Human beings inhabited Colorado for the past 12,000 years. The earliest people migrated across the land bridge between Asia and Alaska and made their way down the eastern side of the Rockies into Colorado. Some of the earliest people were hunters who herded mammoths over the edge of cliffs, pelting them with rocks and spears. Clovis man lived near Greeley as early as 9200 B.C. Flosom Man (distinguished from Clovis Man by the type of spearheads he crafted) hunted bison in eastern Colorado. By 7000 B.C., the desert people inhabited western Colorado, surviving on small game, berries and plants. Over thousands of years, the desert People evolved into the Basket Makers, whose culture was centered around the beautiful baskets they created for cooking, hauling water, carrying babies, and many other functions. Their descendants were the Indians of Mesa Verde the Anasazi who created the intriguing civilization today preserved in Mesa Verde National Park. At the end of the Basket Makers’ period in the southwest, Fremont Man inhabited the northern/central portions of western Colorado. Near Grand Junction, you can see petroglyphs scratched into the rock by these early people. Following the disappearance of the Cliff Dwellers from Mesa Verde in 1300 A.D., Spanish explorers began working their way north from Mexico, among them Francisco Vasquez de Coronado who may have entered what is today Colorado on his exploration to the Seven Cities of Gold in 1540. The Ute Indians inhabited the western and mountain sections of Colorado; by 1800, the Arapaho and Cheyenne Indians were moving into the eastern plains, soon to be driven out by the white man in his pursuit of Manifest Destiny. In preparing this selection of Colorado profiles, we are most grateful to Maxine Benson, former Colorado State Historian, for her critical evaluation of the historical data. A Colorado History, which she co-authored with Carl Ubbelohde and Duane Smith, is an excellent survey of the state’s past. For additional reading, there are full biographies of nearly all the people presented in the following vignettes.
