Harvesting Historical Riches

This Land is Your Land: The Five States of Colorado

Originally published in Colorado History NOW, June 2004

Chances are, my West does not resemble your West.  My West is Death Valley viewed from the back seat of a Toyota Corolla without air conditioning en route to a childhood vacation in California in 1980.  It’s Longs Peak and Mount Meeker over my right shoulder on the way to work and over my left on the way home. It’s Chief Ouray and Chipeta, but it’s Tonto and the Lone Ranger too.

In 1823, Major Stephen H. Long labeled the West the “Great American Desert” and denigrated its agricultural potential.  Twenty-three years later Brigham Young and the Morman pioneers saw a land of opportunity, safety, and abundance.  To others throughout ancient and recent history, the West has been sacred ground, hunting ground, battleground, and dumping ground.  It is a wasteland and a paradise.

Colorado is the West in microcosm.  Everyone, past and present, has an opinion about the state’s identity.  Those opinions, shaped by regional heritage and culture, affect today’s political and commercial decisions.  When the people who make those decisions look beyond the borders of their own intellectual landscapes, they enrich the entire state.  With this idea in mind, the Colorado Endowment for the Humanities produced an educational video called The Five States of Colorado to help school kids—tomorrow’s power brokers—understand the historical roots of the state’s multi-regional makeup.

The Five States of Colorado demonstrates that Colorado’s borders are arbitrary lines transposed over five geographically and culturally distinct regions.  The agricultural eastern plains north of the Arkansas River sometimes shares interests with the Great Plains states.  Southeastern Colorado, including the San Luis Valley, shares a strong Hispanic heritage with New Mexico.  The Western Slope takes its name from the direction that most of Colorado’s water flows, though residents will tell you that sometimes water flows uphill, towards money.  That money, and political power, resides on the eastern slope in the two remaining regions, Denver and the Front Range metropolis.

The twenty-five-minute video, created by Havey Productions with financial assistance from the State Historical Fund and Pinnacol Assurance, premiered at the Colorado History Museum last November.  Since then, it has been distributed to schools statewide.  Reviews have been positive: Adults like Jim Havey’s stunning contemporary images and the film’s informative narration while kids appreciate the fact that a history lesson can be entertaining.  Everyone learns something new about their own region and how it relates to and is dependent upon the other four.

The Colorado Endowment for the Humanities hopes that its film will leave audiences with the impression that the five states of Colorado are really three states: past, present, and future.  Understanding the culture, beliefs, and experiences of other times or places will empower citizens to make informed decisions that will improve our quality of life now and down the road.

BY BEN FOGELBERG