Anything Colorado

The word "Colorado" was selected by Congress in 1861 as the name for the Colorado Territory that is today a state. The name has its origins in the Spanish language, where it is directly translated as "colored red". It is named after the Colorado River (Río Colorado), itself named after its reddish-brown color.

The territory that ultimately became Colorado was added to the United States by the 1803 Louisiana Purchase and the 1848 Mexican Cession.

In 1854, the Kansas Territory was organized, including what is now much of Colorado.

The Pike's Peak Gold Rush of 1859 brought many settlers to the Denver area. A convention was held to organize the provisional Jefferson Territory, but an official break from the Kansas Territory did not happen until 1861.

The Colorado Territory was organized as a United States territory on 28 February 1861, with President Buchanan signing an Act of Congress to that effect.

Colorado attained statehood on 1 August 1876, earning it the moniker the "Centennial State".

In the history of Colorado, the first inhabitants of what was to become the State of Colorado were the American Indians. The earliest explorers of European extraction to visit the area were Spanish explorers. During the period 1832 to 1856 a number of traders, trappers, and settlers including the French and the Americans established trading posts and small settlements along the Arkansas River, and on the South Platte near the Front Range. Prominent trading posts were Bent's Fort and Fort Pueblo on the Arkansas and Fort St. Vrain on the South Platte. The organization of the Colorado Territory included land from the western portion of Kansas, the eastern portion of Utah Territory, the southwestern portion of Nebraska Territory, and a small portion of northeastern New Mexico Territory on February 28, 1861.

The Territory of Colorado was a historic, organized territory of the United States that existed between 1861 and 1876. Its boundaries were identical to the current State of Colorado. The territory ceased to exist when Colorado was admitted to the Union as a state on August 1, 1876. The territory was organized in the wake of the 1859 Pike's Peak Gold Rush, which had brought the first large concentration of white settlement to the region. The organic act creating the territory was passed by Congress and signed by President James Buchanan on February 28, 1861, during the secessions by Southern states that precipitated the American Civil War. The organization of the territory helped solidify Union control over a mineral rich area of the Rocky Mountains. Statehood was regarded as fairly imminent, but territorial ambitions for statehood were thwarted at the end of 1865 by a veto by President Andrew Johnson. Statehood for the Colorado territory was a recurring issue during the Ulysses Grant administration, with Grant advocating statehood against a less willing Congress during Reconstruction.

President Ulysses Grant declared Colorado a state on August 1, 1876. One century after the birth of the nation, Colorado became known as the "Centennial State." The borders of the new state coincided with the borders established for the Colorado Territory. Women won the right to vote in Colorado in 1893. Colorado was the first state in the union to grant this right to women through a popular election. (Wyoming approved the right of women to vote in 1869 through a vote of the territorial legislature.) Governor Davis H. Waite campaigned for the Constitutional amendment granting women the right to vote in Colorado. Governor Waite is also noted as one of the few elected officials ever to call out the national guard to protect miners from a force raised by mine owners. Governor Waite belonged to the Populist Party.

Participants in the Pike's Peak Gold Rush of 1855 were called Fifty-Niners, and many of the new arrivals settled in the Denver area. Gold in paying quantities was also discovered in the Central City area, and by 1860 the population of Central City was 60,000. In 1879, silver was discovered in Leadville, resulting in the Colorado Silver Boom.