History Colorado

Explore how Colorado has changed from the 1600s to today!

Colorado Borderlands

I Didn't Cross the Border, The Border Crossed Me

The first non-indigenous explorers in Colorado were from Mexico and Spain. When expeditions led by Coronado, Ulibarri, and others ventured into the area now called Colorado, they drew maps and gave Spanish names to various landmarks. The name of our state, Colorado means “red.” Later, when Spanish-speakers were granted land tracts in Colorado to encourage migration, they gave Spanish names to the places where they lived.

Spanish Place Names in Colorado

The Mexican-American War, also known as the Mexican War or the Invasion of Mexico, was fought between 1846 and 1848. As a result of losing the war, Mexico lost almost half its territory, and the United States gained much of the land that makes up the American West.

The Mexican-American War and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

The town of San Luis is the longest continually-inhabited non-indigenous or non-native settlement in Colorado, meaning people have lived there since the town was first settled in 1851. San Luis was part of the New Mexico territory until Colorado became a territory in 1861. The Hispanics who founded the town of San Luis came from New Mexico and spoke Spanish. They moved into the valley to farm and to raise sheep and other animals.

San Luis: Colorado’s Oldest Town

Spanish-speaking people have been in Colorado for many centuries. Between the 1540s and 1821, Colorado was the northernmost part of Spain’s colonial empire in North America. In 1828, Spanish speaking settlers from New Mexico began to settle in the San Luis Valley.  In 1851, San Luis became Colorado’s first permanent town in the San Luis Valley. The Hispano and Mexican settlers farmed and raised livestock. Their houses were built out of adobe bricks, a concrete-like mixture made of straw, mud, and water. Hispanos and Mexicans dug Colorado’s first irrigation ditch, constructed Colorado’s oldest church, and founded Colorado’s oldest continually existing towns. Learn about a few notable early Hispano Coloradoans.  

Early Hispano Coloradans

Spanish explorers were some of the first Europeans to visit the place now called Colorado. First arriving in North America in the early 1500s, they came looking for gold and silver, and later, for land to settle. But contact with the Spanish forever changed the lives of the Indigenous people who already lived here. Diseases, along with violent campaigns led by Spanish conquistadors, nearly wiped out some Indigenous communities. Spanish settlers followed the conquistadors, taking over the lands that Native peoples called home. Over hundreds of years, Spanish and Indigenous language, culture, religion and food ways have blended, creating a unique culture that only exists in the U.S. Southwest.

Spanish Explorers

The Colorado Constitution 

The Borderlands are an ancient crossroads. They have a violent history of conquest and enslavement, but also traditions of beauty and diversity. They are a place where Indigenous cultures blend with Spanish, Mexican, and American traditions to create a unique identity unlike any other in the world. 

This identity lives within the people of the Borderlands, and it goes with them wherever they move. And Borderlands people don’t stay still. By choice, by force, or by necessity, they have moved around a lot. They are mobile people who have lived beyond boundaries and between languages.

They are people who live sin fronteras - without borders. Welcome to the Borderlands of Southern Colorado. 


Bittersweet Harvest: The Bracero Program 1942-1964

Colorado Chicano Movement History: Portal 

The Wonderful World of the Chicano Experience

Chicano Murals in Colorado: The First Decade

Su Teatro: Cultural & Performing Arts Center

When a Colorado governor declared martial law and blocked poor New Mexicans at the border

La Gente: Borderlands

educator materials