The Colorado Magazine is a publication for all Coloradans. In these pages, we’ll document, explore, and share the experiences that join us together as Coloradans, bringing you compelling original scholarship, insights, and perspectives on how we got to now. We welcome you along on the journey.
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the disCOurse features writers sharing their lived experiences and their perspectives on the past with an eye toward informing our present. In this article, Courtney Ozaki shares her family’s journey to Denver’s historically Black Five Points neighborhood, where a multigenerational love of tortillas was born.
Black baseball players shaped the game and American society beyond the ballfield. It’s a story that runs, surprisingly, straight through Denver and an event that called itself “The Little World Series of the West.”
There’s a wonderful pop art quality to the card. Mickey Mantle stands in a heroic pose against a brilliant sky blue background, shouldering his bat as he gazes up into the distance. It’s the sort of iconic portrait an artist might have created to celebrate Mantle’s spectacular achievements in retrospect, but somehow Topps got it exactly right at the beginning. And for three days in Denver this July 10–12, you can see it for yourself.
When Ken Kesey described fictional southeastern Colorado settings and characters in one of his novels, he could rely largely on his own memory. The author, who lived in Oregon for nearly all of his life, was born in the town of La Junta, Colorado, in the days of the Dust Bowl.
“Ever since my first visit to the Great Sand Dunes National Park at seven years old, I’ve always remembered the special feeling of seeing them for the first time,” says Megan Eflin, Outreach Coordinator for the History Colorado State Historical Fund. “And how much fun my family and I had there on one of our many road trips when I was young. As an adult, summers for me have become a time for packing into the car, snacks accessible, music playlist at the ready, and hitting the open road for an adventure. Giving you an opportunity to create your own path. Choosing to stop when you see something of interest, make route changes on a whim, and immersing yourself in local culture, food, and events.”
Mayor Federico Peña’s campaign vision to “Imagine a Great City'' catalyzed the development of Denver and its region from the 1980s onward. Against the backdrop of a boom-and-bust economy, major public projects shaped the trajectory of the city along with its residents’ grassroots advocacy.
Generations of Jewish Coloradans have spent summer days at Camp Shwayder and the JCC Ranch Camp. Colorado’s mountains have provided the ideal setting for distinctly western Jewish American experiences. Ariel Schnee examines this lesser-known side of Jewish identity in Colorado.
Near and dear to the people of Pueblo is Roselawn Cemetery—a place of family and community connections that holds so many memories of Pueblo’s past. The State Historical Fund recently supported a project to find the exact location of the mass burial that followed the catastrophic Pueblo Flood, prompting reflections on the meaning of tragedy, closure, and remembrance.
In the days that followed, photographers documented the destruction wrought by the flood. A century later, their images are powerful testimonies to the devastating scale of the catastrophe.
