines of latitude and longitude.
What is the highest point in Colorado?
Mount Elbert at 14,440 feet, which is also the highest point in the entire Rocky Mountain chain. The lowest point in the state, 3,315 feet on the Arikaree River at the Kansas line, is higher than the highest summit in 18 other states.