In a new feature for our blog we’ll be profiling different states. For the first special we will feature Colorado.
Colorado was established as a state on August 1, 1876 a little over 100 years from the United States’ declaration of independence from England. Hence it has been called the Centennial State because of that.
Colorado owes its rectangular shape to the surveyors in the 1800s who thought that it would be a good idea to define the boundaries of the state based on latitudinal and longitudinal lines. This is a quality that Colorado shares with only two other states: Utah and Wyoming. Colorado is located in the Rocky Mountains, but is on the border of a variety of geographical regions in the United States such as the Great Plains to the east, the Southwest in the, well, South-West, and of course the Mountain region of the U.S.
Colorado was also the second state to allow women to vote shortly after becoming a state in 1893. This might seem to be contradictory, why would a rugged state in the middle of nowhere with hardly any women in it let them vote and Eastern states with a reputation for liberal legislation would not? It is exactly because the state was so sparsely populated. Women were treated more as equals because there simply weren’t that many people, everyone’s vote counted.
Today Colorado is known as being a state in which to live outdoors. Skiing, fishing and hiking are all extremely popular.