It Happened in Colorado Trivia Quiz

Answer: Sand Creek Massacre

On November 29, 1864, members of the Colorado Territory militia, numbering 700 strong, attacked and destroyed a village of Cheyenne and Arapaho camped along Sand Creek in southeastern Colorado. The band of Indians was under the leadership of Black Kettle, who had been assured that the American flag he flew over his lodge would protect his village from attack. Today, the National Park Service administers the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site to honor the victims of this atrocity, most of whom were women and children.

Answer: Ouray

The town of Ouray is located in southwestern Colorado in a box canyon filled with natural hot springs and was a favorite winter camp of the mountain branch of the Ute tribe. Mount Ouray stands at 13,961 feet along the western edge of the San Luis Valley.

Answer: Alferd Packer

Warned not to venture into the high country late in the season, the prospectors nevertheless became completely lost and snowbound. When the party ran out of provisions they apparently began to eat their dead, eventually turning on each other. Packer was the only survivor and claimed he had acted in self-defense, though he later confessed to murdering and eating his companions. Sentenced to 40 years in jail for his crimes, he was eventually pardoned and settled in the suburbs of Denver, where he lived until his death at age 65.

It is rumored that he spent the last years of his life as a vegetarian.

Answer: Cherry Creek

The first gold discoveries in Colorado occurred in what is now Denver. These were placer deposits, gold "dust" eroded from mountain veins and washed downstream to be discovered in shallow gravel bars. Prospectors followed the streams west into the mountains in search of the source of this placer gold, leading to the widespread exploration and settlement of the interior of the state.

Answer: Kit Carson

Following the war, Colonel Carson was appointed commandant of Ft. Garland in the San Luis Valley, an area controlled by the Ute Indian tribe. Many of the original fort's buildings, including the house occupied by Carson and his wife, have been restored and can be visited today.

Answer: John C. Fremont

In November 1848, Fremont led a party into the Sangre de Cristo mountains at the onset of winter, losing 10 of his party to exposure and starvation. He went on to become a US Senator from California and won the nomination of the newly formed, anti-slavery Republican Party in 1856, losing to James Buchanon in the general election.

Answer: Missouri

The Rio Grande rises in the San Juan Mountains of south-central Colorado. The Arkansas River rises west of Leadville in the center of the state and flows through Colorado Springs before leaving the state to pass through Kansas. The Colorado River originates on the western slopes of Rocky Mountain National Park in north-central Colorado.

The Missouri River has its headwaters in Montana.

Answer: Vail

Camp Hale, at 9,300' elevation, was built to provide a training ground for an elite division of mountain soldiers. The 10 Mountain Division was schooled in skiing, mountain climbing, and cold weather survival, and the unit saw action in the mountains of Italy in 1945. Training exercises at Camp Hale exposed the men to the terrain of what is now Vail Mountain, revealing itself to be an ideal location for a commercial ski resort. Vail opened as a ski resort in 1962.

Answer: Bent's Fort

Bent's Fort, located along the Arkansas River near the present-day city of Pueblo, was the only permanent white settlement along the Santa Fe Trail between Missouri and the (then) Mexican towns near Santa Fe. The old fort was reconstructed in 1976 and is administered by the National Park Service.

Answer: Robert Ford

Robert Ford killed Jesse James by shooting him in the back in the parlor of James's Missouri home. In 1892, Ford died in his own saloon in the silver mining town of Creede when a double shotgun blast killed him instantly.