Colorado Trivia & Tidbits - Page 5

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

—Western State College’s gigantic W on Tenderfoot Mountain in Gunnison (pop. 5,409) measures 320 feet by 420 feet and is one of the world’s largest man-made letters. The W was built in 1923.

first appeared: 6/17/2007

—At age 9, Tyler Befus of Montrose (pop. 12,344) already is a professional fly fisherman. He’s hooked two world junior fishing records, is the youngest member of the professional staffs of four rod-and-reel companies and is a fly designer for another. He’s traveled as far as Japan to speak at fly-fishing conventions and published a book, A Kid’s Guide to Flyfishing.

first appeared: 6/3/2007

Kathy Reiner’s passion for student health has earned her the title of 2006 National School Nurse of the Year. Reiner is a nurse at Aurora Public Schools.

first appeared: 6/3/2007

—Since 1970, Hal O’Leary has shared the thrill of skiing with thousands of disabled children and adults. O’Leary, 68, of Fraser (pop. 910), founded the National Sports Center for the Disabled and has adapted equipment for amputees, blind persons, and people with cerebral palsy and polio so they can experience gliding down snow-covered mountains.

first appeared: 5/28/2007

—Western artist Allen True painted the murals in the state capitol buildings of Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska and Wyoming, as well as murals for the Mountain States Telephone and Telegraph Co. building, the Civic Center and the Colorado National Bank, all in Denver. He also designed Wyoming’s bucking bronco license plate. True was born in 1881 in Colorado Springs.

first appeared: 5/6/2007

Pack burro racing, a homegrown sport in rural Colorado, is rooted in the state’s mining past when burros carried miners’ supplies. During the races, runners lead their burros on a rope along a prescribed course. Like horse racing, pack burro racing has its own Triple Crown, with races in Leadville (pop. 2,821), Buena Vista (pop. 2,195) and Fairplay (pop. 610).

first appeared: 5/6/2007

—Mountain biking in the state became popular in 1976 when some Crested Butte (pop. 1,529) riders on clunky single-speed, fat-tired bicycles with coaster brakes pedaled from Crested Butte to Aspen (pop. 5,914) over 12,705-foot Pearl Pass. The Mountain Bike Hall of Fame and Museum in Crested Butte chronicles the history of the sport and the town hosts an annual rugged ride each September.

first appeared: 4/22/2007

British rock star Joe Cocker makes his home at Mad Dog Ranch outside Crawford (pop. 366). Cocker, whose 1982 duet “Up Where We Belong” with Jennifer Warnes became an instant hit, raises cattle on the ranch named after his famed early album, Mad Dogs and Englishmen.

first appeared: 4/22/2007

—The first Outward Bound base camp in the United States was founded in 1961 in Marble (pop. 105). Today, the camp’s lodge and cabins still stand near the Elk Mountains. Outward Bound, a wilderness education organization, uses outdoor expeditions to inspire leadership, responsibility and environmental awareness in young adults.

first appeared: 4/8/2007

—Regrets and anger go up in smoke in Crested Butte (pop. 1,529) each fall when residents celebrate Vinotok, a festival that culminates in the burning of “the grump.” Built by children, the creature is stuffed with regrets written on slips of paper and deposited in grump boxes throughout town. When participants set the grump ablaze, they bid farewell to all the year’s regrets. The festival has its roots in the town’s Eastern European heritage.

first appeared: 3/25/2007

Lee Maxwell offers good, clean fun at his Antique Washing Machine Museum in Eaton (pop. 2,690), where hundreds of machines are displayed. Maxwell and his wife collect the machines on “hunting” trips across the nation, and Maxwell restores them.

first appeared: 3/25/2007

—In the early 1900s, Denver native and artist Bertha Corbett Melcher illustrated a series of children’s primers with drawings of little girls with their faces hidden by large bonnets. The wildly popular SunbonnetBabies became one of the most recognized quilt patterns and sometimes are called Sunbonnet Sue.

first appeared: 3/11/2007

Skiers on Aspen Mountain have dotted the mountain near Aspen (pop. 5,914) with shrines to John Denver, Elvis Presley, Jerry Garcia, Jimi Hendrix and other personal heroes. Decorated with laminated photographs and memorabilia, the shrines are hidden off the beaten path and are not shown on trail maps.

first appeared: 3/11/2007

—The life of Alonzo Pettie, an African-American bull rider who broke the color barrier in rodeo, is chronicled in the Black American West Museum and Heritage Center in Denver. “The Champ,” or “Ole Alonzo,” as Pettie was called, remained an active member of the Colorado Black Cowboys and Horseman Association from its formation until his death in 2003. He was born in 1910 in Tyler, Texas.

first appeared: 2/27/2007

Nineteen golfers were struck by lightning on June 19, 2004, at the top of Kremmling Cliffs in Kremmling (pop. 1,578). The golfers, who all survived, were competing in the town’s annual Cliff Golf Tournament, in which participants drive golf balls at nine targets at the base of the cliff. Kremmling hosts the tournament each June.

first appeared: 2/27/2007

—Born in 1938 in the Denver area, Dean Reed became a rock star bigger than Elvis in South America and Eastern Europe in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. He is credited with introducing rock ’n’ roll to the then-Soviet Union. His third single, “Our Summer Romance,” was so popular in South America that he toured there and moved to Chile. He also lived in East Germany, where he made several movies. Reed died in 1986 near East Berlin under mysterious circumstances.

first appeared: 2/11/2007

Opened in 1990, the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum in Golden (pop. 17,159) was the dream of long-time resident and quilter Eugenia Mitchell. She and like-minded volunteers began a fund-raising drive for the museum, and her gift of 100 quilts helped start a growing collection of pre-Civil War bedspreads and Victorian and Depression-era quilts, as well as modern art quilts. Two galleries present 10 quilt shows a year.

first appeared: 2/11/2007

—Burlington (pop. 3,678) offers a glimpse into the past at its Old Town Museum, a re-created prairie town with 21 restored 1800s and early-1900s buildings. Main Street includes a drugstore, saloon, depot, school, barbershop, sod house and blacksmith shop. The main museum displays tractors, American Indian artifacts, an original chuck wagon, covered wagon and an extensive barbed wire collection.

first appeared: 1/28/2007

The largest meteorite found in the state is the Guffey meteorite, named because it’s believed to have been discovered near the small mountain hamlet of Guffey. The 682-pound nickel-iron mass was found in 1907 by two cowboys and sold to the American Museum of Natural History in New York, where it remains on display. However, a small piece was sliced off for display in the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. The Denver International Airport boasts the longest commercial runway in North America. The runway measures 16,000 feet long and 200 feet wide.

first appeared: 1/14/2007

—Astronaut Scott Carpenter named his space capsule the Aurora 7 after his childhood home on Aurora and 7th streets in Boulder. One of the original seven Mercury astronauts, Carpenter flew the second American orbital flight in the Mercury capsule on May 24, 1962. He piloted his Aurora 7 through three revolutions of the Earth. Scott Carpenter graduated in 1949 with a bachelor’s of science degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder. The school boasts 17 alumni who have become astronauts. One room of the university’s Heritage Center is devoted to CU’s astronauts, including Ellison Onizuka, who was killed aboard the Challenger space shuttle in 1986, and Kalpana Chawla, who died on the Columbia in 2003.

first appeared: 12/17/2006

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