Colorado Trivia & Tidbits

Kody Lostroh, of La Salle (pop. 1,849), won the 2009 Professional Bull Riders world championship-and the $1 million prize that goes with the title-in November in Las Vegas. Lostroh, who was raised in Longmont (pop. 71,093), finished the season with total earnings of $1.6 million.

Mike Stone, of Aurora, set a state record by catching a 35-pound channel catfish in July at the Aurora Reservoir. The fish was 37 inches long.

King’s Chef Diner, in Colorado Springs, has been a local landmark since 1956 for both its castle-style exterior and its award-winning green chili, which is sold online and at Whole Foods Market.

The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs is the nation’s longest-running five-star hotel, a rating the historic resort has achieved for 50 consecutive years. Opened in 1918, the “Grande Dame of the Rockies” was awarded that status by Forbes Travel Guide, formerly the Mobil Travel Guide.

Brighton (pop. 20,905) is home to the nation’s first cooperative solar farm, run by local rural electric co-op United Power. For $1,050, co-op customers get a 25-year lease on a photovoltaic panel on the solar farm.

In 1972, husband-and-wife artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude draped Rifle Gap, north of Rifle (pop. 6,784), with about 150,000 square feet of orange woven nylon fabric, a project the land artists called Valley Curtain. The curtain stretched across 1,250 feet and ranged from 182 to 365 feet in height. Twenty-eight hours after its installation, the curtain had to come down because of strong winds.

Martha Michel and her husband, Lester, of Colorado Springs, used to walk around the lake at the Namaste Alzheimer Center, where Lester was a patient. When her husband of 56 years died in 1998, Martha continued the walks daily in his memory. Last October, at age 88, she reached the milestone of 50,000 laps around the lake. That's 10,000 miles.

The pine beetle, which is killing trees in Rocky Mountain forests, inspired BeetleFest in Frisco (pop. 2,443). Proceeds from the event go to the Friends of the Dillon Ranger District to restore the forest. Among the activities at September's BeetleFest were a Volkswagen Bug bash, a "beetle stomp" costumed fun run, and a bug petting zoo.

The oldest theater company in the state is Little Theatre of the Rockies, at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley (pop. 76,930). The theater celebrated its 75th season last year.

A row of purple seats at Denver's Coors Field, home to Major League Baseball's Colorado Rockies, marks 5,280 feet above sea level, the mile-high point. A baseball is said to travel 9 percent farther at 5,280 feet than at sea level, and, in fact, Coors Field holds the record for the most home runs in one season: 303 in 1999.

A robot ball that can roll uphill in rough terrain earned Colorado State University graduate student Greg Schroll a spot on Popular Mechanics magazine's list of "10 Most Brilliant Innovators of 2009." Schroll, a mechanical engineering student, foresees several uses for his invention, including planetary exploration and search-and-rescue missions.

Filoha Meadows, near Redstone, is known for its hot springs and thermally heated meadows that attract fireflies and, in the winter, bighorn sheep. The nature preserve was named by the land's former owner, Dr. Bernarr Johnson, who reportedly had practiced in Ethiopia. Filoha is Ethiopian for "hot water."

Pisco, a 13-year-old llama, cheers up patients at the Hospice of Saint John in Lakewood during monthly visits through an animal therapy program.

Coloradoans can recycle their unwanted gifts with a clear conscience now that Gov. Bill Ritter Jr. has proclaimed Dec. 18 National Regifting Day. The proclamation says "regifting is accepted as a way to save money and avoid debt as well as spread holiday warmth."

A freak windstorm in October 1997 swept through the Routt National Forest near Steamboat Springs (pop. 9,815), downing thousands of acres of old-growth timber. With winds in excess of 100 mph, the Routt Divide Blowdown resulted from the largest known windstorm in Rocky Mountain history.

Guinea pigs have a friend in Aurora. Established in 1998, Cavy Care Inc. bills itself as the largest guinea pig shelter in the United States and the only one serving the state.

When the only grocery store in Walsh (pop. 723) closed in 2006, residents were faced with the prospect of driving 20 miles to shop for food, so they pitched in $50 a share to buy and reopen the store. Today, volunteers still help out at the thriving locally owned community grocery.

New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins is the first brewery in the United States to run on wind energy. Since 1999, the brewery has bought its wind-generated power from the city, which gets electricity from a wind turbine near Medicine Bow, Wyo. (pop. 274).

A tradition since the mid-1970s, the Telluride (pop. 2,221) Free Box allows people to donate or take items, such as clothing, toys, books or TV sets, from a rack of wooden shelves on a public sidewalk. Operated by town employees and volunteers, the Free Box allows people with items they no longer need to drop them off for others to use.

Surrounded on three sides by the snowcapped peaks of the San Juan Mountains, Ouray (pop. 813) has been called the "Switzerland of America."

Glendale (pop. 4,547) is home to the nation's only municipal rugby stadium. Opened in 2007, Infinity Park has hosted national club championships, collegiate all-star games and international matches, including the Churchill Cup with teams from Canada, England, Ireland and Argentina. In addition to the stadium, the town boasts a Rugby Hall of Fame, furthering its hopes to become the "Rugby Capital of the United States."

The great outdoors helped put Louisville (pop. 18,937) on top of Money magazine's 2009 list of "100 Best Places to Live" for towns with populations between 14,000 and 50,000. A robust local economy with a low unemployment rate, a highly rated school system and nearby ski resorts are among Louisville's other attributes cited by the magazine.

Wildlife biologists found 10 lynx kittens in five dens last spring, the first time newborn lynx have been found in the state since 2006. Three dens were in the San Juan Mountains and two farther north in Gunnison (pop. 13,956) and Eagle (pop. 41,659) counties. The wild cat was native to Colorado before being eradicated by trapping, poisoning and loss of habitat in the 1970s. In the late 1990s, more than 200 lynx from Alaska and Canada were reintroduced to the state.

Guests can drink imported English ales in an authentic 19th-century English pub in the Broadmoor hotel in Colorado Springs. The pub was disassembled, shipped from Great Britain and reassembled in 1961 at the hotel. It features wood paneling, a pressed metal ceiling and etched-glass windows. In addition to drinking ales, guests can dine on Devonshire cheddar cheese soup and shepherd's pie.

David Wroblewski, author of the 2008 novel The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, lives in Westminster. In the 10 years it took to write the novel, Wroblewski worked in Boulder (pop. 94,673) as a software developer.

He's not Van Gogh, but Mshindi at the Denver Zoo may be the world's only rhinoceros who paints with a brush. Trainer Christine Bobko taught the rhino to hold a paintbrush in his mouth as part of an enrichment exercise to keep him challenged and occupied. Many of Mshindi's paintings are sold to benefit rhino preserves in Africa.

The Little Man Ice Cream Shop in Denver is housed in a 28-foot-tall replica of a vintage milk can. The whimsical building is the brainchild of Paul Tamburello, who calls it "roadside vernacular-type architecture."

Some instruments in the Hubble Space Telescope were made by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder (pop. 94,673), including the Wide Field Camera 3, which is expected to help Hubble better view the universe, and the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, to help scientists understand how galaxies, stars and planets evolved.

Nestlé Purina PetCare last year installed 467 solar panels covering about 21,000 square feet on top of its pet food plant in Denver. The 100-kilowatt system is the largest privately owned solar-power panel system in Colorado.

Incorporated in 1992, South Fork (pop. 604) is one of the state's newest towns and is located at the junction of the Rio Grande and its south fork. The historic Silver Thread National Scenic Byway, which follows the Rio Grande to its headwaters in the San Juan Mountains, begins in the center of town.

Denver is the most desirable city in America to call home, according to a 2008 survey by the Pew Research Center. Of 2,260 adults asked to choose from among 30 of the largest U.S. cities, 43 percent chose the Mile High City. At the Fort Collins Bike Library, residents, students and visitors can borrow a bike for free. The bike-lending service started in April 2008.

—A parrot named Willie, owned by Megan Howard of Denver, is credited with saving a toddler from choking. The hero bird shouted, "Mama, baby," and alerted babysitter Howard, who performed the Heimlich maneuver on the child. The parrot was presented the Denver Red Cross chapter's Animal Lifesaver Award in March. When Carbondale's (pop. 5,196) newspaper folded last Christmas, volunteers decided that no news was bad news. They started a nonprofit newspaper, The Sopris Sun, staffed mostly by volunteers. The free weekly is named after a snow-capped peak towering over the Roaring Fork Valley.

—The Smiley Building, a former junior high school in Durango (pop. 13,922), has been turned into an energy-efficient, solar-powered center for arts and education. Brothers John and Charles Shaw, and Charles' wife, Lisa Bodwalk, renovated the 1936 Mission-style structure. Today, the rooms are abuzz with classes in dance, music, martial arts, yoga, ceramics, photography and painting. A 500-foot, five-pointed star shines brightly in December on Sundance Mountain at Palmer Lake (pop. 2,179). The star was built in 1935 by Palmer Lake residents who wanted to brighten the Christmas season during the Depression. Except for the World War II years, the star's 91 bulbs have been turned on every year in December and on other national holidays. Among the volunteers on the star project was Dizzy, a German shepherd who ran up and down the mountain to haul tools, supplies and light bulbs. A bronze statue of Dizzy was installed near Palmer Lake's town hall.

—Harold Ross, who founded The New Yorker in 1925 and was its editor until his death in 1951, was born in Aspen (pop. 5,914). The influential magazine published articles by such famed writers as James Thurber, Dorothy Parker and E.B. White.

A cache of stone tools found buried in a Boulder (pop. 94,673) yard belonged to the Clovis people, a nomadic culture that lived 13,000 years ago. The tools were found in May 2008 when landscapers were digging resident Patrick Mahaffy's yard to create a fish pond.