How Colorado Became the Centennial State

Now You Know about How Colorado became the Centennial State

Colorado became the thirty-eighth state in the United States on August 1, 1876, one hundred years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, making it the Centennial State.

The first discussions about Colorado statehood had occurred seventeen years earlier, on April 11, 1859, in Dick Wootton’s gambling saloon. But the Civil War, politics, conflicts between settlers and Native American tribes, debates about suffrage (for women and African Americans), and other issues delayed Colorado’s acceptance as a state.

This book tells the story of Colorado’s long and twisted road to statehood.