Central Flyway
Flying, flapping, flitting, gliding … the skies of Colorado are especially alive twice a year with birds making epic journeys.
By Jon Pinnow
Ideal Building
Colossal buildings of reinforced concrete are commonplace today. But the first one west of the Mississippi was in downtown Denver, built in 1907.
By Jon Pinnow
Mt. Sneffels
Mount Sneffels is one of Colorado’s most spectacular peaks and a photographer’s favorite. It’s the mountain on the face of the new Colorado driver’s license.
By Jon Pinnow
Baking Soda
Whether you’re a baker or not, you probably have a box of baking soda at home. It’s a household multitasker.
By Jon Pinnow
Glenwood Canyon
Millions of years ago, the Colorado river carved Glenwood Canyon. A narrow winding way with walls 1000 feet high, the canyon’s first human traffic made way on foot.
By Jon Pinnow
Manitou Fruitcake Toss
Johnny Carson once declared, “There is only one fruitcake in the entire world. And people keep sending it to each other, every Christmas.”
By Jon Pinnow
Ferris Wheels
You can’t picture an amusement park without a Ferris Wheel. The first one in Colorado came in 1908, with the opening of Lakeside Amusement Park.
By Jon Pinnow
Cheesman Park
Before Cheesman was a popular Denver park, it was a cemetery. A largely neglected cemetery for outlaws, the poor and the diseased.
By Jon Pinnow
Swink
“Swink” is an archaic word. Find it in literature from the Middle Ages, like The Vision of Piers Plowman: “In sweat and swink thou shalt earn thy meat.”
By Jon Pinnow
Hotel de Paris
In the 1880s, if you were Somebody, the place to be was the Hotel de Paris, in Georgetown, Colorado.
By Jon Pinnow
Mountain submarine
Central City: 1898. Rufus Owens secretly builds a submarine out of wood and gives it a metal skin. At Missouri Lake, he puts three tons of rock inside for ballast.
By Jon Pinnow
Sandhill Cranes Mate for Life
One of Colorado’s seasonal visitors is one of the oldest bird species in existence. Fossil records show Sandhill Cranes have been around for ten million years.
By Jon Pinnow
Sloan(s) Lake
1861, West Denver. A farmer digs a well. He hits an aquifer, and the next morning he wakes up to 200 acres of flooded land.
By Jon Pinnow
3 Governors in a Day
Governors come, and governors go, but never quite like in March 1905, when Colorado had three governors in 24 hours.
By Jon Pinnow