Welcome to Colorful Colorado! That is what you will see on billboards when you enter the state.  And it is so true.  The word “Colorado” is Spanish and means red-colored earth.  Along with that, the state holds various impressive records. The mountainous area of Colorado is six times the size of Switzerland.  It has more “fourteeners” (those mountains 14,000 feet or above) than any other state.  The Dwight Eisenhower tunnel is the highest tunnel in the world and handles over 26,000 vehicles per day.  Leadville is the highest incorporated city in the U.S.  Denver also has the largest city park system in the nation with 205 parks on 20,000 acres.  It’s a great state to live in for those of you who like to be outside or at least look out at it. 

It is believed that the first European explorers to arrive were lead by Coronado for Spain.  He came north from Mexico in search of the 7 cities of Cibola where the streets were allegedly paved in gold.  He must have been quite disappointed to not have found it.  Around 1800, Spain ceded a vast area including Colorado to Napoleon Bonaparte who three years later sold it as part of the Louisiana Purchase.  In 1806, President Jefferson commissioned Zebulon Pike to explore the new territory.  In Pike’s report back, he mentioned a tall peak that he thought was unlikely to ever be scaled.  That was wrong – people race up it every year.  The first white settlers, over 50,000, came in 1859 during the Pikes Peak Gold Rush.  Coal mining soon followed.  However, mining is a boom or bust industry and many small towns that were established early on were soon abandoned.  Those towns that did make it found new life as ski resorts or gambling towns.  Colorado was admitted to the Union in 1876.

The early economy was largely based around beaver trapping.  A single pelt could be sold for up to eight dollars.  After a few years, though, the beaver population dwindled and buffalo began to be hunted.  Then mining became the major economic factor leading up to oil and gas finds.  Denver and the state prospered immensely until the oil bust in the 1970’s and early 80’s. Today, the state has a much more diversified economy.  The agriculture base is found in corn, wheat and hay.  The federal government is also a major economic force and in fact there are more federal jobs in the state than any other metropolitan are except Washington D.C.   There are many important federal facilities including NORAD, the US Air Force Academy, the Denver Mint, and a Supermax prison.  The state also has a high concentration of scientific research and high tech industries.  Tourism rounds out the top industries.  Part of the reason the state has been so successful in diversifying is its geographic location.  Denver is halfway between Los Angeles and Chicago and the closest city of a similar size is Phoenix, which is 600 miles away.

The average per capita personal income is nearly $35,000 which puts it at 8^th in the nation.  Denver has the highest educated population in America. The state income tax is 4.63% of a person’s taxable federal income, regardless of the amount of the income.  The state does tax real and personal property and the total amount of the tax varies by city and county.

Politically, the state overall is considered to be a “red” state.   Denver and Boulder have traditionally been liberal and solidly Democratic while their neighbors to the south in Colorado Springs have been largely conservative and solidly Republican.  The rest of the state tends to be somewhere in the middle and as a whole they all seem to balance each other out.

Winters and summers are both mild with an average daily high of 43 in January and 81 in July.  Snow can fall from September to May.  The largest snowfall on record was 46 inches in the mountains.  In fact, by April snow can measure up to 100 inches deep in the high country.

As to recreation, the state has tons of things to do and see.  There are 12,050 registered historic landmarks ranging from buildings to towns.  There are 8 professional sports teams, 4 national parks, 211 scenic byways, more than 30 dude ranches and 25 ski resorts.  It is considered to be the most skiable terrain in North America and has the highest peaks in our nation.  Denver enjoys 300 days a year of annual sunshine which is more than San Diego or Miami Beach.  As an extra bonus to that, golf balls go ten percent further (but watch out as the cocktails do, too).  For those of you who like really extreme sports, you can now participate in “sledging” – which is a strange combination of surfing, rafting and swimming.  Or you can go “zorbing” which is an even stranger sport where you strap yourself onto an inflatable, transparent ball and roll down hills at speeds of up to 25 mph.  Finally, you can visit the Ouray Ice Park, which is the world’s first park dedicated to ice climbing.  On a related note, it is interesting that with all these sports that in 1972, the state became the first and only state to turn down the Olympics.