Timeline Colorado
Return to home
Local Hist. Network: http://www.usgennet.org/~alhncous/
Denver Post: http://www.denverpost.com/
Facts & Trivia: http://www.ionet.net/~jellenc/qwikfac.html
Reference books: http://www.ionet.net/~jellenc/referenc.html
Maps: http://www.ionet.net/~jellenc/hcg_maps.html
Colorado is about 1/2 the size of France.
(SSFC, 10/9/05, Par p.27)
c12000BC In
2004 archaeologists in Kansas working near the Colorado-Kansas border
reported radiocarbon dating results finished in February that showed
mammoth and prehistoric camel bones dating back to about this time.
(AP, 6/13/05)
350BC First evidence of humans in southwest
Colorado: corn pollen. Nomadic hunter-gatherers planted crops in the
spring, then left to forage and hunt over the summer, returning in the
fall to harvest and seek shelter in caves for the winter. They made
baskets of yucca fibers, sometimes waterproofed with pitch from
piñon pine.
(HN, 2/11/97)
c350BC The Anasazi were probably living in Colorado
caves. Their present name comes from a Navajo word meaning "the ancient
ones" or "the ancient enemy."
(HNQ, 7/1/01)
550AD Native peoples in southwest Colorado began
building pit houses. Found the world over, these are rooms dug in the
ground with roofs of mud and logs. To get in or out, people used a
ladder through a hole in the roof that doubled as a smoke
vent-unpleasant for humans but a good way to keep animals out. You can
see several excavated pit houses at the National Park.
(HN, 2/11/97)
c600-1300 Pueblo Indians built their Cliff Palace at
Mesa Verde.
(SFC, 7/25/00, p.A3)
750AD Native peoples in southwest Colorado started
building stone houses above ground, first one-story, then two. Ruins of
these are scattered over the landscape and have the look of ones the
Pueblo Indians-Hopi, Zuni and others-of the Southwest live in today.
Added beans, an important source of protein, to their diets, and began
making simple grayware pots. Had bows and arrows.
(HN, 2/11/97)
c1150 A group of Anasazi villages
in southwest Colorado were suddenly abandoned during a period of severe
drought. In 2000 evidence showed that a raiding party had swept through
the area, killed the inhabitants and ate their flesh.
(SFC, 9/6/00, p.A3)
1200 The Anasazi in southwest
Colorado began building their cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde about this
time. The population thrived here for about 70 years making corrugated
pottery and handsomely decorated black and white pottery.
(HN, 2/11/97)(WSJ, 3/14/09, p.W12)
1250 The Anasazi in southwest
Colorado fought a battle against unknown enemies. Number of kivas built
greatly increased. Quality of workmanship in building decreased. People
began to leave.
(HN, 2/11/97)
1276 A 25-year drought began in
the Four Corner region.
(HN, 2/11/97)(AM, 9/01, p.44)
1300 The Anasazi Indian culture of
the American southwest, some 15 to 20 thousand people, disappeared from
the Four Corners region by this time. All the Anasazi were gone from
Mesa Verde. They probably moved south and broke up into present-day
Pueblo tribes. Anasazi means enemy ancestors in Navajo.
(SFC, 5/19/96, T-1)(HN, 2/11/97)(AM, 9/01, p.44)
1300 The Arapaho and Cheyenne
Indian Nations settled the area.
(Time, 1990s Almanac CD)
1540 Aug 25, Explorer Hernando de
Alarcon traveled up the Colorado River.
(MC, 8/25/02)
1778 Juan Bautista de Anza led a
punitive expedition across New Mexico and Colorado against the
Comanches. His forces cornered and killed Comanche Chief Cuerno Verde
and other leaders at what later became Rye, Colo.
(SFC, 6/7/00, p.A15)
1786 Spanish explorer Juan de
Uribarri was the first European to "discover" the region. 1801 France
regained possession of the state from Spain.
(Time, 1990s Almanac CD)
1803 The United States gained the
Colorado area through The Louisiana Purchase with France.
(Time, 1990s Almanac CD)
1806 Nov 13, The 14,110-foot
Pike's Peak was discovered, but not climbed, by Lieutenant Zebulon
Montgomery Pike during an expedition to locate the source of the
Mississippi. Explorations by Lt. Zebulon Pike and Kit Carson mapped out
much of the state. [see Nov 15]
(HN, 11/13/98)(Time, 1990s Almanac CD)
1806 Nov 15, Explorer Zebulon Pike
discovered the Colorado mountaintop, originally called "The Long One"
by Ute Indians, and now known as Pikes Peak. Lt. Pike was leading a
survey party into the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase when he spotted
the snowcapped peak in the distance. He didn’t climb it. [see Nov 13]
(AP, 11/15/97)(HN, 11/15/98)(MC, 11/15/01)
1848 May 30, Mexico ratified the
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo giving US: New Mexico, California and parts
of Nevada, Utah, Arizona & Colorado in return for $15 million.
(MC, 5/30/02)
1848 Oct 19, John "The Pathfinder"
Fremont moved out from near Westport, Missouri, on his fourth Western
expedition with 33 volunteers. The goal was to find a railroad route
across the Rocky Mountains. His failed attempt to open a trail across
the Rocky Mountains along the 38th parallel ended with some of his men
cannibalizing their comrades.
(HN, 10/19/98)(SFEC, 2/13/00, BR p.6)(ON, 12/06, p.5)
1848 Nov 21, The John C. Fremont
expedition, in search of a railraod route across the Rocky Mountains,
reached Pueblo, Colorado. There Fremont hired Bill Williams (61), a
mountaineer with 40 years experience.
(ON, 12/06, p.5)
1848 Present boundaries were set
after completion of the Mexican War.
(Time, 1990s Almanac CD)
1849 Jan, A relief party from
Taos, New Mexico, rescued the remaining members of the John C. Fremont
expedition in the Colorado Mountains. Ten men died from cold and
starvation before the rescue.
(ON, 12/06, p.7)
1851 The first permanent
settlement was founded.
(Time, 1990s Almanac CD)
1853 John C. Fremont began his 5th
expedition west, his 2nd into the Colorado Mountains, and traveled
across Kansas, southern Colorado and Utah in search of a railroad route
over the Central Rockies. The group reached Mormon settlements in Utah.
Fremont brought along photographer Solomon Nunes Carvalho, who took
hundreds of daguerreotypes. Many of the images were lost in an 1881 NYC
warehouse fire. In 1994 Robert Shlaer set out to recreate the images
and in 2000 published "Sights Once Seen: Daguerreotyping Fremont’s Last
Expedition Through the Rockies."
(SFEC, 7/9/00, BR p.12)(ON, 12/06, p.7)
1858 Pay dirt [silver] was struck
in the Pike’s Peak region of the Colorado Territory.
(WW, 12/96)
1858 The city of Denver began as
one of several prospecting camps on Cherry Creek in what is now
downtown Denver. Gold-seeking settlers at the foot of the Rockies
decided to call their settlement "Denver" after the governor of the
Kansas Territory, in which the settlement was located.
(HNQ, 4/4/00)
1859 Claire Brown was the first
black woman to come to Colorado. She helped establish the Adriance
Church, one of the state’s first churches.
(Hem., 5/97, p.20)
1860 A US federal head count
numbered 32,654 men and 1,577 women in Colorado.
(SFEC, 1/30/00, Z1 p.2)
1861 Feb 28, The territory of
Colorado was organized.
(AP, 2/28/98)(HN, 2/28/98)
1861 Denver was incorporated
as a city.
(HNQ, 4/4/00)
1862 Fort Collins was established
as a frontier outpost.
(WSJ, 6/6/01, p.A8)
1863 Oct 10, The first telegraph
line to Denver was completed.
(HN, 10/10/98)
1864 Nov 29, In retaliation for an
Indian attack on a party of immigrants near Denver, 750 members of a
Colorado militia unit, led by Colonel John M. Chivington, attacked an
unsuspecting village of Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians camped on Sand
Creek in present-day Kiowa County. Some 300 [163] Indians were killed
in the attack, including women and children, many of whose bodies were
mutilated. Ten soldiers died in the attack. The Sand Creek Massacre, as
this incident came to be called, provoked a savage struggle between
Indians and the white settlers. It also generated two Congressional
investigations into the actions of Chivington and his men. The House
Committee on the Conduct of the War concluded that Chivington had
"deliberately planned and executed a foul and dastardly massacre which
would have disgraced the varied and savage among those who were the
victims of his cruelty."
(HNPD, 11/29/98)(HN, 11/29/98)(SFC, 9/15/00,
p.A9)(SSFC, 2/1/04, p.C13)
1864 The villages of Central City
and Black Hawk, one mile apart on Route 119, were incorporated within a
day of each other.
(SFC, 12/26/98, p.B8)
1865 Jan 7, Cheyenne and Sioux
warriors attacked Julesburg, Colo., in retaliation for the Sand Creek
Massacre.
(HN, 1/7/99)
1865 Apr 23, Dedicated
Massachusetts abolitionist Silas Soule (b.1838) was shot and
killed near his home in Colorado by a soldier named Charles
Squires. It is thought that Squires was hired by men loyal to Col. John
Chivington to kill Soule. Soule's testimony against Chivington about
the 1864 massacre at Sand Creek led, in part, the United States
Congress to refuse the Army's request for thousands of men for a
general war against the Native Americans of the Plains States.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silas_Soule)
1867 Dec 9, The capital of
Colorado Territory was moved from Golden to Denver.
(HN, 12/9/98)
1867 Dec 30, Simon Guggenheim,
philanthropist and US Senator for Colorado, was born. He died aboard
the Titanic.
(HN, 12/30/98)(MC, 12/30/01)
1868 May 23, Kit Carson (b.1809),
American scout and frontiersman, died at Fort Lyon, Colorado. In 1999
David Roberts authored "A Newer World: Kit Carson, John C. Freemont and
the Claiming of the American West."
(WUD, 1994, p.227)(SFEC, 2/13/00, BR
p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kit_Carson)
1868 Sep 17, The Battle of
Beecher's Island began, in which Major George "Sandy" Forsyth and 50
volunteers held off 500 Sioux and Cheyenne in eastern Colorado.
(HN, 9/17/98)
1869 Dec 14, Nathan Meeker,
agricultural editor of the New York Tribune, wrote a column appealing
to readers of high moral character to join him in building a utopian
community by the South Platte River near the foot of the Rocky
Mountains. He selected 700 of some 3000 applicants and founded Greeley,
Colo., named after his publisher Horace Greeley.
(Sm, 2/06, p.99)
1873 Aug, The cannibalized remains
of 5 men were found on the banks of the Gunnison River, Colorado.
Alfred Packer (d.1907), one of a 6-man prospecting party, had emerged
from the area 3 months earlier. Packer was arrested but escaped for 9
years. He then spent 18 years in jail and was paroled in 1901. [see Apr
13, 1883]
(AM, 5/01, p.50)
1873 Adolph Coors selected the
waters of Clear Creek for his dream of high producing a high quality
beer.
(SFEC, 4/30/00, BR p.4)
1874 Jun, In the Summer Willie
Kennard, black Civil War veteran, was appointed the new Marshall at
Yankee Hill, Colorado, after arresting Barney Casewit, rapist and
murderer, and killing his 2 companions. Casewit was hung the next day
after being tried and convicted under councilman Bert Corgan.
(WW, 12/96)
1875 Spring, Billy McGeorge led a
gang of outlaws that preyed on freight wagons and passenger stages
around Yankee Hill, Colorado.
(WW, 12/96)
1875 The town of Ouray, Colo., was
built during the silver and gold rush.
(SFC, 2/16/06, p.E2)
1876 Aug 1, Colorado was admitted
as the 38th state.
(AP, 8/1/97)
1876 Oct 3, John L. Routt, the
Colorado Territory governor, was elected the first state governor of
Colorado in the Centennial year of the U.S.
(HN, 10/3/98)
1879 Independence, Colo., was
founded as a mining camp. It was purchased by the Aspen Valley Land
Trust in 2001 and transferred to the US Forest Service in 2004.
(USAT, 1/30/04, p.7A)
1880 Caroline Romney hauled in
printing presses to a tent with a sawdust floor and started the Record
in Durango, Colo.
(SFEC, 3/8/98, BR p.6)
1881 Denver was made the capital
of the state of Colorado. Denver was named after the governor of the
Kansas Territory, James William Denver.
(HNQ, 4/4/00)
1882 The Durango & Silverton
Narrow Gauge Railroad was completed to haul gold, silver and other
minerals.
(SFEC,11/16/97, p.T5)
1882 Bat Masterson served as the
town Marshall of Trinidad.
(SFEC, 11/8/98, p.A6)
1883 Apr 13, Alfred Packer was
convicted of cannibalism. [see Aug, 1873]
(MC, 4/13/02)
1883 May 23, Douglas Fairbanks,
actor, was born in Denver, CO.
(HN, 5/23/98)(MC, 5/23/02)
1883 Mary Hallock Foote (b1847),
American author and illustrator, published her first novel: “Led-Horse
Claim: A Romance of a Mining Camp,” written while living in Leadville,
Colo.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Hallock_Foote)
1886 The Beaumont Hotel was built
in Ouray, Colo.
(SFC, 2/16/06, p.E2)
1887 Nov 8, Doc Holliday, who
fought on the side of the Earp brothers during the Gunfight at the O.K.
Corral sixty years earlier, died of tuberculosis in Glenwood Springs,
Colo.
(HN, 11/6/98)
1888 In Colorado Richard Wetherill
and Charles Mason, cowboys looking for lost cattle, came upon the
abandoned 150-room Cliff Palace of the Puebloan people, who had lived
in the area from about 400-1300. In 1906 the area became Mesa Verde
National Park.
(SSFC, 4/2/06, p.F10)
1890 Mar 28, Paul Whiteman,
orchestra leader (Paul Whiteman's TV Teen Club), was born in Denver, Co.
(MC, 3/28/02)
1892 The Brown Palace Hotel opened
in Denver, Colorado.
(WSJ, 6/24/08, p.D7)
1893 Jul 22, Katherine Lee Bates
(1819-1910), Wellesley professor, wrote the words to the song "America
the Beautiful," while atop Pike’s Peak during a trip to Colorado. It
appeared in print on July 4, 1895. In 1904 Clarence Barbour adapted it
to the melody of Samuel Ward’s “Materna” (1890). Bates’ final version
was completed in 1911.
(WSJ, 9/28/01, p.W13)(SSFC, 10/21/01, Par p.8)(AH,
10/04, p.26)
1893 Nov 7, The state of Colorado
granted women residents the right to vote.
(AP, 11/7/97)
1894 The Denver Press Club was
founded. In 1996 it was the longest continually operating press club.
(SFC, 10/24/96, p.A2)
1894 Cattlemen on the Roan Plateau
of Colorado drove some 4,000 sheep of cliffs in a clash known as the
Peach Day Massacre. This was such an outrage that the state legislature
passed the Rees-Oldman Act to divide up Roan Plateau grazing rights
between cattle and sheep operators. Conflicts between cattle and
sheep operators continued for several decades well into the 1930’s. It
was later found that some 5.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas rested
beneath the plateau.
(USAT, 3/5/04, p.6A)(Internet)
1896 Apr 25, Fight in Central
Dance Hall started a fire in Cripple Creek, Colorado.
(SS, 4/25/02)
1901 Oct 19, Arleigh A. Burke,
admiral (WW II, Solomon Islands, Navy Cross), was born in Colorado.
(MC, 10/19/01)
1901 Artus Van Briggle (d.1904)
and wife Anne opened their Van Briggle art pottery business in Colorado
Springs, Colo. Their vases were used for flowers and lamp bases. His
best known vases depicted a woman leaning on a lily, a man curled
around the top, and a woman curled around an entire vase. Their Persian
Rose glaze was produced from 1946-1968.
(SFC, 9/7/05,
p.G9)(www.collectics.com/education_vanbriggle.html)
1902 The 42-room Redstone Castle
in the mountains near Aspen was completed by coal baron John Cleveland
Osgood. He named it Cleveholm Manor.
(AP, 3/19/05)
1905 Dec, Frank Steunenberg,
former gov. of Idaho, was blown up by a booby-trapped gate in front of
his home in Caldwell, Idaho. Three Western Federation of Miners leaders
in Colorado, Charles Moyer, George Pettibone and William Haywood, were
"legally kidnapped" to Idaho and put on trial for the murder. The event
and surrounding circumstances were described by J. Anthony Lukas in his
1997 book: "Big Trouble."
(SFEC, 10/5/97, BR p.1,6)
1907 Aug 3, Irene Tedrow, actress
(Lucy-Dennis the Menace, Mr. Novak), was born in Denver, Colo.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1908 Jul 7, The Democratic
National Convention opened in Denver.
(AP, 7/7/08)
1908 Jul 10, William Jennings
Bryan was nominated for president by the Democratic National Convention
in Denver.
(AP, 7/10/08)
1909 Jun, F.O. Stanley, the
entrepreneur behind the Stanley Steamer automobile, opened the Stanley
Hotel in Estes Park after he found the area good for his health.
(SFEC, 9/3/00, p.T5)
1910 The first skiers ventured to
Berthoud Pass, Colorado.
(SFEC, 10/31/99, p.T16)
1913 Jun 13, Ralph Edwards
(d.2005), radio and TV host (This is Your Life), was born in Merino,
Colo.
(www.imdb.com)(SFC, 11/17/05, p.B5)
1914 Apr 20, Soldiers killed 33
during mine strike in Ludlow, Colo. In the Ludlow Massacre 2 women and
11 children perished in a mining camp torched by Colorado militiamen
called in by John D. Rockefeller Jr. to settle a strike. More than 75
people died during the Colorado coal strike with more than half of them
being company guards. In 2007 Scott Martelle authored “Blood Passion:
The Ludlow Massacre and Class War in the American West.”
(SFEC, 5/31/98, BR
p.3)(www.du.edu/anthro/ludlow/strike_000.html)(SSFC, 8/5/07, p.M2)
1915 Oct 4, Dinosaur National
Monument in Colorado and Utah was established. Pres. Woodrow Wilson
established Dinosaur National Monument in Jensen, Utah.
(SFEC, 3/14/99, p.T8)(MC, 10/4/01)
1915 The Rocky Mountain National
Park (415 square miles), northwest of Denver, was created, following a
decade of lobbying by photographer and naturalist Enos Mills.
(SFC, 7/19/97, p.A2)(SFEC, 9/3/00, p.T5)
1916 Jul 1, Dwight D. Eisenhower
married Mary "Mamie" Geneva Doud in Denver.
(AP, 7/1/97)
1916 Jul 2, Ken Curtis Lamar,
actor (Ripcord, Festus-Gunsmoke), was born in Colorado.
(SC, 7/2/02)
1917 Jun 8, Byron R. White
(d.2002), later US Supreme Court Justice (1962-1993), was born in Fort
Collins.
(SFC, 4/16/02, p.A1)
1919 Sep 25, Pres. Wilson
collapsed in Pueblo, Colorado. An ailing President Woodrow Wilson was
faced with the possibility that the Senate might not ratify the
Versailles Treaty ending World War I without substantial changes.
Wilson embarked on a grueling railroad tour of America to sway public
opinion in favor of his version of the Treaty, delivering 40 speeches
in less than a week. He warned America that without the Treaty, "there
will be another world war" within a single generation. He was rushed
back to a White House sickroom but there suffered a stroke on October
2. For the five weeks Wilson's life was in danger, his doctor and Mrs.
Edith Bolling Galt Wilson, shown here in a posed photograph taken after
the crisis had passed, kept the president isolated, but did not declare
him unfit to perform his presidential duties. By November 1, Wilson
once again governed the country, although he was left partially
paralyzed, weak and demoralized. In March 1920, the Senate finally
rejected the Treaty of Versailles.
(AP, 9/25/97)(HNPD, 9/25/98)
1921 A major flood on the Arkansas
River caused Pueblo to divert the original river channel away from
downtown. The channel became the setting for a 1998 riverfront project.
(WSJ, 3/25/98, p.B10)
1922 The Colorado River Compact
allocated 7.5 million acre-feet of water from the upper basin states
(Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico) to be delivered to the lower
basin sates (California, Arizona and Nevada) plus the rights to divert
another 1 million acre-feet from the river’s lower tributaries.
(SFEC, 8/24/97, p.A10)(SFCM, 7/17/05, p.6)
1925 May 1, Malcolm Scott
Carpenter, astronaut (Mercury 7-Aurora 7), was born in Boulder, Colo.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1927 Nov 21, Picketing strikers at
the Columbine Mine in northern Colorado were fired on by state police;
six miners were killed.
(AP, 11/21/07)
1927 The "History of Colorado" was
published by Linderman and Co.
(HIR, 9/11/97, p.5A)
1928 The Rocky Mountain Biological
Laboratory (RMBL) was founded as an independent, nonprofit research
station. It was headquartered in a former mining camp called Gothic in
Colorado’s High Elk Corridor.
(LP, Spring 2006, p.13)
1929 Construction began on Trail
Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain Nat’l. Park. The road reached Grand Lake
in 1938.
(SFEC, 9/3/00, p.T5)
1929 Adolph Coors, founder of the
Coors Brewery, died. In 2000 Dan Baum authored "Citizen Coors: An
American Dynasty."
(SFEC, 4/30/00, BR p.4)
1932 The Great Sand Dunes in
Colorado were declared a national monument by Pres. Herbert Hoover.
(AP, 9/12/04)
1932 The Cowles Commission for
Research in Economics was founded by the businessman and economist,
Alfred Cowles. It was dedicated to the pursuit of linking economic
theory to mathematics and statistics. The Cowles Commission initially
found its home in Colorado Springs under the directorship of Charles F.
Roos.
(http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/schools/cowles.htm)
1933 May 22, John Browning,
pianist (Leventritt Award-1956), was born in Denver, Colorado.
(MC, 5/22/02)
1934 May 13, A great dustbowl
storm occurred. [see Apr 14, 1935]
(SS, Internet, 5/13/97)
1935 Mar 12-1935 Mar 25, Colorado
dust storms killed 6 people, suffocated livestock and covered the
ground with up to 6 feet of dust.
(SFC, 3/19/09, p.D8)
1935 Apr 14, A major sandstorm,
dubbed “The Black Blizzard,” ravaged the US Midwest. The Black Sunday
was the worst day of the almost decade long Dust Bowl era. It ravaged
Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. In 2005 Timothy Egan
authored “The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived
the Great American Dust Bowl.”
(SSFC, 1/8/06,
p.M1)(www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/depression/dustbowl.htm)(Sm, 3/06,
p.111)
1935 Aug 3, Richard D. Lamm,
Gov-D-Colo, was born.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1935 Sep 17, Ken Kesey (d.2001),
author, was born in La Junta, Colo. His novels included "One Flew Over
the Cuckoo's Nest" (1962) and "Sometimes a Great Notion" (1964).
(HN, 9/17/00)(SSFC, 11/11/01, p.A16)
1937 The state's first rope tow
for skiing was installed at Berthoud Pass.
(SFEC, 10/31/99, p.)
1938 Jan 31, James G. Watt, US
Secretary of Interior (1981-83), was born in Colorado.
(MC, 1/31/02)
1938 Jun 29, Mesa Verde National
Park, Colorado, and Olympic National Park, Washington, were founded.
(HN, 6/29/01)
1940 Jul 30, Patricia Shroeder,
Democratic congresswoman from Colorado, was born.
(HN, 7/30/98)
1943 Dec 11, John Kerry,
Massachusetts Senator and 2004 Democrat presidential candidate, was
born in Denver, Colorado.
(SSFC, 2/29/04, p.D2)
1947 The first chair lifts for
skiing arrived at Berthoud Pass.
(SFEC, 10/31/99, p.T17)
1950 Walter Paepcke, chairman of
Container Corp. of America, founded the Aspen Institute in Colorado as
a gathering place for business leaders, artists and philosophers to
contemplate society’s underlying values: "a global forum for leveraging
the power of leaders to improve the human condition;" "an educational
institute that promotes leadership based on values."
(WSJ, 1/31/03, p.W13)
1952 Dec 2, 1st human birth
televised to public was on KOA-TV Denver, Colo.
(MC, 12/2/01)
1952 Colorado’s Rocky Flats
nuclear weapons plant, 16 miles northwest of Denver, began producing
plutonium bombs and bomb parts. It was shut down in 1989.
(SFC, 8/27/99, p.A3)(Econ, 2/26/05, p.32)
1954 Apr 1, U.S. Air Force Academy
was founded in Colorado. President Dwight Eisenhower signed a bill
authorizing the establishment of an Air Force Academy, similar to West
Point and Annapolis. On July 11, 1955, the first class was sworn in at
Lowry Air Force Base. The academy moved to a permanent site near
Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 1958.
(HN, 4/1/98)(HNQ, 2/22/99)(MC, 4/1/02)
1955 May 29, Jerry Dengler, singer
(Mason Dixon-Karen Comes Around), was born in Colorado Springs, CO.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1955 Jul 11, The Air Force Academy
was dedicated at its temporary quarters, Lowry Air Force Base in
Colorado.
(AP, 7/11/05)
1955 Nov 1, A time bomb aboard
United DC-6 killed 44 above Longmont, Colorado. Jack Gilbert Graham
rigged a time bomb for the Denver to Seattle flight and put it into his
mother’s suitcase in order to collect the insurance money. Graham was
executed in the gas chamber Jan 11, 1957.
(MC, 11/1/01)(AWC, 1982)
1956 The American opera "The
Balled of Baby Doe" was written by Douglas Moore with the libretto by
John Latouche. It was based on the 19th century real-life story of
Colorado silver magnate Horace Tabor and his illicit affair with
Elizabeth "Baby" Doe.
(SFEC, 9/17/00, DB p.38)
1957 Mar 19, Pete Seibert
(1924-2002) climbed to a summit in the Colorado Rockies with Earl
Eaton, a uranium prospector, and beheld the area that he later turned
into the Vail ski resort.
(SFC, 7/29/02, p.B5)
1957 Jun 11, 12 died in a train
crash in Vroman, Colo.
(SC, 6/11/02)
1957 A fire at the Rocky Flats
nuclear weapons plant released some plutonium in the smoke. The fire
was kept secret until 1969 when another fire released more plutonium.
(SFC, 8/27/99, p.A3)
1959 Jan 22, The Adolph Coors Co.
of Golden, Colombia, introduced the aluminum beer can.
(www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2009/jan/22/a-golden-milestone/)
1958 Aug 29, Air Force Academy
opened in Colorado Springs, Colo.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1960 Feb 10, Adolph Coors, the
beer brewer, was kidnapped in Golden, Colo.
(HN, 2/10/97)
1962 Dec, Pete Seibert opened the
Vail ski resort. He hired Ute Indians to perform a snow dance to lack
of snow.
(SFC, 7/29/02, p.B5)
1962 Yampa Valley College, founded
by Lucile Bogue (d.2005), opened in Steamboat Springs, Colo. It
eventually became Colorado Mountain College.
(SFC, 2/15/05, p.B5)
1963 Aug 31, Dick Gibson (d.1998),
jazz lover, held his first Gibson Colorado Jazz Party at the Hotel
Jerome in Aspen. He flew in some of the world’s top jazz musicians and
began an annual Labor Day weekend tradition that lasted 30 years.
(WSJ, 3/20/07, p.D6)
1966 NORAD, the North American
Aerospace Defense Command, opened its Cheyenne Mountain complex in
Colorado.
(SFC, 11/16/98, p.A3)
1968 The $750 million federally
designed Animas-La Platas Project was approved. It involved a dam in
Durango fed by water pumped 500 feet uphill from the Animas River. The
plan was later scaled back to $170 million with the water designated to
Ute Indians who could then sell it. In 2000 it was still debated.
(SFC, 1/17/00, p.A3,4)
1969 Jun 27, The 3-day Denver Pop
Festival opened. The peak attendance was estimated at 50,000.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denver_Pop_Festival)
1970 Sep 7, Donald Boyles set a
record for the highest parachute jump from a bridge by leaping off of
1,053 ft Royal George Bridge in Colorado.
(www.baseclimb.com/BASE_history.htm)
1970 Oct 2, A plane carrying the
Wichita State Univ. football team crashed near Silver Plume,
Colorado, killing 29 passengers as well as the Captain and Flight
Attendant.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wichita_State_University_Crash)
1970 Nov 3, King Peter II of
Yugoslavia died in a hospital in Denver, Colorado. He had been forced
into exile three weeks after his country was invaded by Nazi Germany.
He was buried in the Liberty Easter Serbian Orthodox Monastery in
Liberty, Illinois. He was the 1st European king or queen to die and be
buried in the US.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_II_of_Yugoslavia)
1971 Jul 21, In Nederland, Colo.,
Marshal Renner Forbes pulled Guy Goughnor ("Deputy Dawg") from the
Pioneer Inn tavern, drove to a remote area in Clear Creek County and
shot him in the head. Goughnor’s body was found a month later but their
was insufficient evidence to link the marshal to the killing. In 1997
Forbes at age 68 confessed to the murder.
(SFC,10/24/97, p.A5)
1972 Jul 1, The first Rainbow
Gathering began in Colorado’s Roosevelt National Forest. It has been
held annually in the United States from July 1 - 7 every year on
National Forest land.
(SFC, 7/4/97,
p.A3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Gathering)
1972 Columbine High School in
Littleton, 8 miles southwest of Denver, was built.
(SFC, 4/22/99, p.A7)
1973 Jun 21, The US Supreme Court,
in Keyes v. School District No. 1, ordered the complete desegregation
of the Denver school system.
(SFC, 5/18/99,
p.A21)(http://law.jrank.org/pages/13362/Keyes-v-School-District-No-1.html)
1974 Diane DiPrima joined Chogyam
Trungpa, Allen Ginsberg, and others to found the Naropa Institute, a
non-profit liberal arts college, in Boulder, Colo.
(SFC, 5/26/96, Z1
p.3)(www.shambhalashop.com/archives/vidnaro.html)
1975 Mar 15, Ted Bundy victim
Julie Cunningham (26) disappeared from Vail, Colo.
(www.crimenews2000.com/memorial/00052902pg8.htm)
1975 Mar 26, Clela Rorex, Boulder,
Colo., county clerk, allowed 6 same-sex couples to wed after changing
the license application to read "person" rather than "male" and
"female."
(SFC, 2/14/04,
p.A1)(www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/3/26/22117/6384)
1975 Apr 6, Bundy victim Denise
Oliverson (25) disappeared from Grand Junction, Colo.
(www.crimenews2000.com/memorial/00052902pg8.htm)
1975 Jun 30, Shelley Robertson, a
Bundy victim, disappeared in Colorado.
(MC, 6/30/02)
1976 May 13, In game 6 the NY Nets
beat the Denver Nuggets in 9th & final American Basketball
Association (ABA) championship, 4 games to 2.
(www.remembertheaba.com/New-York-Nets.html)
1976 Jun 28, The first women
entered the U.S. Air Force Academy.
(HN, 6/28/98)
1976 Nov 2, Tom Tancredo was
elected to Colorado’s state house as a member of a group called “The
Crazies” due to their fervent opposition to taxes.
(www.tancredo.org/info/tom_tancredo_bio.html)(Econ,
4/8/06, p.36)
1977 Jul 16, The New World
Liberation Front took responsibility for bombing a Coors beer
distribution center at San Jose, Ca. NWLF said the bombing was an act
of solidarity with the strikers in Golden Colo. Damage was estimated at
$400.
(SFC, 7/12/02, p.E9)
1977 Dec 30, Ted Bundy
(1946-1989), serial killer, escaped from jail in Colorado. His absence
was not noticed until the next day. He was re-captured in Florida on
February 15, 1978, after 3 more murders.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Bundy)
1977 Dr. Elizabeth Williams of
Fort Collins classified the endemic chronic wasting disease of local
deer as a spongiform disease. It was found to be infectious 2 years
later and then spread across to 8 states and Canada. Research later
suggested that it could infect people.
(WSJ, 5/24/02, p.A1)
1978 Colorado allowed the death
penalty 2 years after the US Supreme Court ended a 40 year moratorium
on capital punishment.
(SFC, 10/13/97, p.A7)
1978 The US steel industry peeked
in 1978 at over 137 million tons. Steel production slipped to less than
90 million tons in 1991. As the steel industry buckled in the 1980s
Pueblo, Colorado, began to diversify its economy.
(WSJ, 3/25/98, p.B10)(http://tinyurl.com/2ntm9k)
1979 The Colorado Supreme Court
found that the public has no right to the use of waters overlying
private lands for recreations purposes without the consent of the
owner. In 1983 the attorney-general cited a 1977 legislative opinion
that floating on rivers while staying off the banks of beds does not
constitute trespass.
(Econ, 7/23/05, p.31)
1979 Bob Charles, a McDonald’s
franchisee in Colorado, helped create the Happy Meal when he added a
toy to children’s orders at his restaurants.
(WSJ, 1/30/06, p.B2)
1982 May 2, A project to produce
oil from shale rock in Colorado's Roan Plateau collapsed due to
technical hurdles and falling oil prices. Exxon Mobil laid off 2,200
workers and cancelled its $5 billion Colony Oil Shale project near
Parachute.
(USAT, 3/5/04, p.6A)(Econ, 8/20/05, p.27)(SFC,
9/4/06, p.A8)
1984 Jun 18, Alan Berg, a Denver
radio talk show host, was shot to death outside his home. Two white
supremacists of the Aryan Nations Church were convicted of civil rights
violations in the slaying in 1987.
(AP, 6/18/97)(SFC, 2/20/98, p.A9)(SFC, 7/26/02,
p.A26)
1984 Richard Lamm, later governor
of Colorado, was quoted as saying: the elderly "have a duty to die and
get out of the way."
(SFC, 7/21/96, Z1, p.9)
1984 Robert Matthews, leader of
the radical right group called "the Order," died in a shootout with
federal agents after robbing a Brinks car in Mendocino and murdering
Denver radio talk show host Allen Berg. Matthews was influenced by the
William Pierce book, "The Turner Diaries."
(SFC, 9/24/98, p.C6)
1985 In Colorado Monte Kim Miller
(b.1954) founded his Concerned Christians sect. He preached against the
evils of cults and New Age movements. The sect disappeared from their
homes and jobs in October 1998 and had been the subject of a search. On
January 3rd, 1999 they gained notoriety for being arrested and deported
from Israel. The deportation was part of an Israeli effort to protect
the Al-Aqsa mosque from extremist Christian groups.
{Colorado, USA, Religion}
(http://tinyurl.com/3aola5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concerned_Christians)(SFC,
10/16/98, p.A9)
1986 Jul 21, Gary Lee Davis
(1944-1997) and his wife, Rebecca, abducted, raped and killed Virginia
May in Byers, Colorado. After exhausting all appeals he was executed by
lethal injection on Oct 13, 1997. Rebecca was convicted of murder and
sentenced to life in prison.
(SFC, 10/13/97, p.A7)(SFC, 10/14/97, p.A3)
1987 Feb 11, Peggy Hettrick (37)
in Fort Collins, Colorado, was murdered. Timothy Masters (15) was
convicted and sentenced to life in 1999 for the crime. He served nine
and a half years of a life sentence for the murder until DNA evidence
from the body in 2008 was found to match the victim's ex-boyfriend and
not the Masters.
(Reuters, 1/22/08)
1987 Apr 13, Gary Hart announced
his bid for the 1988 Democratic presidential nomination.
(AP, 4/13/97)
1987 May 3, The Miami Herald said
its reporters had observed a young woman, later identified as Donna
Rice, spending "Friday night and most of Saturday" at a Washington,
D.C., townhouse belonging to Democratic presidential candidate Gary
Hart.
(AP, 5/3/97)(SFEC, 12/19/99, p.C12)
1987 Jun 9, Near Denver, Colorado,
lightning struck the so-called Tire Mountain and ignited a fire that
burned some 2 million of the 6 million tires stored there.
(SFC, 6/9/09,
p.D8)(http://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/siteindex/1987-6/)
1987 Sep 28, US Rep. Patricia
Schroeder, D-Colo., announced in Denver that she would not run for the
Democratic presidential nomination.
(AP, 9/28/97)
1987 Nov 15, Twenty-eight of 82
people aboard a Continental Airlines DC-9, including the pilot and
co-pilot, were killed when the jetliner crashed seconds after taking
off from Denver's Stapleton International Airport.
(AP, 11/15/97)
1987 Michael Gilliland and his
wife, Elizabeth Cook, purchased a vegetarian food store in Boulder,
Colo. In 1991 they opened their 1st supermarket-size store in Santa Fe,
NM, and renamed the company Wild Oats Vegetarian Market. They
went public in 1996 and by 2006 had 114 stores in 24 states.
(WSJ, 10/26/06, p.C1)
1988 Mar 11, Saying, "The people
have decided," Gary Hart withdrew a second time from the race for the
1988 Democratic presidential nomination. Gary Hart, former US Senator
from Colorado campaigned for the democratic nomination for president
until a photograph of himself with a woman named Donna Rice, not his
wife, appeared. She sat on his lap aboard a boat named Monkey Business.
In 1996 Hart wrote a book using Machiavelli’s "The Prince" format. It
was titled: "The Patriot: An Exhortation to Liberate America From the
Barbarians."
(SFC, 7/14/96, p.C11)(AP, 3/11/98)
1988 The Timberline ski area at
Berthoud Pass closed. It was purchased in 1992 by Jim Pearsall and Paul
Wiebel and reopened in Jan 1998.
(SFEC, 10/31/99, p.T17)
1990 Jan 28, The San Francisco
49ers routed the Denver Broncos, 55-10, in the 24th Super Bowl.
(AP, 1/28/00)
1990 Aug 6, JonBenet Ramsey,
little beauty queen, was born. She was murdered in 1996 at her home in
Colorado.
(http://crime.about.com/od/unsolved/p/jonbenet_ramsey.htm)
1990 Aug 14, Denver voted for a 1%
sales tax to pay for a baseball franchise.
(http://colorado.rockies.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/col/history/timeline2.jsp)
1990 Voters approved limited
stakes gambling with bets capped at $5.
(SFC, 12/26/98, p.B8)
1991 Mar 3, 25 people were killed
when a United Airlines Boeing 737 inexplicably crashed while
approaching the airport in Colorado Springs, Colo.
(AP, 3/3/98)
1992 Oct, The fear of violent
protests by AIM members prompted organizers to cancel the annual
Columbus Day parade just minutes before the start.
(SFC, 10/6/00, p.A3)
1992 Colorado voters amended the
state constitution and passed a taxpayer’s bill of rights (TABOR). It
pegged government spending to the growth in population and consumer
spending. Voters agreed to relax it in 2000 and 2005 after it almost
bankrupted the state.
(Econ, 10/8/05, p.40)(Econ, 11/3/07, p.39)
1993 Aug 12, Pope John Paul II
began his third U.S. visit in Denver.
(AP, 8/12/98)
1993 Aug 14, Pope John Paul II
denounced abortion and euthanasia as well as sexual abuse by American
priests in a speech at McNichols Sports Arena in Denver.
(AP, 8/14/98)
1993 Aug 15, Pope John Paul II
ended his four-day U.S. visit with a farewell address at Denver's
Stapleton International Airport in which he denounced the "culture of
death" of abortion and euthanasia.
(AP, 8/15/98)
1993 Dec 14, A Colorado judge
struck down the state's voter-approved Amendment Two prohibiting gay
rights laws, calling it unconstitutional.
(AP, 12/14/98)
1993 Southern Ute Indians launched
Red Willow, a natural gas production operation. By 2003 the tribe had
acquired $1.3 billion in assets.
(WSJ, 6/13/03, p.A1)
1993 A spill of cyanide and acidic
water from a gold-mining operation killed almost every living thing
along a 17-mile stretch of the Alamosa River in the foothills of the
San Juan Mountains. Summitville Consolidated Mining Corp. declared
bankruptcy. The main officers fled the country and left taxpayers with
a cleanup approaching $150 million.
(SSFC, 1/7/01, p.A4)
1994 Jul 6, Fourteen firefighters
were killed while battling a blaze on Storm King Mountain in Colorado.
(AP, 7/6/99)(WSJ, 8/6/01, p.A11)
1994 Oct 11, The Colorado Supreme
Court declared the state's anti-gay rights measure unconstitutional.
(AP, 10/11/99)
1994 Oct 22, Colorado Springs
opened a brand new airport with a 2.5 million annual passenger
capacity, or about 7,000 people per day.
(Hem, Dec. 94, p.138)
1995 Feb 28, Denver International
Airport opened after 16 months of delays and $3.2 billion in budget
overruns. A $250 million automated baggage handling system contributed
to the delays. United Airlines gave up on the system in 2005.
(AP, 2/28/98)(WSJ, 6/7/05, p.D5)
1995 Jul 2, In Denver,
representatives of 34 countries ended an economic summit by endorsing
an open-market zone throughout the Western Hemisphere—excluding Cuba.
(AP, 7/2/00)(www.sice.oas.org/tunit/SGspeech.asp)
1995 The $60 million Supermax
prison, formally called Administrative Maximum, was built in Florence,
Colorado.
(SSFC, 5/14/06, p.A3)
1995 The Fitzsimmons Army Medical
Center in Denver, Colo.,. was closed under recommendation by the
Pentagon’s Base Realignment and Closure Committee (BRAC).
(Econ, 5/21/05, p.34)
1996 Nov 8, In Colorado Anna
Gimmestad (16 months) died after drinking a bottle of Odwalla apple
juice contaminated with E. coli. An epidemic broke out in Oct. due to
the tainted juices. In 1998 Odwalla paid a government fine of 1.5
million.
(SFC, 7/24/98, p.A17)
1996 Dec 26, In Boulder, Colorado,
6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey was found beaten and strangled in the
basement of her family home 8 hours after the mother discovered a
ransom note demanding $118,000. In 1999 Lawrence Schiller authored A
grand jury in 1999 completed its work and cited insufficient evidence
to file charges." Perfect Murder, Perfect Town: JonBenet and the City
of Boulder."
(SFC, 5/10/97, p.A3)(AP, 12/26/97)(SFEC, 4/18/99, BR
p.6)(SFC, 10/14/99, p.A3)
1997 Apr 2, An Air Force A-10
Thunderbolt jet with four 500- pound bombs was lost over the Colorado
Rockies. It was piloted by Capt. Craig Button (32). Wreckage of the
plane was found Apr 20 on the sheer face of New York Mountain [Gold
Dust Peak], 15 miles from Vail. It was later suspected that he
committed suicide due to a possible revelation of homosexuality. A 1998
official report cited unrequited love for a former girlfriend and his
mother's Christian pacifist faith.
(SFE, 4/9/97, p.A16)(SFC, 4/21/97, p.A1)(WSJ,
4/21/97, p.A1)(SFC, 5/3/97, p.A3)(SFC, 12/25/98, p.A3)(SFC, 8/26/99,
p.A3)
1997 May 1, In Colorado Ron Cole
was arrested by the FBI at the Aurora House of Pancakes on charges of
possession of illegal firearms and bomb materials.
(Wired, 2/99, p.93)
1997 Jul 28, A flash flood hit
Fort Collins, Colo., following torrential rains. At least 5 people were
killed and 40 or more injured.
(SFC, 7/30/97, p.A6)
1997 Oct 8, A single-engine
Cessna-208 was lost in Colorado with 8 employees of the federal Bureau
of Reclamation. The plane was found in the Uncompahgre Plateau and all
nine passengers were killed.
(SFC, 10/10/97, p.A5)(SFC, 10/11/97, p.A2)
1997 Oct 13, Gary Lee Davis
(b.1944) was executed by lethal injection in Colorado’s first execution
since capital punishment was legalized in 1978. He had exhausted
all appeals and was denied clemency by Gov. Roy Romer for the 1986
abduction, rape and murder of Virginia May (32).
(SFC, 10/13/97,
p.A7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Lee_Davis)
1997 Oct 25, A blizzard hit the
western Plains and dropped up to 3 feet of snow. Colorado Gov. Roy
Romer declared a state of emergency.
(SFEC,10/26/97, p.A4)
1997 Nov 12, Policeman Bruce
VanderJagt was killed in a shootout with a member of the Denver Skins.
The suspect then killed himself with the officer’s gun.
(SFC, 11/29/97, p.A3)
1997 Nov 19, In Denver Oumar Dia,
a black man, was gunned down at a bus stop, and a nurse, Jeannie
Vanvelkinburgh, who tried to help him, was shot in the back and left
paralyzed. One of 2 suspects was arrested and described himself as a
skinhead and said that he shot Dia because he was black. In 1999 jurors
deadlocked in the trial of Nathan Thill over 1st vs. 2nd degree murder
charges for the shooting of Dia. Thill pleaded guilty in Dec and was
sentenced to life in prison without parole.
(SFC, 11/29/97, p.A3)(SFC, 12/3/99, p.A5)(SFC,
12/21/99, p.A14)
1997 Nov 27, In Denver five
skinheads beat up a 26-year-old black woman who was shopping at a
7-Eleven. All 5 were captured and arraigned in court.
(SFC, 11/29/97, p.A3)
1997 Dec 21, In Colorado Susannah
Chase (23) was brutally attacked, abducted, sexually assaulted and
beaten in Boulder. She died the following day of severe head injuries.
In 2008 DNA evidence connected Diego Olmos Alcalde to the slaying, as
he served time in Wyoming for a kidnapping. In 2009 Chilean citizen
Diego Olmos Alcalde (39) was sentenced to life in prison for Chase’s
murder.
(SFC, 4/6/98, p.A3)(SFC, 6/30/09,
p.A4)(http://tinyurl.com/nwtazu)
1997 Dec 31, Michael L. Kennedy,
son of the late US Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, was killed in a ski accident
at Aspen, Colo.
(SFC, 1/1/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 29, In Denver 4 men beat
a cabby, Mostapha Maarouf of Morocco, to death as people watched from
their high-rise apartments. One person was arrested.
(SFC, 3/30/98, p.A4)
1998 May 29, Three men shot and
killed police officer Dale Claxton of Cortez, Colo., when he stopped
them in a suspected stolen water truck. The body of Alan Pilon, a
suspect in the murder, was found in the Utah desert in 1999.
(SFC, 6/9/98, p.A6)(SFC, 11/3/99, p.A7)
1998 Jun 4, Robert Mason (26), one
of 3 suspects in the May 29 killing of a Cortez police officer, was
found dead with a gunshot wound to his head.
(SFC, 6/5/98, p.A3)
1998 Aug 15, Some 34,000 union
workers went on strike against US West.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.A7)
1998 Aug 30, US West and its
biggest union reached a tentative agreement after 15 days.
(SFC, 8/31/98, p.A4)
1998 Sep 7, In Colorado 6 people
were found shot to death at 3 locations in Aurora. Two teenagers killed
5 people and then one of the teens killed the other.
(SFC, 9/8/98, p.A3)(SFC, 9/9/98, p.A3)
1998 Sep 10, In Aurora, Colorado,
2 men and one woman were found killed just 2 miles from a shooting
spree that killed 6 on Labor Day.
(SFC, 9/11/98, p.A3)
1998 Oct 12, Matthew Shepard (21),
a gay student at the University of Wyoming, died in fort Collins,
Colorado, five days after he was beaten and lashed to a fence; two men
were charged with his murder. Russell Henderson later pleaded guilty to
murder and kidnapping; a second suspect, Aaron McKinney, was convicted
of felony murder, kidnapping and aggravated robbery. McKinney was
sentenced to 2 life terms.
(SFC, 10/13/98, p.A1)(AP, 10/12/99)(SFC, 11/4/99,
p.A1)(SFC, 11/5/99, p.A1)
1998 Oct 19, In Colorado a series
of arson fires were set at Vail. The Earth Liberation Front later
claimed responsibility for the fires that caused $12 million in damage.
In 2006 4 people were indicted for the Vail blaze. The same 4 had
already been indicted for sabotage attacks in California, Oregon and
Wyoming. 2 of the 4 were still at large.
(SFC, 10/22/98, p.A3)(SFC, 5/19/06, p.A4)
1998 Oct 20, Gov. Roy Romer called
the 7 weekend fires at Vail an "act of terrorism." The fires began
following an 885-acre expansion project.
(SFC, 10/21/98, p.A3)
1998 Dec 8, In Greeley, Colo.,
state transportation worker, Robert S. Helfer (50), killed one person
during a disciplinary hearing and wounded another. He was killed by
police while trying to escape.
(SFC, 12/9/98, p.A6)
1998 The documentary film "Kosher
Valley" by Chuck Davis was about Colorado cattle ranchers and a
Baltimore rabbi.
(SFEC, 9/20/98, DB p.50)
1998 Colorado voters elected Tom
Tancredo to US Congress.
(www.tancredo.org/info/tom_tancredo_bio.html)
1999 Jan 3, In Israel police
detained 8 adults and 6 children belonging to the Concerned Christians
sect from Denver, Colo. Police said the group under Monte Kim Miller
planned violent acts to hasten the 2nd coming of Christ. 11 of the
members were ordered to be deported.
(SFC, 1/4/99, p.A1)(SFC, 1/5/99, p.A8)(SFC, 1/6/99,
p.A1)
1999 Feb 3, The first of 110 Lynx
cats was released near South Fork. The program to transfer the cats
from BC was to cost $1.4 million.
(SFC, 2/4/99, p.A3)
1999 Apr 20, In Littleton, Colo.,
2 Columbine High School students, students Eric Harris (18) and Dylan
Klebold (17), used guns and explosives to randomly kill 12 other
students and one teacher before killing themselves: Cassie Bernall,
Corey DePooter, Kelly Fleming, Matthew Kechter, Daniel Mauser, Daniel
Rohrbough, Rachel Scott, Isaiah Shoels, John Tomlin, Lauren Townsend,
Kyle Velasquez and teacher William "Dave" Sanders, were killed by Eric
Harris and Dylan Klebold. They wounded 28 other students and were part
of a small clique that identified themselves as the "Trench Coat
Mafia." 30 homemade bombs attributed to Harris and Klebold were found
at the school. Harris and Klebold had both worked at the Blackjack
Pizza No. 2025. Klebold and Harris recorded 5 videos prior to the
shooting in which they spoke of a bloodbath with hundreds killed. In
2001 it was reported that Daniel Rohrbough was shot and killed by
police. An independent investigation in 2002 cleared the police. In
2004 it was reported that local police had 15 contacts with Harris and
Klebold prior to the massacre.
(SFC, 4/21/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 4/21/99, A1)(SFC, 4/22/99,
p.A1)(WSJ, 6/23/99, p.A1)(SFC, 12/13/99, p.A3)(SFC, 12/28/01,
p.A9)(SFC, 4/18/02, p.A4)(WSJ, 2/27/04, p.A1)
1999 Apr 21, The National Rifle
Association scaled back its annual meeting in Denver from 3 days to one
in response to the Littleton killings.
(SFC, 4/22/99, p.A6)
1999 May 1, The NRA held its
annual convention in Denver. Some 2,500 attended as 7,000 people
protested outside.
(SFEC, 5/2/99, p.A1)
1999 May 3, Mark Manes (22) was
arrested for providing a TEC DC-9 pistol to either Eric Harris or Dylan
Klebold. He was released on a $15,000 bond.
(SFC, 5/4/99, p.A3)
1999 May 4, In Denver Mayoral
incumbent Wellington Webb won 81% of the vote, the 1st mayor to win
without a runoff since 1979.
(SFC, 5/5/99, p.A3)
1999 May 27, The parents of Isaiah
Shoels (18), one of the students killed at Columbine, filed a $250
million suit against the parents of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.
(SFC, 5/28/99, p.A3)
1999 Jun 23, In Castle Rock Simon
Gonzales (30) opened fire on a police station in the early morning and
was killed by police. His 3 daughters were found dead in his pickup
truck.
(SFC, 6/24/99, p.A6)
1999 Sep 8, Melvin Washington
(47), a homeless man, was attacked and killed as he lay sleeping on a
steam grate in Denver. In 2000 Christopher Ball, a homeless teenager,
was found guilty of manslaughter in the killing. Ball and two others
were accused in the attack.
(SFC, 3/24/00, p.A8)
1999 Oct 13, In Boulder, Colorado,
the JonBenet Ramsey grand jury was dismissed after 13 months of work
with prosecutors saying there wasn’t enough evidence to charge anyone
in the six-year-old’s strangulation.
(AP, 10/13/00)
1999 Oct 22, In Englewood Carla
June Hochhalter (48), mother of a girl partially paralyzed in the April
20 Columbine massacre, committed suicide in a pawnshop.
(SFC, 10/23/99, p.A1)
1999 Nov 3, In Laramie, Wyoming,
Aaron McKinney (22) was convicted of murder in the October 6-7, 1998,
beating of gay Wyoming college student Matthew Shepard (21). Shepard
died on October 12, 1998, at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins,
Colorado. McKinney and Russell Henderson, who pleaded guilty to
kidnapping and murder, were sentenced to life in prison. McKinney had
faced the possibility of being sentenced to death by lethal injection.
A deal was reached after Shepard’s parents agreed to accept two life
terms in prison for their son’s killer.
(AP,
11/3/00)(www.cnn.com/US/9911/03/gay.attack.verdict.01/)
1999 Nov 18, In Denver police
found the decapitated bodies of 2 homeless people in the same area
where 5 homeless men had been beaten to death.
(SFC, 11/19/99, p.A4)
1999 Nov 22, An 83 car pileup on
I-70 left 2 people dead and 29 injured.
(SFC, 11/23/99, p.A7)
1999 The Pepsi Center in Denver
was completed for $160 million.
(SFC, 5/21/01, p.A3)
1999 Edward Dorn, poet and
educator, died at age 70. His work included the novel "The Rites of
Passage" and the 5-volume poem "Gunslinger" (1968-1972).
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.B2)
2000 Jan, In Littleton authorities
found the body of Antonio Davalos (11) in a dumpster. The Denver boy
had been missing for several days.
(SFC, 2/15/00, p.A3)
2000 Feb 14, In Colorado 2
Littleton teens, Nicholas Kunselman (15) and Stephanie Hart (16), from
Columbine High School were shot and killed in a sandwich shop near the
school.
(SFC, 2/15/00, p.A3)
2000 Apr 19, Candace Newmaker (10)
died while undergoing "rebirthing" therapy at a clinic in Evergreen. In
2001 2 therapists were convicted of reckless child abuse.
(SFC, 4/21/01, p.A7)
2000 May 4, Greg Barnes (17), a
Columbine High School senior and basketball star, hanged himself to the
music of "Adam’s Song" by the group Blink 182.
(SFC, 5/6/00, p.A2)
2000 Oct 7, Over 140 people were
arrested in Denver while protesting the Columbus Day parade, the 1st
since 1991.
(SFEC, 10/8/00, p.A2)
2000 Nov 2, A federal indictment
was issued against 7 federal prison guards, part of a group called "The
Cowboys," for inmate abuse that included mixing human waste into food.
(SFC, 11/4/00, p.A7)
2000 Nov 7, George Bush won
Colorado by 8% points. Ralph Nader took over 5% of the vote.
(Econ, 8/28/04, p.30)
2001 Jan 9, It was reported that
Amory Lovins (53) of Colorado was attempting to build a super-efficient
sport-utility vehicle called the Hypercar with 99 mpg. It would be
powered by fuel cells and built from carbon fiber.
(WSJ, 1/09/01, p.A1)
2001 Jan 16, Bill Coleman, Silicon
Valley entrepreneur and founder of BEA Systems, and his wife pledged to
donate $250 million to the Univ. of Colorado. The donation over 5 years
was believed to be the largest ever to a public US university.
(WSJ, 1/17/01, p.B8)
2001 Jan 22, Police in Colorado
caught 4 escaped Texas convicts. A 5th committed suicide. The 2 at
large were caught a day later.
(SFC, 1/23/01, p.A3)(SFC, 1/24/01, p.A2)
2001 Jan, Abdulaziz al-Kohaji,
engineering student and son of a Saudi oilman, went missing from the
Community College of Denver. His body was found in a landfill in Erie,
15 miles north of Denver, a month later and police said he had been
taped to a chair and strangled before being thrown into a trash bin.
Mishal al-Suwaidi, Tariq al-Dossary and al-Yousif, suspects in the
murder, were acquaintances of al-Kohaji and prosecutors said the motive
was robbery. Suwaidi and Dossary fled to Saudi Arabia. Yousif was
convicted in the US and sentenced to life. In 2004 the family of Kohaji
pardoned the Suwaidi and Dossary and save them from execution.
(AP, 1/2/05)
2001 Mar 24, It was reported that
2 elderly Colorado patients had died from Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease
(CJD) this year. The state averaged about 2 cases per year.
(SFC, 3/24/01, p.C1)
2001 Mar 29, A chartered jet from
southern California crashed near Aspen’s Sardy Field and all 18 people
aboard were killed.
(SFC, 3/30/01, p.A3)
2001 Jun 9, The Colorado Avalanche
won the Stanley Cup by defeating the defending champion New Jersey
Devils 3-1 in game seven.
(AP, 6/9/02)
2001 Jun 21, A hailstorm in Denver
damaged 32 United jetliners.
(WSJ, 6/22/01, p.A1)
2001 Jun 21, In Aurora police
officer George Petrillo (40) was suspected to have killed his wife and
2 children before killing himself. 2 other sons, from a previous
marriage, discovered the bodies.
(SFC, 6/22/01, p.A7)
2001 Jun 21, In Cortez children
found the badly decomposed body of Fred. C. Martinez Jr., (16). He had
been teased for being a transvestite.
(SFC, 8/25/01, p.A15)
2001 Sep 29, Joel and Michael
Stovall (24), twin brothers, were caught following an all-day pursuit.
They had been arrested the previous day for shooting a neighbor’s dog
and then shot Deputy Jason Schwartz in the back of the head several
times.
(SFC, 10/1/01, p.A8)
2002 Jan 30, The Nature
Conservancy announced a $31 million purchase of the 151-sq. mile Baca
Ranch. It was a step towards the creation of a new national park with
the adjacent Great Sand Dunes National Monument and Preserve.
(SFC, 1/31/02, p.A2)
2002 Mar 23, It was reported a the
Air Force Academy had implicated 38 cadets in a drug scandal that began
in Dec 2000.
(SFC, 3/23/02, p.A4)
2002 Mar 26, The bodies of 3 young
people, David Bachman (26), Melinda Leippe (19) and Brenda White (19),
from Littleton, Colorado, were found on Bonny Doon Beach, 5 miles north
of Santa Cruz, Ca. A possible suicide pact was suspected.
(SFC, 3/27/02, p.A19)(SFC, 3/28/02, p.A17)
2002 Apr 2, Koleen Brooks (37), a
former stripper and mayor of Georgetown, was ousted in a recall
election 339-176.
(SFC, 4/3/02, p.A4)
2002 Apr 15, Byron R. White
(b.1917), former Supreme Court Justice (1962-1993), died in Denver.
(SFC, 4/16/02, p.A1)
2002 Apr 22, Linda Boreman, who
starred as Linda Lovelace in the 1972 porno film "Deep Throat," died in
Denver from Apr 3 car crash injuries. Boreman became an anti-porn
advocate after the film and authored "Ordeal" in 1980.
(SFC, 4/23/02, p.A18)
2002 May 6, Two mailbox pipe bombs
were found in Colorado and one in Nebraska.
(SFC, 5/7/02, p.A3)
2002 Jun 3, A wildfire destroyed
83 homes near Canon City.
(SFC, 6/4/02, p.A2)
2002 Jun 8, The Hayman fire began
and by June 16 burned 102,000 acres and destroyed at least 24 homes. It
was later reported to have been accidentally set by Terry Lynn Barton
(38), a forest service technician.
(SFC, 6/17/02, p.A1)
2002 Jun 9, A 2-day-old wildfire
covered 7,500 acres near Glenwood Springs. 40 structures including 20
homes were already destroyed.
(SFC, 6/10/02, p.A4)
2002 Jun 10, The fire that began
in Pike National Forest June 8 pushed toward Denver’s southern suburbs.
(SFC, 6/11/02, p.A1)
2002 Jun 13, A federal judge
blocked SC Gov. Jim Hodges’ suit to block a plutonium shipment from
Rocky Flats in Colorado to the Savannah River Site nuclear facility for
re-processing.
(SFC, 6/14/02, p.A3,E6)
2002 Jul 2, The Hayman fire in
Colorado was declared under control. It had burned 137,760 acres over
24 days.
(SFC, 7/3/02, p.A5)
2002 Jul 19, ConAgra Beef Co.
began recalling 19 million pounds of beef, manufactured in Greeley,
Colo., over the last 3 months, due to possible E. coli contamination.
(SFC, 7/20/02, p.A1)
2002 Jul 15, Pete Seibert (77),
founder of the Vail ski resort (1962), died.
(SFC, 7/29/02, p.B5)
2002 Colorado Republican Gov. Bill
Owens, one of the country’s most conservative governors, won
re-election.
(Econ, 8/28/04, p.30)
2002 Dale Katechis, founder of
Oskar Blues Brewery in Lyons, Colo., began canning his beer.
(WSJ, 8/26/05, p.W7)
2003 Mar 18, A major snowstorm hit
Colorado and Wyoming with over 3-6 feet of snow. The Denver Airport
closed under the worst storm in 90 years.
(SFC, 3/19/03, p.A3)(WSJ, 3/20/03, p.A1)(SSFC,
3/23/03, p.A3)
2003 Apr 16, Colorado Republican
Gov. Bill Owens signed a law that established the 1st state school
voucher program.
(SFC, 4/17/03, p.A10)
2003 Apr 17, Denver police reached
an agreement with the ACLU to end the practice of keeping files on
protesters.
(SFC, 4/18/03, p.A7)
2003 Jun 3, John Hickenlooper
(b.1952) was elected mayor of Denver.
(Econ, 11/3/07,
p.39)(www.boomerstv.com/episodes_profile.php?lid=346)
2003 Jul 18, Basketball star Kobe
Bryant was charged with sexually assaulting a 19-year-old woman at a
Colorado spa; Bryant denied the charge, saying he was guilty only of
adultery. Prosecutors later dropped the case.
(AP, 7/18/08)
2003 Dec 3, A Colorado state judge
in Denver declared the new school voucher plan to be unconstitutional.
(SFC, 12/4/03, p.A3)
2004 May 11, NBA star Kobe Bryant
pleaded not guilty in a Colorado court to a rape charge. Prosecutors
later dropped the case.
(AP, 5/11/05)
2004 May 15, In Golden, Colorado,
a 40-ton steel bridge girder collapsed on I-70 near Golden and sheered
off the top of an SUV killing its 3 passengers.
(SSFC, 5/16/04, p.A2)(AP, 5/15/05)
2004 Jun 4, In Granby, Colo.,
Marvin Heemeyer, a muffler shop owner, tore through town in a plated
bulldozer in anger over a zoning dispute, before shooting himself dead.
(SFC, 6/5/04, A3)
2004 Aug 16, Colorado certified a
ballot question that would make it the 1st state to award electoral
votes by popular-vote percentages, not as winner take all.
(WSJ, 8/17/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 1, In Colorado the
criminal trial against LA basketball player Kobe Bryant (26) ended in a
dismissal after the woman (20), who filed a rape charge, decided not to
testify. This saved Bryant’s $136 million contract with the Lakers.
Bryant still faced civil charges.
(SFC, 9/2/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 13, Colorado became home
to the country's newest national park as Interior Secretary Gale Norton
officially reclassified the Great Sand Dunes National Monument. The
dunes' foundation was laid about 25 million years ago through erosion
of the San Juan Mountains. The sand dunes were declared a national
monument in 1932 by President Herbert Hoover.
(AP, 9/12/04)(SFC, 9/15/04, p.A3)
2004 Sep 14, Arizona, California
and Nevada joined with the federal government to undertake a 50-year,
$620 million project to restore wildlife habitat along 342 miles of the
lower Colorado River.
(SFC, 9/15/04, p.A8)
2004 Nov 2, Ken Salazar,
Colorado’s Democratic attorney general, won a US Senate seat over Pete
Coors.
(Econ, 11/6/04, p.30)
2004 Nov 28, A private jet crashed
while taking off in Montrose, Colo., killing 2 crewmen and Edward
Ebersol (14), the son of NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol, who escaped
with his other son Charles.
(SFC, 11/30/04, p.A3)
2004 Amory Lovins, head of the
Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), authored “Winning the Oil Endgame.”
Lovins offered a plan for reducing US oil use by 50% by 2025, and
ending foreign oil dependency based on a study funded by the Pentagon.
(www.amazon.com/Winning-Oil-Endgame-Amory-Lovins/dp/1881071103)
2004 Colorado’s Rocky Mountain
Arsenal was converted to a 17,000-acre wildlife refuge.
(Econ, 2/26/05, p.32)
2005 Feb 16, A corporate jet
crashed in Pueblo, Colo., and 8 people were killed.
(WSJ, 2/17/05, p.A1)
2005 Feb 20, Hunter S. Thompson
(b.1937), gonzo journalist, committed suicide in Aspen, Colo. Thompson
inserted himself into his accounts of America's underbelly and
popularized a first-person form of journalism in books such as “The Rum
Diary” (1998) and "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" (1972). His ashes
were blown into the Colorado sky on Aug 20.
(AP, 2/21/05)(SFC, 2/21/05, p.A8)(Econ, 2/26/05,
p.86)(SSFC, 8/21/05, p.A6)
2005 Mar 19, The 42-room Redstone
Castle in the mountains near Aspen was auctioned for $4 million, two
years after the IRS seized the century-old mansion in a fraud
investigation. It was completed in 1902 by coal baron John Cleveland
Osgood, who died in the castle he named Cleveholm Manor.
(AP, 3/19/05)
2005 Mar 19, In Colorado an
explosion at the Electric Mountain Lodge, 230 miles SW of Denver, left
3 children dead. Propane gas was suspected.
(SFC, 3/21/05, p.A3)
2005 Mar 28, The Colorado Supreme
Court threw out the death penalty in a rape-and-murder case because
five of the jurors had consulted the Bible and quoted Scripture during
deliberations.
(AP, 3/28/06)
2005 Apr 10, A blizzard hit
eastern Colorado knocking out power and stranding travelers along
highways and at the Denver airport.
(SFC, 4/11/05, p.A3)
2005 Jun 13, Archaeologists in
Kansas working near the Colorado-Kansas border reported radiocarbon
dating results finished in February that showed mammoth and prehistoric
camel bones dating back to 12,200 years ago.
(AP, 6/13/05)
2005 Aug 5, In Indonesia
Denver-based mining giant Newmont went on trial in a high-profile legal
battle over charges its Indonesian unit, Newmont Minahasa Raya, dumped
toxic waste and polluted Buyat Bay in North Sulawesi, causing health
problems to residents.
(AP, 8/5/05)
2005 Aug 20, Thomas Herrion
(b.1981), San Francisco offensive lineman, collapsed in the locker room
and died in Denver, shortly after the 49ers played the Denver Broncos
in a preseason game. Herrion's was the NFL's first football-related
death since Vikings tackle Korey Stringer died of heatstroke in 2001.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Herrion)(AP,
8/20/06)
2005 Nov 1, Residents of Denver,
Colorado, voted to legalize the possession of small amounts of
marijuana for adults. Authorities said state possession laws will be
applied instead. State residents voted to suspend their Taxpayer’s Bill
of Rights and gave up more than $3 billion in tax refunds to help the
state deal with a recession.
(AP, 11/2/05)(SFC, 11/3/05, p.A5)
2005 Nov 29, Broad areas of the
Dakotas remained shut down by the Plains' first blizzard of the season,
with highways closed by blowing, drifting snow and thousands of people
without electricity as temperatures hit the low teens. In Colorado
eastbound I-70 was closed.
(AP, 11/29/05)(WSJ, 11/29/05, p.A1)
2006 Jan 8, Wildfires in the
southwest US spread to Arkansas and Colorado destroying 9 more homes.
Over the last 2 weeks the fires in New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas have
destroyed 475 homes and left 5 people dead.
(SFC, 1/9/06, p.A3)
2006 Jan 21, In Colorado a
military jury convicted Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer Jr., an
Army interrogator, of negligent homicide. During an interrogation on
Nov 26, 2003, he put a sleeping bag over the head of Iraqi Maj. Gen.
Abed Hamed Mowhoush and sat on his chest as the man suffocated.
(AP, 1/22/06)(SSFC, 1/22/06, p.D4)
2006 Apr 3, Denver area transit
workers went on strike for the 1st time in 24 years. A tentative
contract was reached on April 5.
(SFC, 4/4/06, p.A3)(SFC, 4/6/06, p.A18)
2006 Jun 22, Colorado's Gov. Bill
Owens banned open burning and fireworks as a wildfire there grew to
nearly 12,000 acres.
(AP, 6/22/06)
2006 Jun 25, In Denver, Colorado,
Michael Ford burst into a sprawling Safeway Inc. warehouse, killing one
person, wounding five others and sending terrified workers fleeing the
building. The attacker was later killed in a shootout with police.
(AP, 6/26/06)
2006 Jul 5, Kenneth Lay (b.1942).
Enron Corp. founder and chief executive, died of a heart attack at his
vacation home in Colorado. He was convicted in May for his role in the
in the Houston-based company's downfall.
(Reuters, 7/5/06)(Econ, 7/8/06, p.81)
2006 Jul 10, Colorado Gov. Bill
Owens cut a deal with Democratic leaders on a package of bills to deny
some state services to illegal immigrants and to punish employers who
hire them.
(SFC, 7/12/06, p.A8)
2006 Jul 27, Robert Charles
Browne, serving a life sentence in Colorado for murdering a teenage
girl, claimed responsibility for as many as 48 slayings across the
country dating back from 1970 until his arrest in 1995. The other
claims include 17 murders in Louisiana, nine in Colorado, seven in
Texas, five in Arkansas, three in Mississippi, two each in California,
New Mexico and Oklahoma, and one in Washington state.
(AP, 7/28/06)
2006 Aug 15, US officials arrested
Edgar Alvarez Cruz on immigration violations in Denver. He was
suspected of participating in the rapes and killings of at least 10
women in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, where more than 100 young
women have been killed since 1993.
(AP, 8/17/06)
2006 Aug 16, John Mark Karr (41),
a former American school teacher, was arrested in Thailand for the
December, 1996, murder JonBenet Ramsey in Boulder, Colo. He said he
tried to kidnap JonBenet for a $118,000 ransom but that his plan went
awry and he strangled her. Karr's confession that he had killed
JonBenet was later discredited.
(AP, 8/17/07)
2006 Aug 28, Prosecutors in
Colorado abruptly dropped their case against John Mark Karr in the
slaying of JonBenet Ramsey, saying DNA tests failed to put him at the
crime scene despite his repeated insistence he'd killed the 6-year-old
beauty queen.
(AP, 8/28/07)
2006 Sep 18, The body of Luz Maria
Franco-Fierros (49) was found dragged to death in Castle Rock,
Colorado, leaving a trail of blood more than mile long. Police the next
day arrested Jose Luis Rubi-Nava (36) as suspect in the murder.
(SFC, 9/21/06, p.A20)(SFC, 9/22/06, p.A3)
2006 Sep 27, In Bailey, Colorado,
Duane Morrison (53) held 6 girls hostage at Platte Canyon High School
for hours before fatally wounding Emily Keyes (16). He sexually
molested the girls and then killed himself as authorities stormed in.
(AP, 9/28/06)(SFC, 9/28/06, p.A3)(AP, 9/29/06)(SFC,
10/6/06, p.A3)
2006 Oct 7, In Colorado the new
146,000-square-foot Denver Art Museum opened to the public. It was
designed by Daniel Libeskind.
(SFC, 10/7/06, p.A1)
2006 Oct 26, A big snowstorm in
Colorado dumped 20 inches cutting power to thousands.
(WSJ, 10/27/06, p.A1)
2006 Nov 2, In Denver, Colo., Rev.
Ted Haggard, a leading evangelist and outspoken opponent of gay
marriage, gave up his post as president of the National Association of
Evangelicals while a church panel investigates allegations he paid a
man for sex. Haggard later confessed he was guilty of sexual immorality.
(AP, 11/3/06)(AP, 11/2/07)
2006 Nov 5, Saying that he was a
"deceiver and liar" who had given in to his dark side, the Rev. Ted
Haggard confessed to sexual immorality in a letter read from the pulpit
of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo.
(AP, 11/5/07)
2006 Nov 8, US Democrats took over
Republican–held mansions in 6 states to boast 28 of the nation’s 50
governors. In Massachusetts Deval Patrick succeeded Mit Romney; in Ohio
Ted Strickland won over Kenneth Blackwell by 24 percent; Bill Ritter
won in Colorado.
(Econ, 11/11/06, p.39)(Econ, 8/2/08, p.31)
2006 Nov 19, In Denver, Colorado,
tens of thousands of people turned out for a celebration to welcome the
city's newest addition to its mass transit system: a train. The new
19-mile-long commuter rail line, projected to carry at least 38,000
passengers each day, officially opened.
(AP, 11/19/06)
2006 Dec 21, The Denver area was
motionless for a second day after a powerful blizzard dumped 2 feet of
snow on the region.
(AP, 12/21/06)
2006 Dec 31, Colorado Gov. Bill
Owens and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius declared statewide emergencies
after a winter storm dumped as much as 3-feet of snow across much of
the Plains. Snowdrifts reached 10 feet and 12 people died in 4 states.
(SFC, 1/1/07, p.A5)(WSJ, 1/2/07, p.A1)
2006 The $7.2 billion cleanup of
the 6,300-acre Rocky Flats weapons development site was scheduled for
completion. It was to be transformed into a wildlife preserve in 2007.
(SFC, 12/8/00, p.D3)(Econ, 2/26/05, p.32)
2006 Colorado’s foreclosure rate
for this year was the highest in the country. In 2005 the state had
ranked second.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.37)
2007 Jan 1, In Denver, Colorado,
Broncos football player Darrent Williams was killed in a drive-by
shooting in the early morning and two people with him were injured. On
October 8, 2008, Willie D. Clark (25) was indicted for the murder.
(Reuters, 1/1/07)(AP, 10/9/08)
2007 Jan 3, Hundreds of hay bales
fell from the sky across Colorado's rangeland as military helicopter
and cargo plane crews delivered food to cattle that have been stranded
by heavy snow and high drifts for a week.
(AP, 1/4/07)
2007 Jan 4, Pieces of a spent
Russian rocket reentered the atmosphere over Colorado and Wyoming,
showering parts of the western United States with space debris.
(Reuters, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 6, In Colorado a huge
snow slide knocked two cars off the road in a high pass and buried them.
(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Feb 24, Broncos running back
Damien Nash (24) collapsed and died after a charity basketball game in
suburban St. Louis, less than two months after the slaying of teammate
Darrent Williams.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 May 1, John Hickenlooper
(b.1952) was re-elected mayor of Denver with 86.3% of the vote.
(Econ, 11/3/07,
p.39)(www.citymayors.com/mayors/denver_mayor.html)
2007 Jun 26, The body of Alyssa
Heberton-Morimoto, a summer intern for the Colorado Geologic Survey,
was found in an isolated part of the San Isabel National Forest, 75
miles southwest of Denver. A suspect, who has used the names Dennis
Cook, Dennis Lee Cook and Robert R. Amos, was arrested the next day and
held for investigation of first-degree murder.
(AP, 6/28/07)
2007 Jul 16, A man carrying a gun
and declaring "I am the emperor" was shot and killed by security
outside the offices of Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2007 Aug 31, The 34th annual
Telluride Film Festival opened in Colorado.
(SFC, 9/3/07, p.E1)
2007 Sep 6, Authorities in
Colorado arrested Norman Hsu (56), a fugitive political fundraiser. Hsu
had failed to appear in a Redwood City, Ca., courtroom on Sep 5,
following bail over a 1992 fraud conviction. It was later reported that
Hsu had recently received $40 million from Source Financing Investors
LLC, an investment fund run by Joel Rosenman, one of the creators of
the 1969 Woodstock Festival, and that the money was missing. On Sep 19
the fund filed suit against Hsu.
(SFC, 9/7/07, p.A1)(WSJ, 9/12/07, p.A1)(SFC,
9/20/07, p.A1)
2007 Sep 6, Martin Villegas,
Mexican boot maker to world leaders, including President Bush and
Vicente Fox, was arrested in Colorado along with two other Mexican
nationals and two US residents following a three-year undercover
operation by US Fish and Wildlife Service agents. The five allegedly
made 25 illegal shipments of banned skins into the US since 2005.
(AP, 9/22/07)
2007 Oct 2, In Colorado 5 workers
trapped at least 1,500 feet underground survived an initial chemical
fire at a hydroelectric plant near Georgetown, but died before
emergency workers could rescue them.
(AP, 10/3/07)
2007 Oct 28,
In Denver the Boston Red Sox swept to their second World Series
title in four years with a 4-3 win over the Colorado Rockies in Game 4.
(AP, 10/29/07)
2007 Dec 9, In Arvada, Colorado, a
suburb of Denver, a gunman walked into a training center dormitory for
young Christian missionaries and opened fire, killing two of the
center's staff members and wounding two others. 2 more people,
including the gunman, were killed at the New Life megachurch in
Colorado Springs. Matthew Murray, killed himself.
(AP, 12/9/07)(AP, 12/10/07)(AP, 12/9/08)
2008 Jan 14, California officials
confirmed that zebra mussels have been found in the San Justo
Reservoir, a dam near Hollister. This type of mussel was first detected
in the US in the Great lakes in 1989 and has spread like a plague.
Colorado officials earlier this month confirmed zebra mussels in Lake
Pueblo.
(SFC, 1/25/08, p.B1)(http://tinyurl.com/2nojd2)
2008 Jan 24, Colorado’s House of
Representatives voted 62-1 to censure Rep. Douglas Bruce, who kicked a
newspaper reported taking his picture and refused to apologize.
(SFC, 1/25/08, p.A4)
2008 Mar 19, Colorado health
officials told residents of Alamosa to stop drinking and cooking with
tap water, after tap water samples tested positive for salmonella
contamination. By March 22 over 200 cases were reported.
(AP, 3/24/08)
2008 Apr 16, In Colorado
firefighters hoped rain and snow would help them stop wildfires that
blazed through thousands of acres of grass, forced hundreds of
residents to evacuate and left three people dead.
(AP, 4/16/08)
2008 Apr 23, Vicorp Corp., the
Denver-based owner of Bakers Square and Village Inn restaurants, said
it had filed for Bankruptcy as it struggled amid a slowing economy and
higher operating costs.
(WSJ, 4/24/08, p.A1)
2008 May 22, A tornado hit
northern Colorado killing one person.
(WSJ, 5/23/08, p.A1)
2008 May, In Colorado landscapers
in Boulder stumbled onto a cache of more than 83 ancient tools buried
by the Clovis people, ice age hunter-gatherers, dating back 13,000
years.
(AP, 2/27/09)
2008 Jun 3, A Denver, Colorado
court fined Dow Chemical Co. and Boeing Co. a combined $926 million for
property damages caused by plutonium contamination from a nuclear
weapons plant. The initial trial had concluded in February 2006. Dow
planned to appeal. The Rocky Flats plant was operated by Dow from 1953
to 1975, and then by defense contractor Rockwell until its closing in
1994; it supplied the plutonium triggers for the US nuclear bomb
arsenal.
(AFP, 6/4/08)
2008 Aug 13, Jack Weil (107),
patriarch of western clothing, died. He created the western style shirt
which sold after 1946 through his Denver-based company Rockmount Ranch
Wear.
(Econ, 8/30/08, p.82)
2008 Aug 25, The US Democratic
Convention opened in the Pepsi Center of Denver, Colorado, where Sen.
Edward Kennedy passed the party’s crown to Barack Obama.
(SFC, 8/26/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 26, In the 2nd day of the
Democratic Convention in Denver Sen. Hillary Clinton endorsed Sen.
Barack Obama for the US presidential nomination.
(SFC, 8/27/08, p.A1)
2008 Aug 27, In Colorado Democrats
officially made Barack Obama their presidential nominee and Sen. Joe
Biden, D-Del., their vice presidential nominee, following speeches by
former Pres. Bill Clinton and Sen John Kerry, the Democrat’s 2004
presidential candidate. Obama made a surprise late visit to the
convention, following Biden’s acceptance speech, to praise his wife,
his former rival, and former President Bill Clinton for going to bat
for him.
(AP, 8/28/08)
2008 Sep 10, An internal
government report said US Interior Department employees in Denver and
Washington, who oversaw oil drilling on federal lands, had sex and used
illegal drugs with workers at energy companies where they were
conducting official business.
(AP, 9/11/08)
2008 Sep 14, The Denver Broncos
won 39-38 following a 2-point conversion after a mistaken call by NFL
referee Ed Hochuli gave them the ball in the last minute of the game.
(AP, 9/18/08)
2008 Nov 27, An SUV plunged off an
overpass in northern Colorado and hit a concrete embankment in a fiery
crash, killing all seven people inside it, including two young children.
(AP, 11/27/08)
2008 Dec 27, It was reported that
the mountain pine beetle was expected to kill virtually every mature
lodgepole pine in Colorado. The beetle had already destroyed pine
forests from Mexico to Canada.
(WSJ, 12/27/08, p.A2)
2008 Dec 31, In Aspen, Colorado,
James Chester Blanning (72), walked into two downtown banks afternoon
and left gift-wrapped bombs made of gasoline and cell phone components.
He had skied competitively as a teen but had grown bitter about his
hometown. His bombs caused the evacuation of a 16-block area, which
lasted until 4 a.m. Police found Blanning dead in his Jeep Cherokee a
few hours later in a rural area east of Aspen.
(AP, 1/2/09)
2008 Paul Polak, founder of
International Development Enterprises (IDE) authored “Out of Poverty:
What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail.” The former Denver-based
psychologist cashed out his business in 1981 and soon developed an
irrigation treadle pump for poor farmers.
(Econ, 2/23/08,
p.103)(www.boulderweekly.com/?id_sub=16255&page_id=16255)
2009 Feb 25, US Interior Sec. Ken
Salazar scrapped leases, created under the Bush administration, on
federal land for oil-shale development in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.
(AP, 2/26/09)
2009 Feb 26, In Colorado the
150-year-old Rocky Mountain News of Denver closed its doors after
publisher E.W. Scripps failed to find a buyer.
(WSJ, 2/27/09, p.B1)
2009 Mar 8, In Argentina Matthew
Lizotte (25) of Aspen, Colorado, died while scaling the 11,411-foot
(3,480-meter) Mount Tronador in Nahuel Huapi National Park. Two
unidentified students were injured when the ice bridge they were
crossing broke.
(AP, 3/9/09)
2009 Apr 7, A lawsuit filed in US
District Court in Denver by the SEC alleged that Shawn Merriman, an
unlicensed broker, collected up to $20 million from investors in
several states to support a lavish lifestyle. The former bishop in The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints allegedly operated a Ponzi
scheme from his suburban Denver home for about 15 years, bilking
investors out of millions of dollars to collect religious art and
classic cars.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 May 1, Colorado Gov. Bill
Ritter signed a state budget, overcoming a $1.4 billion deficit by
taping into emergency reserve funds and cutting state services.
(Econ, 5/23/09, p.37)
2009 Jun 17, The number of
Nebraska cattle herds quarantined because of bovine tuberculosis
concerns jumped to 42 and Colorado and South Dakota were warned the
disease may have already spread there.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 28, The US Agriculture
Department said a Colorado meat company is expanding a recall of beef
due to possible contamination by E.coli O157:H7 bacteria after an
investigation found 18 illnesses may be linked to the meat.
(Reuters, 6/28/09)
2009 Jun 28, It was reported that
bark beetles were killing millions of pine trees from Colorado to
Canada. Over 7 million acres of forest in the US have been declared all
but dead. 22 million more acres were expected to die over the next 15
years.
(SSFC, 6/28/09, p.A16)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Subject = Colorado
End of file.