Colorado Trivia & Tidbits - Page 7

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

Gillett, now a ghost town, hosted the nation's first bullfight in 1895 after promoters imported bulls from Mexico. Despite heavy publicity, the event was a fiasco that ended in a riot and financial loss.

first appeared: 7/16/2006

Glen Eyrie was the early-1900s castle home of Gen. William Jackson Palmer, a railroad magnate and the founder of Colorado Springs. The 67-room castle in Colorado Springs today is operated as a conference center and inn.

first appeared: 7/16/2006

A flip of the coin decided the name for Bayfield (pop. 1,549) when William A. Bay and Warren A. Schiller each donated land for the town. Had Schiller won the toss, the town would have been named Schillerville. Bayfield, incorporated in 1906, is celebrating its centennial.

first appeared: 7/2/2006

It's been called the sculptured house, the Jetson house and the spaceship house, but fans of film director Woody Allen know it as the Sleeper house, after the 1973 comedy in which it was featured. The futuristic home, designed by architect Charles Deaton and built in the 1960s, is located in Genesee (pop. 3,699).

first appeared: 7/2/2006

One of the state's best places to view moose is in Colorado State Forest State Park near Walden (pop. 734). The large animals were introduced to the park in 1978, and the herd now numbers about 600. Established in 1970, the park encompasses almost 71,000 acres of high country wilderness ranging in elevation from 8,500 to 12,500 feet.

first appeared: 6/25/2006

Brush (pop. 5,117) is one of the few Colorado communities with water so pure that it doesn't require the addition of chlorine. The water also is naturally softened by sand hills in the area. Brush, which was founded in the late 1800s and named for cattle pioneer Jared L. Brush, just adds fluoride to the water to help prevent tooth decay.

first appeared: 6/4/2006

Josh Bernstein, host of the History Channel's Digging for the Truth, also is president of the Boulder Outdoor Survival School, which has corporate offices in Colorado's Boulder and field offices in Utah's Boulder (pop. 180). Bernstein travels the world on behalf of the television series, investigating archeological mysteries such as the pyramids in Egypt and the Ark of the Covenant in Ethiopia.

first appeared: 6/4/2006

Designed in 2002 as a slip-resistant, no-scuff boating shoe, Crocs are manufactured by Crocs Inc., headquartered in Niwot (pop. 4,160). The brightly colored shoes are made of resin that molds to the wearer's foot. The comfy shoes also feature plenty of "portholes" to let water and sand pour out and to let air in for ventilation.

first appeared: 5/21/2006

Tennis champion Phyllis Lockwood (1914-1981) earned more than 60 titles during her career, which included 11 years without a loss in state championship tennis. A Fort Morgan (pop. 11,034) native, Lockwood also was named to the 1949 All-American basketball team. She was inducted into the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame in 1977, recognizing her multi-sport career spanning some 35 years.

first appeared: 5/14/2006

U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt visited Fort Morgan in 1905 to congratulate townspeople for their hard work in improving their surroundings. The town originated as a fort in 1865, protecting the Overland Trail's mail service and pioneers. It became a community in the 1880s after Abner S. Baker launched an irrigation project to provide water for area agriculture.

first appeared: 5/14/2006

Spring is a "booming" time for the greater prairie chickens near Wray (pop. 2,187). During mating season, prairie chickens visit courtship sites, or "leks," on the nearby grassland prairie just after daybreak. Male birds puff out their golden neck sacs and make a booming sound, attracting females to their courtship dance.

first appeared: 4/23/2006

Byron "Whizzer" White (1917-2002) earned his nickname during a football career in which he became the nation’s highest-paid player in 1938, earning $15,800 while leading the NFL in rushing with 567 yards in 11 games. White, who grew up in Wellington (pop. 2,672), later earned a law degree and served on the U.S. Supreme Court for 31 years, between 1962 and 1993.

first appeared: 4/9/2006

On July 15, 1934, Varney Speed Lines, founded by Walter T. Varney and Louis Mueller, lifted off for the first time, flying more than 500 miles between Pueblo and El Paso, Texas. Robert F. Six joined the company in 1936, changing its name to Continental Airlines and moving its headquarters to Denver in 1937. Today, Continental Airlines is headquartered in Houston.

first appeared: 4/9/2006

The mineral-rich water that feeds Trimble Hot Springs, north of Durango (pop. 13,922), originates under the La Plata Mountains. The springs are named for Frank and Rufina Trimble, who opened them to the public in the late 1800s and touted the water’s healing properties. Abandoned in 1957, the springs were bought later by members of the Ruedi Bear family and re-opened in 1988.

first appeared: 3/26/2006

When Loveland Ski Area, near Georgetown (pop. 1,088), started its ski lifts this winter, snowboarder Nate Nadler was there to claim the first chair—for the eighth year in a row. The opening on Oct. 14, 2005, marked Loveland’s sixth consecutive year as the first resort in North America to launch the ski season, thanks to snowmaking and a timely 18-inch snowfall.

first appeared: 3/12/2006

Mesa Verde National Park, located near Cortez (pop. 7,977), is celebrating its centennial this year. Established in 1906 with a bill signed by President Theodore Roosevelt, Mesa Verde was the first national park established to preserve a cultural site—the cliff dwellings and other archeological sites of the Anasazi Indians, or Ancestral Puebloans, dating from 800 to 1,500 years ago.

first appeared: 3/12/2006

Built in 1886, the 740-foot-long Fifth Street Bridge across the Colorado River—then known as the Grand River—in Grand Junction (pop. 41,986) was Colorado’s first bridge financed by the state.

first appeared: 2/26/2006

Denver native Jerome Cousins Biffle (1928-2002) won a gold medal at the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki, Finland, with a leap of 24 feet and 10 inches in the long jump event.

first appeared: 2/26/2006

Several years ago, during a renovation at the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver, the hotel switchboard reportedly began receiving calls from suite 904—even though it didn’t have a telephone line. When tour guides stopped telling stories about the widowed and reclusive society member Louise Crawford Hill, who lived in the suite from 1940 until her death in 1955, the phone calls stopped, too.

first appeared: 2/12/2006

Oliver T. Jackson founded the African-American settlement of Dearfield, near Wiggins (pop. 838) on the Union-Pacific rail line in 1910. By 1921, the community boasted nearly 700 residents and some 20,000 acres, with land and livestock valued at $950,000. Dearfield began to fade during the 1930s, eventually becoming a ghost town of 12 people.

first appeared: 2/12/2006

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