Colorado, a guide to the highest state
de Harry Hansen
The Colorado Guide is one of the shining accomplishments of the Federal Writers, who were recruited by the WPA in the days of the great depression to record the dynamic story of their State. So fruitful were their door-to-door inquiries that the public has acclaimed their labors and called for their book ever since. In the last few years it has become evident that the state was outgrowing its guide. The spectacular facts of history remained unaltered, but practically everything else burst its seams. The cities pushed beyond their limits the colleges were jammed with youth; the hard-surfaced roads unlocked remote natural wonder; the rushing rivers created dozens of new lakes; even the snowclad mountains yielded to airlift. A thorough revision was called for--and here it is.^ Here is the parade of the cities: Denver, the Mile-High Metropolis, building convention halls and hotels in the shadow of the gold-plated Capitol; Colorado Springs, gateway to NORAD, Pike's Peak, and the US Air Force Academy; Boulder, multiplying scientific laboratories of national renown; Pueblo, rolling steel; Aspen, spreading culture in summer and training ski jumpers in winter; even Lakewood, carved out of Denver's side, latest of the big ones. Ever since Zebulon Pike stood awe-struck before the towering Rockies Americans have flocked to Colorado to mine its wealth, cultivate its soil, build its factories, and fish in its trout-filled steams. At one end of its history are the stone houses of the Cliff Dwellers; at the other, the busy airports serving the continent. This Guide takes account of the nostalgic past and the tumultuous present.^ It tells how to get there, by plane, bus, train and motor car, and what roads to follow to the teeming cities, the peaks, gorges and canyons, the campgrounds and ghost towns. It describes the great changes of the last twenty-five years, during which engineering has built dams and reservoirs for irrigation, electric power and flood control; scientific mining has uncovered minerals of which the goldseekers never dreamed. It tells about the mechanization of farms and the growth of the sugar beet industry; the expansion of feed lots for cattle and the forty-odd rodeos at which the cowhands let off steam. In other words--Colorado.
