Colorado

The Colorado Blue Columbine is the state flower, perhaps the most graceful and ornamental of all wildflowers. This perennial was Latin-named "Columba" or dove for its resemblance to the bird of peace. Wrote poet John Parkinson over 300 years ago, "no garden would willingly be without them." Typically 8 to 24 inches tall.

Bid Photos Glenwood Springs - http://outdoors.webshots.com/photo/1206200841030272744UPWISJ and album - http://home.goldrush.com/kd6uqf/1999/

For centuries, the Ute Indians battled with the Cheyenne and Comanche over possession of the sacred waters of the hot springs, but in 1860 the whites made their first appearance in Glenwood Springs. While exploring the Eagle River Valley, Captain Richard Sopris became ill and the Utes took him to the hot springs.

Silver was discovered in Leadville in the 1870�s, which started a landslide of mining camp construction in the mountains to the east of Glenwood Springs. Before Glenwood Springs became a town, the first settlement was at Fort Defiance, a few miles upstream at the mouth of Glenwood Canyon, an area occupied by Native Americans. Originally, the fort was just a blockhouse built by miners. For the first few years, the Indians fought the miners occupying the area, but the miners eventually won.

In 1880 John Landis claimed Glenwood Springs for himself, and by the mid 1880�s, Leadville settlers had colonized the area, displacing the Indians. They platted a town site of some 640 acres, and the home sites were free to anyone that would settle there. In 1885, a miner from Aspen, Walter Devereux, incorporated Glenwood Springs and began to promote tourism.

On August 10, 1972, in Rifle, Colorado, between Grand Junction and Glenwood Spring in the Grand Hogback Mountain Range, at 11 am, a group of 35 construction workers and 64 temporary helpers, art schools, college students, and itinerant art workers tied down the last of 27 ropes that secured the 12,780 square meters (142,000 square feet) of woven nylon fabric orange Curtain to its moorings at Rifle Gap, 7 miles (11.3 km) north of Rifle, on Highway 325.


Colorado old postcards - http://www.judnick.com/Colorado.htm

Rifle - maps http://goldstarrealtyinc.com/newsite/maps.html

Area Map of Rifle - http://www.colorado-mapsite.com/us_co_rifle_oa.html
http://goldstarrealtyinc.com/newsite/maps.html


Museum of West Colorado - http://www.gjcorealtor.com/index.htm

Colorado Photo - http://www.colorado.com/region.php?id=4

http://rostowskaja.narod.ru/coloradorivercphotoalbum.html

All about Colorado
National Park
Colorado River
Glenwood Springs - history
Colorado National Park