Back Issues

The magazine you’ve grown to love as Colorado Heritage has returned to its roots as The Colorado Magazine. In this issue, Chief Creative Officer Jason Hanson explains this change, and Steve Turner introduces this season’s massive public engagement initiative, This Is What Democracy Looks Like. You can also hear from the organizers of Hecho en Colorado and Forty Years on the ‘Fax, our critically acclaimed new exhibitions; read an essay from State Historian’s Council member Nicki Gonzales about the stakes of civil unrest; and join journalist Phil Carson on a journey that was 200 years in the making, among other items.

In this issue, a smart comedy about ordinary people was just the ticket for theatergoers in the wake of World War II. Two Colorado women joined forces to make it happen, garnering a Pulitzer Prize in the process. Read a study in contrasts as the towns of Silverton and Gunnison respond to the so-called Spanish flu of 1918 and '19, thanks to fresh takes from today's historians and the hosts of our Lost Highways podcast. See how Coloradans have organized in times of crisis, and find out how History Colorado is documenting this historic moment for future generations while reaching out in new ways to connect with today's audiences.

In this issue: An 1870 proposal to annex the San Luis Valley into New Mexico called into question just who could claim to be a Coloradan. The debate raged, with ramifications we still feel today. This is the winning essay in our first annual Emerging Historians Award competition. Also in this issue, the 1895 Pocket Kodak let amateur photographers—including two Fort Collins natives—document their everyday lives. And read about the recently acquired John R. Henderson Collection of materials from the career of a notable Mid-Century Modern architect, who was also the first licensed African American architect in Denver. 

In this issue: Coloradans have long—in fact always—made posters to share what they care about and inspire others. See signs of the times as featured in the new exhibit What's Your Story? Also, author David N. Shorr recounts a tale of love and loss in the Wild West along the Durango-area trail of Del Lockard and Bronco Lou, where mysteries remain and injustice abounds. And, as State Historian William Wei recounts, most Coloradans oppose discrimination based on sexual orientation, but getting to this point has been complicated. Read these stories and more in the latest issue of Colorado Heritage.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a postcard is even better. This issue of Colorado Heritage showcases postcards from the History Colorado collection. Postcards from the past show how Coloradans and visitors portrayed our state to the rest of the world. Also in this issue, a British soldier who sounded his bugle at the Charge of the Light Brigade makes his way to Denver, where he leads the city's most storied concert band. And, see the work of Bernard Arnest, a late Colorado artist who worked in a range of modernist styles and is finally getting his due.

In conjunction with the History Colorado Center exhibit Beer Here! Brewing the New West, see and read more about Colorado’s brewing evolutions and revolutions. From the first mining camps to today’s booming cities, the history of beer illuminates our experiences as Coloradans. Also in this issue, Louise Sneed Hill ruled over Gilded Age Denver society for four decades with Southern charm and a passion for success. And, 2020 marks a hundred years since the Nineteenth Amendment; read about the Women’s Vote Centennial Commission and Colorado’s own—and earlier—suffrage legacy.

Winner, Publication Design Award, Mountain-Plains Museums Association

In this issue, we share stories collected in partnership with the bilingual newspaper El Semanario. Coloradans who trace their lineage to Spanish colonists, to ancestors who fled the Mexican Revolution, and to immigrants who ventured north as laborers share memories, photos, and artifacts of their heritage. In another feature, author and historian Derek Everett looks back 100 years to the impact on Colorado of the armistice that ended World War I. Meet the latest fellows at the Center for Colorado Women’s History, ask a curator, and more!

In this issue our new State Historian, prolific author Tom Noel, tells the story of May Bonfils—the wealthy Lakewood heiress who was as eccentric as she was philanthropic. You can also read about the history of Pueblo, Colorado, as witnessed through the lens of the city's Union Depot, a grand edifice that's seen it all. And, we've put the spotlight on Ute cradleboards—artifacts both charming and artistic that are among the many on view in our upcoming exhibition Written on the Land: Ute Voices, Ute History, developed in partnership with the three Ute tribes.

In honor of the History Colorado Center exhibition Play Ball! A Celebration of America's Game, enjoy an issue's worth of Colorado baseball's storied past. In the cover story, Senior Curator Alisa DiGiacomo shares rare photos of the state's early amateur and semi-pro teams, many of the images from the collection of preeminent baseball historian Jay Sanford. In other stories, meet the women who barnstormed the state in "Bloomer Girls" teams, and learn how History Colorado is collecting the memories and memorabilia of those who brought major league ball to our state.  

The Denver Broncos made their first Super Bowl appearance in 1978 and, as author Keith Valdez writes, it was Head Coach Red Miller who drove the team to legitimacy. Also in this issue, a friendly softball league brings a bit of fun to the prairie during the Dust Bowl. Coors Field opens in Denver, and a photographer captures one of those first games of 1995. And a one-of-a-kind historical document—the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo—makes its way from the National Archives to El Pueblo History Museum as part of an exhibit about Colorado's southern borderlands.

Walt Conley launched his career in the 1950s as one of Colorado's first performers of the folk revival—and saw that revival from the perspective of an African American man in a largely white scene. Another black pioneer, Azalia Smith Hackley temporarily set aside a burgeoning career as a musician and educator to make inroads into the predominantly white male world of journalism. And, get a look inside the thinking behind the latest History Colorado Center exhibition, Zoom In: The Centennial State in 100 Objects.

When Denver needed entertainers, Arthur and Hazel Oberfelder brought them to town and treated them right. A historian reflects on his Irish American roots and the mysteries inside a remote mountain cemetery. And, with postwar prosperity in Denver came bungalows and ranch homes, cul-de-sacs and car culture.

Ireland's Great Famine spurred immigration to the United States, including the mining camps of Colorado. In a second feature, the Irish make their mark on Denver's civic and religious life—and face waves of organized intolerance. And, two twentieth-century photographers aim their lenses at less-considered aspects of Colorado.

Hattie McDaniel grew up in Denver and toured as a vocalist with George Morrison's jazz orchestra, then went on to a career as a groundbreaking African American Oscar winner. In 1917, a mine inspector accidentally triggered an explosion in southern Colorado's Hastings mine, resulting in the deaths of 121 men in Colorado's worst mine disaster ever. And, a set of Denver & Rio Grande Railroad dining car china evokes a time of rolling restaurants and elegant meals.