As the nineteenth century waned, Colorado discovered that its greatest source of wealth lay not in its mines but its farms. The drought years of the early 1890's came to be only a painful memory as more homesteads were taken up each spring by farmers from the Midwest and the north-central States—hardy men of every descent—English, Irish, Scandinavians, Germans, Hungarians, and Italians, among others. Sugar beet culture spread rapidly in the valleys of the Colorado, South Platte, and Arkansas Rivers, attracting many German-Russians from the Volga, where they had long practised such culture. As these acquired larger and larger farms, Spanish-Americans came from the Southwest in augmented numbers to cultivate their spreading acres. Thousands of workers of all European stocks found employment in the beet sugar refineries. The demand of beet growers for water led in turn to the development of even larger irrigation projects, and legislation during the early years of the century was largely concerned with laws governing water rights and appropriations for reservoirs and water diversion tunnels. Two large reclamation projects, the Uncompahgre in 1904 and the Grand Valley in 1912, were authorized, to provide farmers on the Western Slope with water.

While the agricultural sections made tremendous gains, the mining districts remained strangely quiet. In 1899 Teller County, with its Cripple Creek gold fields, had a population in excess of 30,000, but within a few years it had a mere 14,000. Between 1900 and 5910, with prices ranging from 52¢ to 68¢ an ounce, silver mining languished. The days of wild booms and of fortunes made overnight and often spent as quickly were quite definitely ended, and large numbers of people turned to other pursuits. As a result, many small commercial enterprises and mechanical industries sprang up to serve the needs of an increasingly complex social and economic order.

In 1902 a "home rule" amendment to the State constitution freed communities of 2,000 population or more from certain hampering restrictions, permitting them for the first time to choose and hold accountable all of their administrative officers. A normal school, now Western State College, was founded at Gunnison in 1909. Civic associations were organized to promote many kinds of reforms and elevate the "moral tone" of Colorado. The Citizens' Protective League of Denver, founded to "squelch the knocking and blackmailing newspapers in our beautiful but benighted city," demanded that no news story, editorial, or advertisement unfit for fifteen-year-olds to read should be published, and that "the petty quarrels and constant warfare between newspapers be permanently discontinued," evidence that the sands were running out on personal journalism.

Labor troubles continued to smolder. In 1903 and 1904 ill feeling between mine owners and miners' unions flared up violently in the Cripple Creek district. Labor disputes in the coal fields came to a head in 1914, when striking miners at Ludlow engaged in a sanguinary battle with a detachment of militia sent to patrol the strike area. From these troubles came the passage in 1915 of workmen's compensation measures and an act establishing the State Industrial Commission to compose differences between employers and employees.

The State had settled down to orderly progress by 1910, at which time the census revealed 799,024 residents, a gain of 259,324 since 1900. Development was greatly influenced by increased use of the automobile; better highways were built, making much of the mountain country easily accessible for the first time, and Colorado began to prosper from a new "industry" of almost undreamed-of potentialities, tourist travel. Colorado became a summer playground for the South and Middle West. The Federal Government recognized the need of preserving the natural beauty and historic interest of certain regions by creating two national parks, the Mesa Verde in 1906, the Rocky Mountain in 1915, and later set aside four national monuments. Steps had previously been taken to protect forests and watersheds. The White River National Forest, established in 1891, was the first of fifteen such forest reserves in the State, which now embrace 13,547,537 acres.

The World War years were prosperous ones. Silver again rose to $1.00 an ounce, and mining once more flourished, but in a more sober mood. The price of farm produce soared; wheat sold at $2.00 a bushel, and the soil did its part by producing bountifully. After the post-war slump Colorado enjoyed a fair share of prosperity through the 1920's. Its first broadcasting station, KLZ, was established in Denver in 1920, followed in 1924 by KOA, later by KFEL. Today Colorado has fourteen stations, seven affiliated with national networks. A uniform certification of teachers was instituted in 1923, and two years later a third normal school, the Adams State Teachers College, was established at Alamosa. Meantime, in 1916, the Emily Griffith Opportunity School had been founded in Denver and has since exercised a considerable influence throughout the country. A people's school, which now annually enrolls almost 12,000 students, it instructs men and women in the trades and offers elementary education to those who were deprived of, or who failed to make the most of earlier educational opportunities. Colorado ratified the child labor amendment to the Federal Constitution in 1924, being the second to take such action, and in 1927 passed the first of its old age pension laws. The 1930 census revealed a population of 1,035,791 persons.

The crash of the stock market in 1929 inaugurated another period of hard times for Colorado. Thousands of bread-winners lost their jobs. Farmers found their produce unsalable at prices that would pay even the cost of production and experienced, in addition, a ruinous drought of several years. By 1935 conditions had markedly improved. Benefit payments and loans to farmers by the Federal Government relieved much acute distress, and concerted efforts were made to reclaim land partially ruined by drought and erosion. Since 1935, in addition to Federal grants, funds for relief purposes have been provided by sales and service taxes. The two per cent excise levy on retail sales was "frozen" into the State's tax system in 1936 by a popularly initiated constitutional amendment which specifies that eighty-five per cent of all such taxes must be used to pay old-age pensions; these range upward to a maximum of $45 a month, but the full amount has seldom been paid for lack of funds.

From the Federal Government, in addition to grants for roads, Colorado receives $50,000 for partial support of its land grant college, the Colorado State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts at Fort Collins. Furthermore, as the Federal Government controls more than a fifth of the State in the form of national parks, national forests, and national monuments, it allocates twenty-five per cent of all revenue derived from lease of oil and mineral lands and the sale of timber and other forest resources toward maintenance of roads and schools in those counties lying wholly or partially within the boundaries of national forests.

Colorado schools had an approximate enrollment of 250,000 in 1939, of which 90 per cent were in public institutions; more than $30,000,000 is spent annually for instruction in both public and private schools. Between 1900 and 1930 illiteracy in the State was reduced from 4.2 to 2.8 per cent, considerably below the national average of 4.3 per cent. Newspapers are published in more than 150 communities; these include 32 dailies, 183 weeklies, and several foreign language publications.

Of the 1,000,000 Coloradoans in 1930, 40 per cent were "native," 50 per cent were from other States, and 10 per cent were foreign born - Mexicans, Germans, Italians, and Russians, for the most part. Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Iowa, and Illinois contributed the largest part of the American-born "foreigners" from other States.

The Spanish-Americans, some 58,000 of them, constitute the largest single national group; many of their ancestors early settled in southern Colorado on the great land grants made prior to the Mexican War. In the San Luis Valley, a center of concentration, many of them live much as their grandfathers did, having been little affected by modern ways because of the social as well as the geographical isolation of their communities. Although heavily encrusted with English words and American slang, Spanish is still the common tongue among them, and they retain many of the folk customs and religious beliefs of their forbears. A few continue to practice the masochistic rites of the Penitentes, an excommunicated branch of the Jesuit Order, who fused Spanish Catholicism and Indian paganism in a secret cult based on torture and bloody self-mortification.

The Negro population numbers approximately 12,000, and most of them live in segregated districts in Denver, Pueblo, and Colorado Springs. The Negro helped to pioneer Colorado, many coming during the gold rush, some as slaves. They did not enter the State in large numbers, however, until driven from their homes in the South by economic distress after the Civil War. Although their music, dances, and religious beliefs have been preserved in original form to some degree, their folk culture has been broadened by the democratic influence of the West.

Most of the 20,000 Jews living in Colorado reside in the larger cities and towns, where they conduct small commercial or manufacturing enterprises. More than any other group, the Jews have held fast to old traditions and religious beliefs, but recently the impact of social and economic problems has tended to break up this rather homogeneous group.

Like the buffalo that was the mainstay of his existence, the Indian has all but vanished from Colorado. Of the tribes that once roamed mountains and plains, only some 800 Ute remain at the Consolidated Ute Agency (see Tours 11D and HE). But the Indian has left his mark ineradically upon the land—in relics and ruins, in legends and scraps of folklore, in place names that preserve the memory of their tribes and of their greatest chiefs and warriors—Ouray, Topanas, Atchee, Antero, Sapinero, Mount Shavano (Blue Flower), and Niwot (Left Hand) Creek; Uncompahgre and Saguache are the Ute words respectively for "hot water springs*' and "blue earth."

Rich and colorful as it is, filled with all the elements of drama, studded with solid achievements in every field, the story of Colorado and Coloradoans has only begun. Its vigorous and eventful past is an earnest of its future.