Colorado Postcards

In 1879, poet Walt Whitman ascended to Kenosha Pass. From exactly ten thousand feet, the view took his breath away.

Before the Marvel Universe had one, Colorado did: the Denver Spider-Man! A drifter named Theodore Edward Coneys, he lived in the home of Phillip and Helen Peters without their knowing.

“Swink” is an archaic word. Find it in literature from the Middle Ages, like The Vision of Piers Plowman: “In sweat and swink thou shalt earn thy meat.”

Colorado’s aspen, cottonwoods and poplars shimmer in gold each fall. Scrub oaks are burnished in russet. You’ll also see splashes of crimson, scarlet and magenta dotted across the state.

In the 1880s, if you were Somebody, the place to be was the Hotel de Paris, in Georgetown, Colorado.

Central City: 1898. Rufus Owens secretly builds a submarine out of wood and gives it a metal skin. At Missouri Lake, he puts three tons of rock inside for ballast.

One of Colorado’s seasonal visitors is one of the oldest bird species in existence. Fossil records show Sandhill Cranes have been around for ten million years.

Colorado has 16 National Natural Landmarks. You’d recognize many of them: scenic, iconic places like the Garden of the Gods, Hanging Lake.