Colorado Trivia & Tidbits - Page 13

Looking for Colorado trivia? Try our list Colorado little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

A row of purple seats ring Coors Field, home of the Colorado Rockies, marking a spot that is exactly 5,280 feet—or one mile—above sea level.

first appeared: 1/25/2004

The world’s largest silver nugget, said to have weighed between 1,800 and 2,000 pounds, was found in 1894 in Smuggler Mine near Aspen (pop. 5,914). The nugget was 93 percent pure silver.

first appeared: 1/18/2004

A 114-mile scenic byway known as the Trail of the Ancients crosses the broken, arid terrain of the former Anasazi civilization in the state’s southwest corner. The trail is heavily laden with cliff dwellings, rock art, pottery shards and other remains of these people, who date back to 100 B.C. The Anasazi Heritage Center in Dolores (pop. 857) offers background and interpretive information.

first appeared: 1/11/2004

Garden of the Gods, a 1,391-acre, city-owned park in Colorado Springs, features a uniquely colorful area of sandstone formations and is open free to the public.

first appeared: 1/4/2004

Grand Mesa, the world’s largest flat-top mountain, reaches heights of 11,000 feet in Grand Mesa National Forest.

first appeared: 1/4/2004

The first verse of the fight song for the Colorado School of Mines in Golden (pop. 15,021) is adapted from an old English tune, and is sung as follows:

first appeared: 12/28/2003

I wish I had a barrel of rum and sugar three hundred pounds, The college bell to mix it in and clapper to stir it round. Like every honest fellow, I take my whisky clear, I’m a rambling wreck from Golden Tech, a helluva engineer.

first appeared: 12/28/2003

For the first major league baseball game in Denver, the Colorado Rockies set a single-game attendance record of 80,227 in 1993. Eric Young delivered a leadoff home run in Mile High Stadium for the Rockies to spark a four-run first inning. The team defeated the Montreal Expos, 11-4.

first appeared: 12/21/2003

The Colorado Blue Spruce, named the state tree in 1939, was first discovered on Pikes Peak in 1862. Known for its stately, symmetrical form and its attractive silver-blue color, the spruce grows at up to 11,000 feet of elevation in the southern part of its range.

first appeared: 12/14/2003

The Sunrise Peak Aerial Tramway, one of the nation’s first passenger tramways, opened in 1907, taking sightseers from Silver Plume (pop. 203) up a vertical rise of 3,050 feet to an elevation of 12,250 feet on Sunrise Peak. The tramway’s 26 gondolas could carry 120 passengers an hour along its 6,600-foot route.

first appeared: 12/7/2003

When Kirchner’s Bakery in Colorado Springs baked a Peak Bar for Way Cool Inc. on June 20, 1998, it helped Way Cool earn a world record for the largest energy bar. The circular energy bar weighed 403 pounds.

first appeared: 12/7/2003

Mary Crow, author of five collections of poetry, was named Colorado’s poet laureate in 1996. Crow teaches in the creative writing department at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, and has won National Endowment for the Arts and Colorado Council on the Arts fellowships, along with several Fulbright research awards for her writing and translations of poetry.

first appeared: 11/30/2003

North America’s highest-paved automobile road, the Mount Evans Scenic and Historic Byway, climbs 7,000 feet in 28 miles—from Idaho Springs (pop. 1,889) to near the summit of Mount Evans, at an elevation of 14,265 feet. The road passes through three distinct biological zones, including montane at 7,000 feet, subalpine at 8,000 feet and alpine above 12,000 feet. The alpine zone is rarely found below the Arctic Circle.

first appeared: 11/23/2003

The nation’s highest continuous-paved road—meaning that it doesn’t simply end, as the Mount Evans road does—is Trail Ridge Road, which spans Rocky Mountain National Park between Estes Park (pop. 5,413) and Grand Lake (pop. 447). The road reaches a peak elevation of 12,183 feet, again passing through the rare alpine zone.

first appeared: 11/23/2003

The state adopted aquamarine as its official gemstone on April 30, 1971. High-quality aquamarines, known for their blue and green hues, come from Mount Antero and White Mountain in Chaffee County (pop. 16,242) at elevations of 13,000 to 14,200 feet—some of the highest places in which the gemstones have been found.

first appeared: 11/16/2003

In 2000, the U.S. Navy named its third San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship Mesa Verde, Spanish for "green table," after Mesa Verde National Park. The park was established in 1906 near Cortez (pop. 7,977) to preserve the ancient dwellings of the Ancestral Pueblo people, who lived in the area between A.D. 600 and 1300. The park features 4,000 archeological sites, 600 of which are cliff dwellings, and was named a World Cultural Heritage Site by the United Nations in 1978.

first appeared: 11/9/2003

Twin Lakes (pop. 6,301) was named for its location between two natural lakes at the foot of Mount Elbert, which at 14,433 feet is Colorado’s highest peak. The community was a tourist destination and a transportation hub for the mining centers of Leadville and Aspen in the late 1800s, and is still a popular recreational center for fishing, hiking, mountain climbing and biking.

first appeared: 11/2/2003

The mountain now known as Pikes Peak was called El Capitan by Spanish explorers before Zebulon Pike arrived on its slopes in 1806. Our thanks to reader Benito Sena for pointing this out.

first appeared: 10/26/2003

The cabin in which boxing champion Jack Dempsey, known as the “Manassa Mauler,” was born in 1895, in Manassa (pop. 1,042), is now the Jack Dempsey Museum and Park. Dempsey held the world heavyweight boxing championship from 1919 to 1926.

first appeared: 10/26/2003

It’s reported that on May 15, 1881, the day the people of La Junta (pop. 7,568) incorporated their city, a herd of antelope ran down the main street—so the animals were included in the city’s seal. The name “La Junta” is of Spanish origin, meaning a junction or meeting place, and reflects the city’s importance as a railroad junction.

first appeared: 10/19/2003

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