Why is colorado named colorado

It eventually became the name of the territory. Colorado is nicknamed the Centennial State because it became a state the same year that the United States turned a hundred years old.

Colorado is bordered by Utah to the west, New Mexico and Oklahoma to the south, Kansas and Nebraska to the east, and Wyoming to the north. The Rocky Mountains cover most of the western part of the state.

This mountain range stretches from New Mexico into Canada , but Colorado is home to the tallest peak—Mount Elbert, 14, feet above sea level. Journey east and you'll hit the Great Plains. The mountains are home to Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep the Colorado state mammal , mountain goats, black bears, mountain lions , and beavers , the endangered boreal toad, golden eagles, and great horned owls.

There are dozens of trees native to Colorado; many of them—including ponderosa pine—are conifers. If you smell the bark of the ponderosa pine, you might catch a whiff of vanilla or butterscotch. Oil, coal, and natural gas are all mined here. But Colorado also generates solar and wind energy.

Wind accounts for about 13 percent of the total electricity produced in Colorado. Vice President John C. However, in Breckinridge abandoned his seat in the U. Senate to join the Confederacy at the outbreak of the Civil War. Angry Unionists in Breckinridge's Colorado namesake resolved to change the town's name to its current spelling of Breckenridge in protest of the politician's defection.

No word on whether Breckinridge ever learned of Breckenridge's retaliatory spelling change. One of Colorado's fourteeners has an odd name that's inspired by literature. The Hayden Survey's geologist christened Colorado's mountain "Sneffels," and the name's been there ever since.

Colorado boasts plenty of place names that are more or less descriptive of their surroundings. Pieplant, Colorado, in Gunnison County, was named for the wild rhubarb that grew near this early twentieth-century mining town. Gunbarrel, in Boulder County, hearkens back to a now-extinct road through the area that was "as straight as a gunbarrel. Other places have more unusual stories to back up their names. Last Chance, in Washington County, is named for a service station and store on the site that advertised itself as the "last chance" for gasoline and supplies for at least 35 miles in any direction.

Westbrook, who explained, "[The fields] will be very dear to us, so why not incorporate that sentiment into the name we select and call our colony Dearfield? According to Benson, the store owner's daughter once exclaimed "It looks just like a big pumpkin! About Colorado. While gathering this material, other interesting and factual sidelights were uncovered which I hope will be of interest to the reader.

It achieved statehood in —hence known as the Centennial State. In the first 17 counties in Colorado were created, ten of those located adjacent to the Continental Divide, in the mining area where our first settlers appeared.

On the western slope there were only three, Summit , Lake and Conejos, all of which extended to the Utah line. Only five of the original 17 counties retained their original boundaries. The other 12 were divided, some several times, to provide for the present number. The last one was created from Conejos County in The 63 rd county is called Alamosa County.

Only on county— Greenwood —in eastern Colorado , was ever abolished. It was named for Colonel W. Greenwood, superintendent of construction for the Kansas-Pacific Railroad. Kit Carson was its county seat. It was later absorbed into Bent and Elbert Counties. In Colorado , there are peaks over 10, feet above sea level. Of the 81 peaks in the United States over 14, feet high 52 of them are located in Colorado. The mean altitude of Colorado is 6, feet above sea level, according to the National Geographic Society—higher than that of any other state, although Wyoming is a close second.

The highest point in Colorado is the peak of Mt. Elbert, 14, feet and the lowest point is 3, feet, in Prowers County. Submitted by Tammy Clark.