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The American Guides Project

To those who love their Colorado for the beauties of its valleys and plains, for its climate, for the grandeur of its mountain ranges, and for the wealth of its resources, as well as to those who do not know our Centennial State as yet but who may have that good fortune some time in the future, I commend this volume, which has been prepared by the Colorado Writers' Project of the Work Projects Administration.

The men and women who have collaborated in the preparation of this volume worked with a thorough knowledge of their subject and with a sympathy for the true spirit of Colorado.

Any Coloradoan who reads it will know his State better, and any stranger who turns its pages cannot but be filled with a determination to see and to know our country of mountain and plain. We invite you to enjoy the book and then to come to Colorado and see for yourself the things which it describes.

Here in the Old West, where there are to be found so many things to recall the covered wagon days, you will find a new civilization developing which is as modern as those first days were primitive.

Comes now the Colorado State Guide with its carefully garnered historical data, maps, and pictures that both confirm and correct the bright expectations of the half-million annual visitors to the State, which likes to be known as a vacation land.

This is a story of Colorado—its fast-moving history, its tremendous mountains that also gave forth almost a billion and a half dollars worth of gold and silver, its cool summer climate, its glaciers, summer snow banks in the high ranges, immense forests of pine and spruce, half-mile-deep canyons, twelve-thousand-foot passes its hunting and trout fishing, and its unending winter and summer sports. And all are reached b> its 75,000 miles of roads.

Like all the books prepared on the writers' program, this book is not a single-authored effort; it is the product of many minds, all committed to the same purpose—that of providing the reading, traveling public with as complete a picture as possible of Colorado and its cities and towns, their economic, commercial and cultural history, their contemporary scene, and the State-wide points of interest that draw the tourist's attention.

Originally conceived as part of a Nation-wide plan to give employment to professionally trained writers, journalists, and research workers, the Colorado Writers' Project assigned its personnel to strategic points throughout the State in order that they might accumulate a vast amount of valuable, first-hand information. Tours were laid out and driven along main highways and intriguing byways, libraries were ransacked tor source material, and the misty memories of pioneers were stirred into vocal reminiscence. The wordage thus organized could be estimated more appropriately by the pound than by number. Then began the editorial task of sifting this ponderous mass of fact and story into usable copy, molded into the form that is standard for all State Guide Books. After months of checking and rechecking, writing and rewriting, mapping and remapping, photographing and rephotographing, the book is finished.

As the Guide went to press before the 1940 census figures were available, the 1930 population figures are used throughout the text. There is, however, an alphabetical listing of the preliminary 1940 figures in the Appendices.

Success in this venture, however, could not have been achieved had it not been for the interest and effort of State and Federal departments, city and county officials, school teachers in the hundreds of small towns, and other public-spirited citizens. The editors are especially indebted to the following:

Dr. Leroy R. Hafen, Historian, Colorado State Historical Society; James R. Harvey, Assistant Curator, Colorado State Historical Society; Mildred Rex, Librarian, Colorado State Historical Society; Dr. Malcolm G. Wyer, Librarian, Denver Public Library; Edward D. Foster, Director, State Planning Commission, which sponsored the Guide; Boardman Robinson, Director, Fine Arts Center, Colorado Springs; Dr. M. C. Coolbaugh, President, Colorado School of Mines, Golden; Dr. George W. Frazier, President, Colorado State College of Education, Greeley; John Hart, Chief Game Warden, Colorado State Game and Fish Commission; and various members of the Forest Service and the Colorado State Highway Department.

The Guide was begun under the directorship of Morris M. Cleavenger and continued almost to its completion under Mary F. Adams, former Supervisor.

Final work on the Guide was done with the editorial co-operation of George F. Willison of the WPA Writers' Program.