Cultural life

Arts and cultural institutions

Among the writers associated with Colorado are poet and novelist Helen Hunt Jackson, who relocated from Massachusetts to Colorado Springs in 1875; novelist James Michener, who studied and taught at the Colorado State College of Education; and gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, who lived near Aspen. Moreover, Neil Cassady, the model for Dean Moriarty in Jack Kerouac’s novel On the Road (1957), grew up on Denver’s mean streets.

Colorado’s fine and decorative artists include Jinny Beyer and Boardman Robinson, who founded the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. Noted musicians associated with the state are John Denver, Paul Whiteman, and Glenn Miller.

Red Rocks Park, in the foothills west of Denver, contains a large natural amphitheatre that hosts frequent musical events and festivals. Slightly farther west, in Central City, the Central City Opera House, dating from 1878, has a summer season of opera and drama. Summer fare is available as well at festivals in Aspen, Boulder, and Telluride. The Denver Performing Arts Complex is home to theatre, ballet, and opera companies and the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center is a regional art centre with a main museum facility—which is also the location of the Bemis School of Art—as well as an annex for exhibitions of contemporary art, FAC Modern. The Denver Art Museum houses collections of Renaissance and Peruvian paintings as well as Asian and pre-Columbian works.

History Colorado (formerly the Colorado Historical Society) maintains a range of historical sites and museums around the state. Those include the History Colorado Center (2012; replaced the former Colorado History Museum) in Denver, several houses and forts dating from the early days of the state, the Ute Indian Museum in Montrose, and the El Pueblo History Museum in Pueblo. In addition, there are two national historic sites in the southeastern part of the state: Bent’s Old Fort (1960), a reconstruction of an adobe fort dating to the 1840s; and Sand Creek Massacre (2007), which preserves the site of a brutal surprise attack in November 1864 by U.S. troops on Native Americans camped along the creek there.

Libraries have an important function in Colorado’s cultural milieu. There has been a continuing trend to organize regional libraries to provide adequate service to every community. The Colorado State Library is responsible for furnishing all Colorado institutions with research, reference, and general reading services.

Sports and recreation

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In addition to Rocky Mountain and Great Sand Dune national parks, in the eastern mountains is Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument (established 1969), located northwest of Pikes Peak. Scenic and recreational attractions on the western and southwestern plateaus include Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park (established as a national monument, 1933; elevated to national park status, 1999) and the adjacent (southeast) Curecanti National Recreation Area (1965) as well as Colorado (1911) and Dinosaur (1915) national monuments, the last of which lies partly in Utah. Because of their cultural and historical value, Mesa Verde National Park (1906) and Hovenweep (1923) and Yucca House (1919) national monuments in the southwest—all relics of former Native American civilizations—are preserved for archaeological study and exploration. Other museums and attractions include the Denver Museum of Nature & Science and the Denver Botanic Gardens.

Colorado’s abundant open spaces, natural beauty, and varied terrain make outdoor activities, particularly winter sports, a common pastime for both residents and tourists. Skiing, hiking, snowshoeing, rock climbing, white-water rafting, and kayaking are all popular activities. Colorado maintains a dense network of state parks and recreation areas, which are in addition to dozens of federally maintained campgrounds in the national forests.

Colorado has several professional sports teams, all of them located in the capital: the Colorado Rockies (baseball), the Colorado Avalanche (ice hockey), the Denver Nuggets (basketball), the Denver Broncos (football), and the Colorado Rapids (football [soccer]). The Broncos, who have one of the most-avid fan bases in the National Football League (NFL), were led to the Super Bowl five times in the 1980s and ’90s by Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway (winning in 1998 and 1999). The team returned to the Super Bowl in 2014 under quarterback Peyton Manning. In addition, the Avalanche won two Stanley Cup finals (1996 and 2001) in the first six years following the team’s relocation to Denver from Quebec, Canada, in 1995.

The University of Colorado (Pacific-12 Conference) and Colorado State University (Mountain West Conference) both have notable traditions in gridiron football, and the Colorado College and University of Denver men’s hockey teams have done well in the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA’s) championship tournament, reaching the Frozen Four and winning championships; the Colorado College women’s soccer team has also been a power traditionally. Among the best-known athletes native to Colorado are legendary heavyweight boxing champion Jack Dempsey and University of Colorado and NFL star (and, later, U.S. Supreme Court justice) Byron (“Whizzer”) White.

Media and publishing

The major metropolitan newspaper is The Denver Post; the Rocky Mountain News (Denver), which was founded in 1859, ceased publication in February 2009. Daily newspapers are also published in more than a dozen other cities, including Boulder, Colorado Springs, Fort Collins, and Greeley.