The Colorado's Most Significant Artifacts program highlights the importance of historic and cultural heritage and honors and recognizes all the organizations in Colorado that care for and preserve photographs, documents, rare books and manuscripts, audio recordings, film, digital materials, art, and historic, archaeological and natural science specimens.

Stay tuned for 2020's call for nominations in late spring 2020. 

Learn more below about the top ten nominations for the years 2013-2019. Be sure to also check out our Zoom In exhibit as well as our full collection of artifacts that you can access through Stephen H. Hart Research Center!

Museum of Memory is a public history initiative that works together with Colorado residents to co-author a shared history. We collaboratively work to reanimate, center and amplify the histories that have long existed only in the margins and create the opportunity for the community to decide how to remember its collective past.

History Colorado has assisted in twenty one Museum of Memory projects to date, some of which are still in progress and with more to come.

Learn more about Museum of Memory and how it works→

At History Colorado we strive to be a place of belonging for all Coloradans of all backgrounds, and to serve as a platform for community connection and co-creation. We know we’re succeeding when more voices, perspectives and experiences are part of the work we do, whether it's building exhibits, hosting events, providing resources for educators, or acting as the custodians of our state's history. 

We invite you to join us! 

Beginning in 1819 with the federal “Indian Civilization Act,” the United States Government embarked on a systematic campaign of cultural genocide that included forcibly removing children from their families. Sent far away from their communities to boarding schools, these Native children were severed from their culture, language, traditions, and religion. The Federal Boarding School Program was legal, systemic, and its stated purpose was to “kill the Indian; save the man.” Students in Indian Boarding Schools were abused, beaten, raped, and starved by faculty and staff who were often employed by the U.S. government. This violence, combined with theft of culture, has caused generational trauma for Native Americans that continues to reverberate into the present.