Celebrate Colorado Day with CheckMark

On August 1, 1876, President Ulysses S. Grant signed a proclamation admitting Colorado as a state. Colorado Day was celebrated as a state holiday on August 1 for many years, and then was moved to the first Monday in August, most likely after the time the U.S. Congress passed the Uniform Holidays Bill in 1968. The day no longer became a public holiday, but rather an observance, when the state started observing Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a public holiday in 1985.

CheckMark is proud to celebrate Colorado’s birthday, the commemoration of Colorado’s acceptance into statehood.

Here are some facts about Colorado:

• Colorado is 6,034 square miles larger than Wyoming. Incidentally, Colorado and Wyoming are the only states having unbroken and almost straight-line boundaries on all sides.

• Atmospheric conditions: Normal atmospheric pressure at sea level is 14.7 pounds to the square inch. That is the pressure exerted against the body by the weight, or density, of the atmosphere. The greater the altitude above sea level, the lighter the pressure. In Denver, the atmospheric pressure is 12.2 pounds to the square inch. Having less pressure against your body is like having a load lifted off your back, which is actually what takes place.

• Famous memorial and cemetery: The Lincoln Memorial in Washington and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington Cemetery in Virginia. In Denver, the Federal Reserve Bank Building is a good example of Colorado Yule Marble.

• This marble, mined on the Yule Creek near the town of Marble in Gunnison County, is white, medium-grained, generally banded with pale-brownish streaks and contains angular fragments of chert.

• The Colorado state capitol building in Denver was completed one hundred years ago in 1896. What was placed in its cornerstone?

• The cornerstone was laid on July 4, 1890, by the Masonic Lodge and contained a bible, American flag, Colorado and U.S. constitutions, a copy of the Declaration of Independence, census reports, speeches by government officials, newspapers of July 4th, 1890, and gold and silver coins of all denominations. Denver became the permanent capital of Colorado by territorial legislative law Dec.9, 1867.

• The penalty for picking the state flower you have committed a MISDEMEANOR, and while you will not go to jail, if convicted, you will pay a fine of not less than $5 nor more than $50.

• The columbine became the state flower in 1899 in a statute passed by the 12th General Assembly and signed into law by Gov. Charles Thomas on April 4, 1899. From 1899 until 1925, it was okay to pick the flower, but in 1925, the Colorado legislature passed the following:

“It is unlawful for any person to tear the state flower up by the roots when grown or growing upon any state, school, or other public lands or in any public highway or other public place or to pick or gather upon any such public lands or in any such public highway or place more than twenty-five stems, buds, or blossoms of such flower in any one day, and it is also unlawful for any person to pick or gather such flower upon private lands without the consent of the owner thereof first had or obtained.”

• The penalty hasn’t been changed in 71 years. Five bucks was a lot of money in 1925. In some hotels today, it will buy you a cup of coffee and a roll.
  First time Colorado participated as a state in a presidential election and it was 1880, and Colorado voted Republican 27,450 to 24,647 for James A. Garfield. President Garfield died in office at age 49, having served from March 4 to Sept. 19, 1881. He was succeeded by Chester A. Arthur, Party dominated The Republicans in 1876. All of the following were Republicans: John L. Routt, first state governor; James B. Belford, first congressman; Henry M. Teller and Jerome B. Chaffee, first U.S. senators; William M. Clark, first secretary of state; George C. Corning, first state treasurer; David C. Crawford, first state auditor; and A.J.Sampson, first attorney general.

• Lafayette Head? A Republican, Lafayette Head was the first lieutenant governor of the state of Colorado. Since 1876, no other state official ever elected in Colorado has had the first name, Lafayette.

• Colorado Ute Indian Delegation, 1868:
  Major Lafayette Head, standing sixth from right, with the delegation of Colorado Ute Indians as well as government officials in Washington, DC, to discuss the Treaty of 1868.