How Colorado’s 150th Anniversary Includes More Voices in History

Anniversaries can serve as natural opportunities for examination and reflection. For Colorado, that means this year’s “Sesquisemiquincentennial” celebration, the joint 250th anniversary of US independence and the 150th anniversary of the state. But in a time when US history is being whitewashed by the government, this commemoration asks the question: Whose Colorado is being celebrated?

To mark the occasion, the state put together the America 250–Colorado 150 Commission, and in contrast to the federal agenda, it included diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) commitments from the get-go. “Our guiding principle was to create the conditions for a commemoration in which everyone who wanted to participate could find ways to do so that felt right to them,” Jason Hanson, a commissioner and chief creative officer at History Colorado told NPQ, “whether that meant celebrating what unites us as Coloradans and Americans or reflecting on dark moments in our shared history.” History Colorado is a state agency and charitable organization founded in 1879 that runs regional museums and the flagship History Colorado Center, supports historic preservation, and hosts community events.

The Commission and its advisory council are made up of diverse Coloradans of all backgrounds—from business owners, educators, and newspaper editors to elected officials and members of local Native American populations. These groups have taken on 13 Signature Initiatives to honor Colorado’s history, with direct involvement from History Colorado.

One of these initiatives is the Colorado Heritage for All project, with the goal of making sure unrecognized communities are represented on both the National Register of Historic Places and the Colorado State Register of Historic Properties. Damion Pechota, senior national and state register historian and special projects coordinator with History Colorado, told NPQ that the project came out of an analysis of the state’s registered historic sites, which found that less than 4 percent of sites were associated with underrepresented communities—specifically communities of color, LGBTQ+, female, and disabled communities.

This is right around the national average, according to Pechota, who added that underrepresentation is “a problem across the entire country.”

Though the Colorado Heritage for All project began in 2023, it gained momentum the following year with the goal of adding 150 sites to the state register by the end of 2026, as a nod to the anniversary. As of August, they’re already at 106.

Trying to Right the Wrongs of Preservation

This lack of representation doesn’t just come down to a political agenda but represents a larger issue: Who gets to decide what counts as history?

In the past, many historic sites were skipped over because they were considered insignificant. “There was an overemphasis on architecture,” Pechota explained, “and as a result, the program wasn’t people centered.”

Take the case of Margaret “Molly” Brown, a Titanic survivor who became a well-known activist and philanthropist. Her property in Denver is on the register but only for its architectural style rather than the significance of its former resident. Pechota is trying to amend the listing to include Brown’s accomplishments and story.

Similarly, though the former Black American homesteading settlement of Dearfield, CO, is on the register, one important house in the wider area—the last remaining home of Black American homesteaders in the state—is not. “It’s a kit house from a catalog, so it’s not a high architectural style,” explained Pechota, “but its rarity and its significance . . . makes it really, really valuable.” The Colorado Heritage for All project is now working directly with the homeowners’ descendants to get the property added to the register.

Through his work, Pechota tries to right some of the wrongs often associated with preservation. “Historically, preservation has been very reactive, where essentially we sit back and wait for people to submit ideas and we say yes or no,” he said.

This time around, he’s turning to Colorado residents for help, through events, open calls for site suggestions, and community engagement meetings. “It’s people’s stories, so we’re working directly with them to make sure that we’re doing this right,” Pechota said. That involves asking questions of communities, such as: We think this site is important, but maybe it’s not the site you identify with. Are we off? Pechota added that this work involves a lot of trust-building, especially when collaborating with people who have tried and failed to get these same sites on the register for years.

As a member of the LGBTQ+ community, Pechota finds an additional layer of significance to this work. “Seeing these small victories for my community is really valuable,” he shared. When he hands people the Register of Historic Places plaque, their response is often “my community is seen.” For Pechota, this is the whole point of the project. “Erasure is a real thing,” he said, “and the fact that we can now come along and put a plaque on a building saying ‘this occurred here’ is really special.”

For Linda Lung, part of a family of long-time Denver Chinese American residents who were essential to the establishment of the city’s Chinatown, getting her family home on the register has been a source of pride. The property on Vine Street in Denver housed multiple generations of her family between 1949 and 1977. Lung had tried to get the property recognized in the past, but the previous owner wasn’t interested.

“Having the house added to the historic register is another way for the Lungs to celebrate our history in Denver,” she told NPQ, “The stories need to be told because they illustrate the important contributions that [Chinese American families] have made to the Denver community.”

A Story About People

Examining Colorado’s history has made it clear that underrepresented populations have been trying to make their voices heard since the very beginning. Katherine Mercier is an exhibition developer and historian with History Colorado, and as part of the America 250–Colorado 150 commemoration served as lead developer of the 38th Star exhibition about Colorado’s path to statehood. Mercier, a Colorado native, was shocked to discover that it had taken multiple attempts to gain statehood.

“Something that became really clear in the research is that throughout this story, people who are left out of the statehood process often become even more important than the people who are included,” Mercier explained. Most notably, the Hispano people of Colorado, originally Spanish settlers and Indigenous people of Mexico, who became US citizens after the Mexican-American War and lived in New Mexico before a chunk was lopped off the state to become part of the Colorado Territory. Suddenly, their center of government was located in Denver—and it wasn’t interested in translating documents or laws into Spanish.

Some of the first attempts at making Colorado a state failed in part because Hispano  residents were frustrated by a lack of representation in the government, enough to vote against statehood. Black men also had a hand in the failed attempts, signing a petition against statehood after a law was proposed to specify that only White men over 21 were allowed to vote. Thanks to a Hispano representative in 1876, the local government finally conceded in 1875 to translating documents into Spanish (and German), which earned enough support to change the tides.

Not all Colorado residents had a say in the matter, though. Members of local Indigenous populations were still not allowed the right to vote. And thus, were prevented from deciding the future of their own territory.

Mercier reached out to representatives for the Ute, Cheyenne, and Arapaho peoples as she created the exhibit, and what became very clear from these conversations was “the enduring connection of the people to the land and the fact that statehood was one of the major forces that removed them from it,” she said. For Mercier, the most compelling part of this project was learning about the impact of these different communities on statehood.

“Sometimes we think about it in a very political context of this happened and that happened politically. But it’s very much a story about people and the importance of people,” she said.

The Work Continues

The essentialness of people is also at the core of the Portrait of Colorado at 150 podcast project, which changes not just which stories are preserved but whose voices tell those stories. This initiative provides community partners with recording kits and training to collect oral histories from around the state.

“Community members are experts in their histories,” Kim Kennedy White, the project lead and a curator at History Colorado, told NPQ. Because of that, she says there was no specific set of questions they asked when collecting oral histories. “We encourage narrators to share their stories and experiences in their own words, rather than selecting which stories to tell.”

In an era when DEI initiatives are being squashed and history is literally being rewritten in some cases, these projects seem like a form of rebellion and a reminder of the importance of local government and civic power. Of course, state-level initiatives can’t stop the erasure happening federally. Funding has been slashed, terms like DEI have been banned, and some of the America 250–Colorado 150 projects have faced challenges.

Pechota explained there have been times when they haven’t been able to get a site on the national historic register, so they’ve put it on the state one instead. “We haven’t backed down and are continuing to push the envelope of what we can do,” he said.

One thing is for certain: these projects don’t end with 2026. “No doubt the work will continue,” said Kennedy White about Portrait of Colorado at 150. Pechota agreed: “Even though the 150 number goes away at the end of December, this work isn’t going away.” He urges people to continue proposing sites for the register, this year and beyond. “We’re not going to slow down or stop,” he said. “Our goal is to change how preservation is done.”