Colorado Territory

East of the divide, the new territory included the western portion of the Kansas Territory, as well as some of the southwestern Nebraska Territory, and a small parcel of the northeastern New Mexico Territory.

The Territory of Colorado was created to govern this western region of the former Kansas Territory on February 28, 1861.

Statehood was regarded as fairly imminent, but territorial ambitions for statehood were thwarted at the end of 1865 by a veto by President Andrew Johnson.

Johnson's veto of a bill for statehood for Colorado Territory was sustained; enough senators agreed that a district with a population of 30,000 was not yet worthy of statehood to win the day.

See Forts in Colorado.

William Butler, who wrote about the fur trade in Colorado, stated that there were 24 trading posts built in the pre-territorial area of what is now Colorado.

East of the divide, the new territory included the western portion of the Kansas Territory, as well as some of the southwestern Nebraska Territory, and a small parcel of the northeastern New Mexico Territory.

The Colorado Territory was established by the "Colorado Organic Act" on February 28, 1861, with the same boundaries that would ultimately constitute the State of Colorado.

On the western side of the divide, the territory included much of the eastern Utah Territory, all of which was strongly controlled by the Ute and Shoshoni.

In 1861 a large portion of the eastern area of the territory was reorganized as part of the newly created Colorado Territory.

East of the divide, the new territory included the western portion of the Kansas Territory, as well as some of the southwestern Nebraska Territory, and a small parcel of the northeastern New Mexico Territory.

The Colorado Territory was formed February 28, 1861 from portions of the territory south of 41° N and west of 102°03′ W (25° W of Washington, D.C.) (an area that includes present-day Fort Collins, Greeley and the portions of Boulder north of Baseline Road, in addition to portions of Kansas Territory, New Mexico Territory, and Utah Territory).

The territory was organized in the wake of the Pike's Peak Gold Rush of 1858–1861, which brought the first large concentration of white settlement to the region.

The Pike's Peak Gold Rush (later known as the Colorado Gold Rush) was the boom in gold prospecting and mining in the Pike's Peak Country of western Kansas Territory and southwestern Nebraska Territory of the United States that began in July 1858 and lasted until roughly the creation of the Colorado Territory on February 28, 1861.

In 1859, settlers established the Territory of Jefferson, and held elections, but the United States Congress did not recognize the territory, and it never gained legal status.

The Territory of Jefferson was an extralegal and unrecognized United States territory that existed from October 24, 1859 until the creation of the Colorado Territory on February 28, 1861.

The organization of the territory helped solidify Union control over a mineral-rich area of the Rocky Mountains. Sibley's New Mexico campaign was intended as a prelude to an invasion of the Colorado Territory northward to Fort Laramie, cutting the supply lines between California and the rest of the Union.

A rival group of civic individuals, including William A.H. Loveland, established the town of Golden at the base of the mountains west of Denver, with the intention of supplying the increasing tide of miners with necessary goods.

An early resident of Golden when it was the capital of the Colorado Territory, he was one of the founders of the Colorado Central Railroad and a principal figure in the early history of Colorado.

A rival group of civic individuals, including William A.H. Loveland, established the town of Golden at the base of the mountains west of Denver, with the intention of supplying the increasing tide of miners with necessary goods.

Golden City served as the capital of the provisional Territory of Jefferson from 1860 to 1861, and capital of the official Territory of Colorado from 1862 to 1867.

The first movement of permanent U.S. settlers in the area began with the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854, which allowed private land claims to be filed.

A large portion of Nebraska Territory would soon be split off into Dakota Territory (1861), and smaller portions transferred to Colorado Territory (1861) and Idaho Territory (1863) before the balance of the land became the State of Nebraska in 1867.

To the dismay of Denverites, the town of Colorado City was designated the first territorial capital, quickly succeeded by Golden.

It was briefly the capital of the Colorado Territory.

Among the first settlers to establish claims were former fur traders who returned to the lands they once trapped, including Antoine Janis and other trappers from Fort Laramie, who established a town near Laporte along the Cache la Poudre in 1858.

Between fifty and sixty log dwellings were erected that year along the banks of the Cache la Poudre River in the valley, and in November 1861 the territorial legislature designated Laporte as the county seat.

Tensions mounted when Colorado territorial governor John Evans in 1862 created a home guard of regiments of Colorado Volunteers returning from the Civil War and took a hard line against Indians accused of theft.

John Evans (March 9, 1814 – July 2, 1897) was an American politician, physician, founder of various hospitals and medical associations, railroad promoter, Governor of the Territory of Colorado, and namesake of Evanston, Illinois, Evanston, Wyoming, Evans, Colorado, and Mount Evans, Colorado.

After several minor incidents in what would later come to be designated as the Colorado War, in November 1864, a force of 800 troops of the Colorado home guard, after heavy drinking, attacked an encampment of Cheyenne and Arapaho at Sand Creek, murdering between 150 and 200 Indians, mostly elderly men, women and children.

The Colorado War was an Indian War fought in 1864 and 1865 between the Southern Cheyenne, Arapaho, and allied Brulé and Oglala Sioux (or Lakota) peoples versus the U.S. army, Colorado militia, and white settlers in Colorado Territory and adjacent regions.

The Coloradans, under the command of Union Army General Edward Canby and Colonel John P. Slough, Lt. Col. Samuel F. Tappan and Major John M. Chivington, defeated Sibley's force at the two day Battle of Glorieta Pass along the Santa Fe Trail, thwarting the Confederate strategy.

Chivington gained infamy for leading a 700-man force of Colorado Territory militia during the massacre at Sand Creek in November 1864.

The Coloradans, under the command of Union Army General Edward Canby and Colonel John P. Slough, Lt. Col. Samuel F. Tappan and Major John M. Chivington, defeated Sibley's force at the two day Battle of Glorieta Pass along the Santa Fe Trail, thwarting the Confederate strategy.

The strategic goals were to gain access to the gold and silver mines of California and the Colorado Territory and the seaports in Southern California, and thus evade the Union naval blockade.

Faced with the possible dwindling of the town and its eclipse by the new towns to the north, Denverites pooled their capital and built the Denver Pacific Railroad northward to Cheyenne to bring the rail network to Denver.

Formed in 1867 in the Colorado Territory, the company operated lines in Colorado and present-day southeastern Wyoming in the 1870s until merging with the Kansas Pacific and Union Pacific railroads in 1880.

The Colorado Territory was formally created in 1861 shortly before the bombardment of Fort Sumter sparked the American Civil War.

In November 1858, he laid claim to an area across Cherry Creek from Auraria and named it "Denver City" in honor of James W. Denver, the current governor of the Kansas Territory.

The Colorado Territory was created on February 28, 1861, Arapahoe County was formed on November 1, 1861, and Denver City was incorporated on November 7, 1861.

At Bent's Fort along the Arkansas River, Russell told William Larimer, Jr., a Kansas land speculator, about the placer gold they had found.

Larimer was instrumental in the formation of the Colorado Territory in 1861, and in making Denver its capital.

The Territory of Colorado was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from February 28, 1861, until August 1, 1876, when it was admitted to the Union as the State of Colorado.

The Territory of Colorado was organized on February 28, 1861, and on August 1, 1876, U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant signed Proclamation 230 admitting Colorado to the Union as the 38th state.

Seven people served as governor of Colorado Territory over eight terms, appointed by the President of the United States.

Sibley's New Mexico campaign was intended as a prelude to an invasion of the Colorado Territory northward to Fort Laramie, cutting the supply lines between California and the rest of the Union.

Sibley's strategy called for an invasion along the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains, seizing the Colorado Territory (then at the height of the Colorado Gold Rush) and Fort Laramie (the most important United States Army garrison along the Oregon Trail), before turning westward to attack the mineral-rich Nevada and California.