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COLORADO is one of the least
geographically homogenous of the United
States, ranging from the flat, endless plains
of the east to the colossal mountains of the
west. In the north, Native Americans
hunted and trapped in lush mountain valleys in
summer, and returned to the prairies for the
winter; in the south, the Anasazi of Mesa
Verde grew corn on their isolated mesas and
shared in the great early civilization of the
southwest.
Different
parts
of what's now Colorado accrued to the US at
different times: the east and north were
acquired under the Louisiana Purchase
in 1803, while the south was won 45 years
later in the war with Mexico. (Mexican
land grants were honored by the Americans,
which accounts for a still-strong Hispanic
influence.) Gold-hungry Spaniards came through
in the sixteenth century, and US Army Colonel
Zebulon Pike ventured into the mountains in
1806, but the Native American way of life only
became seriously threatened with the discovery
of gold west of Denver in 1858.
At the time that gold was discovered,
Colorado was still part of Kansas Territory;
it became a territory in its own right in
1861, and a state in 1876. The distractions of
the Civil War gave the Native Americans the
opportunity to fight back, but they were soon
overwhelmed. From then until the end of the
century, Colorado boomed; the quantities of
gold and silver extracted from the mountains
do not really compare with the riches found in
California, but they were sufficient to fuel a
rip-roaring frontier lifestyle. At first, too,
absentee landlords attempted to exploit
massive ranches on the plains, but
their disregard for conservation ensured that
the droughts and storms of 1886 and 1887 swept
away the topsoil.
For the modern visitor, the obvious first
port of call is Denver, at the eastern
edge of the Rockies and much the biggest city
for six hundred miles. Outside Denver, the
northern half of the state holds the most
popular destinations, starting with the
go-ahead college town of Boulder and
the spectacular Rocky Mountain National
Park. The majority of the resorts which
have made Colorado the continent's foremost skiing
destination snuggle into the mountains to the
west of Denver: Summit County attracts
the most visitors, Vail is considered
best for terrain, and Aspen boasts the
glitziest après-ski scene. The far west of
the state stretches onto the red-rock deserts
of the Colorado Plateau. Pikes Peak
towers over the enjoyable city of Colorado
Springs, but the rest of the state's southeast
quarter is mostly agricultural plains. To the southwest
untouched old mining towns like Crested
Butte and Durango stand in the
mountains, while Mesa Verde National Park
preserves perhaps the most impressive of all
the cliff cities left by the ancient Anasazi.
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