WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.560 Welcome to the deep dive. You know, when you 00:00:02.560 --> 00:00:05.660 picture Colorado, you probably just see modern 00:00:05.660 --> 00:00:08.880 postcards of snowy peaks and like fancy ski resorts. 00:00:09.119 --> 00:00:11.759 Right. Or you picture that classic 19th century 00:00:11.759 --> 00:00:15.800 pioneer story. Exactly. Dusty saloon towns, lone 00:00:15.800 --> 00:00:18.440 prospectors panning for gold and mountain streams 00:00:18.440 --> 00:00:22.239 and English speaking settlers pushing westward. 00:00:22.500 --> 00:00:25.179 But the reality of this region completely shatters 00:00:25.179 --> 00:00:28.079 that image. It really does. Today, we are looking 00:00:28.079 --> 00:00:30.899 at a comprehensive historical overview of Colorado, 00:00:31.460 --> 00:00:33.799 and the source material paints a picture of a 00:00:33.799 --> 00:00:36.159 region forged by some of the most extreme boom 00:00:36.159 --> 00:00:38.759 and bust cycles imaginable. Yeah, it's a fascinating 00:00:38.759 --> 00:00:41.130 turbulent history we're talking about. ancient 00:00:41.130 --> 00:00:44.250 migrations, phantom territories that didn't technically 00:00:44.250 --> 00:00:47.530 exist, brutal labor wars, and just, you know, 00:00:47.909 --> 00:00:50.149 radical reinventions. I mean, to start off, we're 00:00:50.149 --> 00:00:52.789 talking about an area that boasts up to 37 ,000 00:00:52.789 --> 00:00:55.390 years of human history. Which is just staggering 00:00:55.390 --> 00:00:57.549 when you really think about it. It is. And it's 00:00:57.549 --> 00:00:59.909 first permanent European settlement. It wasn't 00:00:59.909 --> 00:01:02.170 founded by gold miners from the East Coast. It 00:01:02.170 --> 00:01:04.129 was actually built by Hispanic settlers moving 00:01:04.129 --> 00:01:07.719 up from New Mexico in 1851. Okay, let's unpack 00:01:07.719 --> 00:01:10.500 this. We really need to. Because to get the full 00:01:10.500 --> 00:01:13.980 picture, you have to rewind long before any European 00:01:13.980 --> 00:01:15.939 claims were even made. You have to look at the 00:01:15.939 --> 00:01:18.260 geography itself. Right, because the eastern 00:01:18.260 --> 00:01:20.239 edge of the Rocky Mountains wasn't just this 00:01:20.239 --> 00:01:23.170 massive barrier. Not at all. For thousands of 00:01:23.170 --> 00:01:26.209 years it operated more like an ancient prehistoric 00:01:26.209 --> 00:01:29.209 superhighway for human migration. What's fascinating 00:01:29.209 --> 00:01:32.489 here is the sheer timeline of habitation. Native 00:01:32.489 --> 00:01:35.790 Americans and their paleoindian ancestors used 00:01:35.790 --> 00:01:40.030 this mountain corridor for at least 13 ,500 years. 00:01:40.170 --> 00:01:42.680 That is just a massive scale of time. Yeah, and 00:01:42.680 --> 00:01:46.519 possibly up to 37 ,000 years. There's this archaeological 00:01:46.519 --> 00:01:49.019 location called the Lindenmire site, and it contains 00:01:49.019 --> 00:01:53.219 artifacts dating back to 8720 BCE. Oh, wow. So 00:01:53.219 --> 00:01:55.379 human migration and trade were flowing up and 00:01:55.379 --> 00:01:57.799 down this region for millennia before anyone 00:01:57.799 --> 00:02:00.060 ever drew a border on a map. Which makes the 00:02:00.060 --> 00:02:02.719 arrival of early European explorers almost comical 00:02:02.719 --> 00:02:04.799 in their arrogance, honestly. Totally. Like you 00:02:04.799 --> 00:02:07.560 look at Zebulon Pike's expedition in 1806. He 00:02:07.560 --> 00:02:10.219 marches into the territory, contacts the local 00:02:10.219 --> 00:02:13.000 tribes and just announces that the United States 00:02:13.000 --> 00:02:15.620 now claims the land. Just declares it. Yeah. 00:02:16.300 --> 00:02:18.340 He even looks at this prominent mountain that 00:02:18.340 --> 00:02:20.719 the native Ute people called Tava and decides 00:02:20.719 --> 00:02:24.159 to rename it Pike's Peak after himself. It was 00:02:24.159 --> 00:02:27.860 pure colonial theater. Because before the 1850s, 00:02:28.060 --> 00:02:29.979 colonial control in this region was mostly an 00:02:29.979 --> 00:02:32.139 illusion. Wait, I want to dig into that disconnect. 00:02:32.199 --> 00:02:35.039 Yeah. Because on paper, the territory is constantly 00:02:35.039 --> 00:02:37.560 changing hands, right? Constantly. First, it's 00:02:37.560 --> 00:02:40.250 claimed by the Spanish. Then Mexico wins independence 00:02:40.250 --> 00:02:42.949 in 1821. So suddenly it's Mexican territory. 00:02:43.430 --> 00:02:45.490 Then the U .S. takes control after the Mexican 00:02:45.490 --> 00:02:48.409 -American War in 1848 through the Treaty of Guadalupe 00:02:48.409 --> 00:02:50.509 Hidalgo. Right. The invisible lines are shifting 00:02:50.509 --> 00:02:53.330 all over the place. But like, wait, so the U 00:02:53.330 --> 00:02:56.439 .S. claimed this land. but couldn't really settle 00:02:56.439 --> 00:02:58.659 it effectively until those Hispanic families 00:02:58.659 --> 00:03:01.280 moved up from Taos and founded San Luis de la 00:03:01.280 --> 00:03:04.539 Calerba in 1851. Exactly. How did the native 00:03:04.539 --> 00:03:06.659 populations like the Utu controlled the vast 00:03:06.659 --> 00:03:09.699 majority of the actual land react to these invisible 00:03:09.699 --> 00:03:11.719 lines being drawn by distant governments? Well, 00:03:11.819 --> 00:03:13.819 they held the real power, so the foreign claims 00:03:13.819 --> 00:03:15.819 functioned through integration, not conquest. 00:03:15.919 --> 00:03:19.060 Oh, interesting. Yeah, early European and American 00:03:19.060 --> 00:03:21.300 presence was purely about survival and trade. 00:03:21.580 --> 00:03:24.240 If you look at a place like Bent's Fort on the 00:03:24.240 --> 00:03:26.379 Arkansas River. Right, the famous trading post. 00:03:26.460 --> 00:03:29.139 Yeah, it wasn't a military stronghold dictating 00:03:29.139 --> 00:03:32.560 terms. It was a deeply integrated system. American 00:03:32.560 --> 00:03:35.139 traders brought refined goods, but they were 00:03:35.139 --> 00:03:38.199 entirely reliant on native tribes for furs and 00:03:38.199 --> 00:03:40.539 survival knowledge. So it was a shared economic 00:03:40.539 --> 00:03:43.639 zone. Exactly. And the Ute maintained fierce 00:03:43.639 --> 00:03:46.080 territorial control over the western portions, 00:03:46.099 --> 00:03:49.099 so it created this fragile shared balance. And 00:03:49.099 --> 00:03:51.819 these slow shifting borderlands and integrated 00:03:51.819 --> 00:03:54.539 trade networks might have lasted for decades 00:03:54.539 --> 00:03:56.659 longer, honestly. If history played out differently, 00:03:56.919 --> 00:03:59.860 absolutely. But that fragile balance gets completely 00:03:59.860 --> 00:04:03.500 obliterated by a single discovery in 1858. Gold. 00:04:04.039 --> 00:04:06.120 Ultimate disruptor. Rumors start trickling eastward 00:04:06.120 --> 00:04:08.879 and suddenly you have the Pike's Peak Gold Rush. 00:04:09.099 --> 00:04:11.860 Yeah, an estimated a hundred thousand gold seekers 00:04:11.860 --> 00:04:14.199 flood into the region. They called them the 59ers, 00:04:14.319 --> 00:04:16.720 right? Yep, the 59ers. And almost overnight, 00:04:17.060 --> 00:04:19.699 this massive influx creates the first major white 00:04:19.699 --> 00:04:21.980 American population in the area. And you have 00:04:21.980 --> 00:04:24.579 to imagine the sheer logistical nightmare of 00:04:24.579 --> 00:04:28.410 that. Like 100 ,000 desperate people arriving 00:04:28.410 --> 00:04:31.230 in a place with zero infrastructure. No roads, 00:04:31.430 --> 00:04:34.129 no supply chains, no legal framework. Right. 00:04:34.430 --> 00:04:35.889 And here's where it gets really interesting. 00:04:36.569 --> 00:04:39.129 Because technically parts of this area were fragmented 00:04:39.129 --> 00:04:42.089 across distant territories like Kansas and Nebraska. 00:04:42.290 --> 00:04:44.290 But those territorial capitals were hundreds 00:04:44.290 --> 00:04:47.250 of miles away across unforgiving plains. They 00:04:47.250 --> 00:04:49.449 couldn't possibly govern this sudden explosion 00:04:49.449 --> 00:04:51.990 of people. So the settlers do something incredibly 00:04:51.990 --> 00:04:53.750 audacious. They just make up their own state. 00:04:53.870 --> 00:04:56.629 They create the territory of Jefferson. Yes. 00:04:56.689 --> 00:04:59.750 Yeah. It's like a tech startup deciding City 00:04:59.750 --> 00:05:01.870 laws are too slow, so they just declare their 00:05:01.870 --> 00:05:03.829 office building a sovereign nation and start 00:05:03.829 --> 00:05:06.129 passing their own laws? That startup analogy 00:05:06.129 --> 00:05:09.110 is spot on. I mean, they operated this extra 00:05:09.110 --> 00:05:12.029 -legal, unrecognized territory for 19 months. 00:05:12.170 --> 00:05:14.769 Which is just wild to me. It reveals a core trait 00:05:14.769 --> 00:05:18.509 of the West, pragmatism over legality. They needed 00:05:18.509 --> 00:05:20.410 local governance to protect their wealth, so 00:05:20.410 --> 00:05:23.110 they engineered a spontaneous commonwealth. But 00:05:23.110 --> 00:05:26.009 Washington eventually steps in. officially forms 00:05:26.009 --> 00:05:29.389 the territory of Colorado in 1861. And I have 00:05:29.389 --> 00:05:31.370 to imagine they didn't do that just to help out 00:05:31.370 --> 00:05:33.970 some disorganized prospectors. If we connect 00:05:33.970 --> 00:05:36.290 this to the bigger picture, the timing is everything. 00:05:36.629 --> 00:05:39.949 It's 1861. the onset of the American Civil War. 00:05:39.949 --> 00:05:42.910 Ah, of course. The Union desperately needed to 00:05:42.910 --> 00:05:45.430 solidify control over the mineral wealth of the 00:05:45.430 --> 00:05:47.550 Rocky Mountains. Right, to fund the war effort. 00:05:47.870 --> 00:05:50.810 Exactly. Legitimizing it was a calculated move 00:05:50.810 --> 00:05:53.550 to ensure that mountain gold funded the Union, 00:05:53.850 --> 00:05:56.589 not the Confederacy. Although actually becoming 00:05:56.589 --> 00:05:58.850 a state took much longer. Yeah, President Andrew 00:05:58.850 --> 00:06:01.360 Johnson vetoed earlier attempts. Right. They 00:06:01.360 --> 00:06:03.379 didn't officially become the Centennial State 00:06:03.379 --> 00:06:07.180 until August 1st, 1876. So this frantic rush 00:06:07.180 --> 00:06:10.040 for wealth literally forces a state into existence. 00:06:10.500 --> 00:06:12.579 But, I mean, that boom had a devastating cost. 00:06:12.740 --> 00:06:15.100 A horrific cost, yeah. You can't just drop 100 00:06:15.100 --> 00:06:17.339 ,000 resource hungry immigrants into land controlled 00:06:17.339 --> 00:06:19.779 by native tribes without causing catastrophic 00:06:19.779 --> 00:06:22.319 clashes. The new arrivals completely ignored 00:06:22.319 --> 00:06:24.920 the boundaries set by the 1851 Treaty of Fort 00:06:24.920 --> 00:06:27.139 Laramie. Which sparked the Colorado War between 00:06:27.139 --> 00:06:31.360 1863 and 1865. And this is where the romanticized 00:06:31.360 --> 00:06:34.199 myth of the West completely falls apart. We really 00:06:34.199 --> 00:06:36.000 need to pause on this because the history here 00:06:36.000 --> 00:06:39.279 is incredibly heavy. The source text describes 00:06:39.279 --> 00:06:43.459 an event in November 1864, the Sand Creek Massacre. 00:06:43.660 --> 00:06:46.040 Yes, U .S. Army Commander John Chivington led 00:06:46.040 --> 00:06:49.160 an attack on an encampment. And the source specifically 00:06:49.160 --> 00:06:52.300 describes it as having, quote, genocidal brutality. 00:06:53.040 --> 00:06:56.279 It horrified people even back east and fundamentally 00:06:56.279 --> 00:07:00.420 shifted how white Americans viewed It resulted 00:07:00.420 --> 00:07:03.199 in the forced removal of tribes from their ancestral 00:07:03.199 --> 00:07:06.459 lands to Oklahoma. It was a brutal displacement 00:07:06.459 --> 00:07:09.420 driven entirely by an insatiable demand for resources. 00:07:09.930 --> 00:07:12.250 So what does this all mean? I mean, if the reality 00:07:12.250 --> 00:07:14.990 was actually mass industrial death, martial law 00:07:14.990 --> 00:07:17.189 and the U .S. military firing on Native Americans 00:07:17.189 --> 00:07:20.149 and later striking miners, why do we hold on 00:07:20.149 --> 00:07:22.550 to the myth of the rugged independent prospector? 00:07:22.610 --> 00:07:24.329 Well, if we connect this to the bigger picture, 00:07:24.449 --> 00:07:26.550 it all comes down to the concept of mineral rights. 00:07:26.750 --> 00:07:29.209 How so? The lone prospector myth existed for 00:07:29.209 --> 00:07:31.089 a very fleeting moment when the gold was just 00:07:31.089 --> 00:07:33.410 sitting right on the surface. But that surface 00:07:33.410 --> 00:07:36.009 gold ran out very quickly. Right. You could just 00:07:36.009 --> 00:07:37.769 pan it out of the streams at first. Exactly. 00:07:38.069 --> 00:07:40.329 But to get to the real wealth, the deep veins 00:07:40.329 --> 00:07:43.290 of silver, and eventually massive coal deposits, 00:07:43.709 --> 00:07:46.329 you had to dig deep into solid rock. And you 00:07:46.329 --> 00:07:48.430 can't do that with just a pickaxe and a mule. 00:07:48.889 --> 00:07:51.509 No. Deep shaft mining requires immense capital 00:07:51.509 --> 00:07:54.769 and heavy machinery. So almost overnight, independent 00:07:54.769 --> 00:07:58.230 miners became expendable wage laborers for massive 00:07:58.230 --> 00:08:00.189 corporations. And the conditions they were forced 00:08:00.189 --> 00:08:03.220 into were just horrifying. The source text notes 00:08:03.220 --> 00:08:06.800 that more than 1 ,700 workers died between 1884 00:08:06.800 --> 00:08:10.439 and 1914. Just in Colorado's mines. Yeah. And 00:08:10.439 --> 00:08:12.480 when workers naturally tried to unionize and 00:08:12.480 --> 00:08:14.939 strike against these deadly conditions, the response 00:08:14.939 --> 00:08:17.959 was militarized violence. You see, martial law 00:08:17.959 --> 00:08:20.439 declared in the 1880 Ludville strike, you have 00:08:20.439 --> 00:08:23.439 the 1894 Cripple Creek strike. And it all culminates 00:08:23.439 --> 00:08:26.959 in the Colorado -Colefield War of 1913 to 1914. 00:08:27.360 --> 00:08:29.870 Specifically, the Ludlow Massacre. The Colorado 00:08:29.870 --> 00:08:32.490 National Guard fired into a tent colony of striking 00:08:32.490 --> 00:08:35.250 workers, killing many, including children. The 00:08:35.250 --> 00:08:38.190 cognitive dissonance is staggering. We celebrate 00:08:38.190 --> 00:08:41.309 this wild freedom myth, but the historical reality 00:08:41.309 --> 00:08:44.330 was heavily armed corporations and the military 00:08:44.330 --> 00:08:47.389 firing on striking workers. It's an incredibly 00:08:47.389 --> 00:08:51.169 dark legacy. But what is so striking about Colorado's 00:08:51.169 --> 00:08:54.509 history is its profound ability to adapt and 00:08:54.509 --> 00:08:57.470 reinvent itself. Because eventually the oar ran 00:08:57.470 --> 00:09:00.850 out. Natural gas started replacing coal. Exactly. 00:09:01.129 --> 00:09:03.990 The state was staring down the barrel of a massive 00:09:03.990 --> 00:09:07.370 economic bust. To survive, they had to radically 00:09:07.370 --> 00:09:10.250 pivot. They had to move from extracting what 00:09:10.250 --> 00:09:12.990 was under the mountains to essentially monetizing 00:09:12.990 --> 00:09:14.929 the mountains themselves. Yes. And this leads 00:09:14.929 --> 00:09:16.990 to one of the most fascinating demographic shifts. 00:09:17.210 --> 00:09:19.070 The state's salvation didn't come from another 00:09:19.070 --> 00:09:21.289 mineral discovery. No, it came from health seekers. 00:09:21.429 --> 00:09:24.009 I am still mind blown by this tuberculosis statistic 00:09:24.009 --> 00:09:26.429 from the source text. The World Sanitarium. Yes. 00:09:26.730 --> 00:09:29.149 Back East, doctors were prescribing dry, high 00:09:29.149 --> 00:09:32.129 altitude climates as the only treatment for tuberculosis. 00:09:32.629 --> 00:09:35.889 So by 1900, one third of Colorado's entire population 00:09:35.889 --> 00:09:39.039 were TB patients. They called them Lungers. Imagine 00:09:39.039 --> 00:09:42.340 if, today, one out of every three people in a 00:09:42.340 --> 00:09:44.639 state was only living there on a doctor's prescription. 00:09:45.080 --> 00:09:47.299 It's hard to overstate the impact of that. It 00:09:47.299 --> 00:09:49.539 completely flipped the economy to hospitality 00:09:49.539 --> 00:09:52.320 and medical care. But I ask myself, how does 00:09:52.320 --> 00:09:54.940 a state go from a lawless mining camp to being 00:09:54.940 --> 00:09:59.860 a pioneer in social rights? Like, in 1893, Colorado 00:09:59.860 --> 00:10:02.200 became the first state to grant women's suffrage 00:10:02.200 --> 00:10:04.659 by popular vote. Well, this raises an important 00:10:04.659 --> 00:10:07.080 question. What happens to the culture of a state 00:10:07.080 --> 00:10:10.419 when you have thousands of educated upper class 00:10:10.419 --> 00:10:14.080 health seekers mixing directly with rugged heavily 00:10:14.080 --> 00:10:16.980 unionized miners. Oh wow. Yeah, you get a totally 00:10:16.980 --> 00:10:19.440 unique political stew. They were severed from 00:10:19.440 --> 00:10:22.100 traditional East Coast norms, so they just invented 00:10:22.100 --> 00:10:24.519 a society that worked for their specific reality. 00:10:24.679 --> 00:10:26.980 That perfectly explains the political whiplash. 00:10:27.039 --> 00:10:29.960 And that spirit of radical reinvention just accelerates 00:10:29.960 --> 00:10:32.100 into the 20th century. Oh, absolutely. Like in 00:10:32.100 --> 00:10:34.179 the 1930s, they realized the massive snowfall 00:10:34.179 --> 00:10:36.659 is actually a highly lucrative commodity, and 00:10:36.659 --> 00:10:38.779 that gives birth to the ski industry. And during 00:10:38.779 --> 00:10:41.460 World War II, the military sets up Camp Hale 00:10:41.460 --> 00:10:43.840 to train the 10th Mountain Division ski troops. 00:10:44.100 --> 00:10:46.620 Then moving into the— In the 1960s and 70s, it 00:10:46.620 --> 00:10:48.899 becomes an epicenter for the Chicano movement, 00:10:49.379 --> 00:10:52.139 with leaders like Corky Gonzalez. And in 1967, 00:10:52.639 --> 00:10:55.440 Governor John Love signs the nation's first liberalized 00:10:55.440 --> 00:10:57.899 abortion law. They just consistently chart their 00:10:57.899 --> 00:11:01.500 own course. They do. And the ultimate proof... 00:11:01.370 --> 00:11:04.070 of that fierce independence happened in 1972. 00:11:04.769 --> 00:11:06.850 Oh, the Winter Olympics. This is the ultimate 00:11:06.850 --> 00:11:09.649 flex. It really is. Colorado uniquely rejected 00:11:09.649 --> 00:11:11.789 hosting the Winter Olympics after winning the 00:11:11.789 --> 00:11:13.730 bid. Wait, they already had the bid. It was a 00:11:13.730 --> 00:11:16.389 done deal. But the actual voters looked at the 00:11:16.389 --> 00:11:18.429 financial costs and the environmental impact 00:11:18.429 --> 00:11:20.990 and they refused to fund it. They literally told 00:11:20.990 --> 00:11:23.210 the international community, no thanks, we don't 00:11:23.210 --> 00:11:24.809 want your games if we have to foot the bill. 00:11:24.960 --> 00:11:28.360 The IOC had to scramble to move the games. It 00:11:28.360 --> 00:11:30.840 had never happened before. It perfectly encapsulates 00:11:30.840 --> 00:11:32.679 everything we've uncovered. I mean, Colorado 00:11:32.679 --> 00:11:35.480 is a master class in shape shifting from an ancient 00:11:35.480 --> 00:11:38.600 migration highway to a rogue territory to a brutal 00:11:38.600 --> 00:11:41.320 industrial battleground. And then when the earth 00:11:41.320 --> 00:11:44.000 dried up, it became a sanctuary for the sick, 00:11:44.200 --> 00:11:47.019 a pioneer in social rights and a global hub for 00:11:47.019 --> 00:11:49.879 recreation. The adaptation is just relentless. 00:11:50.509 --> 00:11:53.269 But before we wrap up, I want to leave you, the 00:11:53.269 --> 00:11:56.289 listener, with one final connection to ponder 00:11:56.289 --> 00:11:58.750 based on the source text. Oh, what's that? Well, 00:11:58.870 --> 00:12:02.450 today, Colorado is a pioneer in legalizing and 00:12:02.450 --> 00:12:04.909 heavily taxing recreational marijuana. Right, 00:12:05.009 --> 00:12:07.690 the modern green rush. Yeah. Generating massive 00:12:07.690 --> 00:12:10.450 revenue. Exactly. But the text also points out 00:12:10.450 --> 00:12:13.029 that historically, when the mining ore ran out, 00:12:13.490 --> 00:12:15.649 towns like Cripple Creek turned to gambling to 00:12:15.649 --> 00:12:19.100 survive. Ah. So I invite you to consider, is 00:12:19.100 --> 00:12:21.879 the modern green rush of marijuana legalization 00:12:21.879 --> 00:12:26.039 just the 21st century version of Colorado's historic 00:12:26.039 --> 00:12:27.919 boom and bust cycle? That's a great question. 00:12:28.019 --> 00:12:30.139 When the traditional wells dry up, does this 00:12:30.139 --> 00:12:32.720 state simply find a brand new resource to pull 00:12:32.720 --> 00:12:35.000 from the earth to keep the boom alive? Just a 00:12:35.000 --> 00:12:37.360 new cash crop to pull from the dirt. The cycle 00:12:37.360 --> 00:12:39.320 never really stops, does it? It just changes 00:12:39.320 --> 00:12:41.240 form. It really does. Well, next time you see 00:12:41.240 --> 00:12:44.870 a postcard of those pristine, quiet peaks. Just 00:12:44.870 --> 00:12:47.009 remember the chaos and brilliant reinvention 00:12:47.009 --> 00:12:48.830 it took to build the world sitting right below 00:12:48.830 --> 00:12:51.450 them. Thank you for joining us on this deep dive. 00:12:51.870 --> 00:12:54.490 Keep questioning the myths and, as always, keep 00:12:54.490 --> 00:12:56.350 digging into the fascinating layers of history 00:12:56.350 --> 00:12:57.389 right in your own backyard.