Approximately 13,000 years ago native people used the Rocky Mountains as a pathway to the rest of North America Along with the Pacific Coast the Rockies were one of two main migration routes used by American Indians Many native tribes also settled in the mountains The area that is now Rocky Mountain National Park was first occupied 11,000 years ago But native people lived all over Colorado Tribes such as the Comanche and Arapaho settled on the eastern plains The Ute settled in the western mountains Native people lived alone in Colorado until the 1500's when Spanish explorers arrived These explorers noticed the red color of the land and named the place Colorado a word for red in Spanish The first Spanish explorers were looking for gold They didn’t find it right away 6
The Comanche tribe became highly skilled with horses in the late 1600's and early 1700's but Colorado’s land was rich in other natural resources In 1848 following the Mexican American War the United States gained a huge amount of territory Part of this land later became western Colorado In 1858 people found gold near Pikes Peak News of this discovery set off a gold rush 7
Settlers most of them of European descent flocked to Colorado in hopes of striking it rich The population in the area exploded It led to the creation of cities such as Denver and Boulder The population boom had some benefits Because the area now had so many people the US government created the Colorado Territory in 1861 Some people also got very rich However the gold rush was a disaster for American Indians Their lands were taken over by prospectors who started using up all the resources White settlers also killed thousands of buffalo and took down trees disrupting the native people’s way of life The US government made treaties to help protect the American Indians But the government often failed to meet these agreements Some native tribes fought back which led to war 8
By 1869 the last of the fighting tribes was defeated Many who survived ended up moving to reservations in Oklahoma The Colorado Territory continued to grow even after the gold rush ended in the mid-1860s In 1876 Colorado officially became the 38th state in the nation COLORADO'S FLAG Andrew Carlisle Carson designed the Colorado flag in 1911 The flag’s colors were chosen to symbolize the state’s greatest natural features Blue Sky White Snow Red Soil Gold Sunshine 9
