Historic Presidential Visits to Colorado
Presidents can be tourists, too, which might explain why presidential visits to our state happen on the regular. Here, we offer readers a photo essay of some of the most famous stops.
From historic events to whistle stop tours and even tragedies, US presidents have frequently stopped in the Centennial State. For Presidents’ Day, we dug up photos of some of these visits from our nation’s Commander in Chief.
President Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt
In Office: 1901-1909
President Theodore Roosevelt stands on the outdoor balcony of the Colorado State Capitol, waiting to address the gathering crowd on May 4, 1903.
President Theodore Roosevelt visited Colorado on a tour in 1905. This image captures him on the caboose of his train engaging with the locals. President Roosevelt loved the West and specifically Colorado: He visited Colorado more than twenty times during his life.
President William Howard Taft
In Office: 1909-1913
In Montrose, President William Howard Taft at the official opening of the Gunnison Tunnel, an irrigation tunnel in the Uncompahgre Valley, on September 23, 1909. Nearly 10,000 Colorado residents came to watch the opening of such a marvelous feat of human engineering.
President Woodrow Wilson
In Office: 1913-1921
In 1913, President Woodrow Wilson and Governor John F. Shafroth drove through Denver.
In this picture, dated September 25, 1919, President Woodrow Wilson sits at the Denver Press Club. Wilson’s last public appearance was in Pueblo that same month, where he suffered a stroke that ultimately contributed to his death five years later.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt
In Office: 1932-1945
President Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke at the Colorado State Capitol in 1936 during his twelve-year tenure as president, to promote the New Deal. President Roosevelt’s international trips during World War II were more common in the later years of his presidency than his domestic trips.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower
In Office: 1953-1961
In 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower and First Lady Mamie Eisenhower took a farewell tour through Denver. Mamie’s family lived in Denver and the Eisenhowers were frequent visitors to Colorado; Lowry Air Force base was known as the Office of the President when he vacationed in Colorado for the summer.
This photo, which was taken in the late 1950s, shows President Dwight D. Eisenhower surveying the Martin Company’s Titan missile test. In July 1958, President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, which paved the way for America to enter the space race.
President John F. Kennedy
In Office: 1961-1963
To celebrate the authorization of the Fryingpan-Arkansas Rivers water reclamation project, Governor Stephen McNichols, President John F. Kennedy, and US Senator John Carroll pose at the Pueblo High School Stadium in August, 1962.
President Gerald Ford
In Office: 1974-1977
This picture shows President Gerald Ford during a visit to a VA Hospital in Grand Junction on November 2, 1974. Several stretches of I-25 and I-70 are named after presidents. I-25 through El Paso County is called the Ronald Reagan Highway, the stretch through Pueblo is the John F. Kennedy Memorial Highway, and I-70 through Eagle County is called the Gerald Ford Memorial Highway.
President Ronald Reagan
In Office: 1981-1989
President Ronald Reagan speaks to a group in Denver at the annual convention for the NAACP. Reagan visited Colorado five times over the course of his two-term presidency, including two tours to Denver in his first year in office.
President William "Bill" Clinton
President Bill Clinton visited Denver in August 1993, and received Pope John Paul II for World Youth Day.
President George W. Bush
In Office: 2001-2009
On October 8, 2004, President George W. Bush spoke to a crowd at Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Earlier in the day he attended a Coors for Senate luncheon at the Wings Over the Rockies Museum.
President Barack Obama
In Office: 2009-2017
President Obama spent sixteen days in Colorado, more than any other first-term president. This photo was taken at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science on March 21, 2009, as the President signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which focused on green energy jobs.
President Donald Trump
In Office: 2017-2021
On May 30, 2019, President Donald Trump saluted Air Force Academy cadets and attended the commencement ceremony for the sixty-first graduating class in Colorado Springs.
President Joseph "Joe" Biden
In Office: 2021-Present
Days after the Marshall Fire, President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden traveled to Boulder County to tour the damaged neighborhoods and meet with victims of the blaze on January 7, 2022.
Photo by Andy Kenney, Colorado Public Radio News.
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