To celebrate our 150th, here are 10 Colorado firsts

Do Colorado’s towering peaks inspire this state’s residents to reach unprecedented heights of imagination and invention? From civil rights and suffrage to skunky, recreational fun, many of the country’s most successful social movements got their start in this state.

We’re unpacking 10 of them to honor Colorado’s 150th birthday.

Women’s Suffrage
Colorado was the first state to give women the right to vote — by a popular vote in 1893, when only men were allowed to participate. Twenty-seven years later, the country finally ratified Amendment 20. (Wyoming was still a territory in 1870, when its legislature gave women the right to vote.)

Abortion Rights
When Richard Lamm was a new state lawmaker representing a Republican district (yes, Denver had such a thing at the time), he pushed through the first legislation in the country allowing legal abortion. It was 1967, and there were many restrictions — but it was a start.

Rejecting the Winter Olympics
Colorado boosters worked hard to win the 1976 Winter Olympics for Denver. But environmentalists and progressives worked just as hard to make sure that no taxpayer money would go to the Games, taking the issue to a vote of the people. Coloradans sent the Olympics packing and Dick Lamm to the governor’s office in 1974.

Gay Marriage
As it turns out, Boulder County clerk Clela Rorex wasn’t the first official in the country to issue a gay marriage license (thanks for bursting our bubble, History Colorado). But when she allowed two Colorado Springs men to wed in 1976, it was the first such union to make headlines across the country. And she was definitely the first, and probably only, official to refuse to let a man marry his horse.

Libertarian Party
Think the country’s divided now? It was no picnic when President Richard Nixon was in office, either. In 1971, a group unhappy with both major parties formed the national Libertarian Party in a Denver living room.

Xeriscaping (now ColoradoScaping)
Back in 1981, Denver Water took a look at the high desert around the Mile High City and decided it was time to focus on water-conscious landscaping. The result was the practice of Xeriscaping, which morphed into the more marketable “Coloradoscaping.” About 45 years later, the city’s looking at its driest summer on record…but, thanks to Denver Water, it won’t be its ugliest.

Scientific and Cultural Facilities District
As the metro area was suffering through the oil bust of the ’80s, arts lovers came up with a way to help out the suffering cultural institutions: a one-penny sales tax on every $10 spent in the metro area. Today, the SCFD tax is the envy of other counties around the country … and coming up for a well-deserved renewal.

Great Outdoors Colorado 
In 1992, Colorado voters approved establishing a lottery with the expectation that Great Outdoors Colorado, the new organization in charge allocating proceeds, would invest up to 50 percent of the money toward helping outdoor organizations, including local governments and nonprofits, as well as add more open space and protect this state’s very great outdoors. It was the first such move in the country, and very in keeping with Coloradans’ love of the physical state of this state.

Recreational Cannabis
In 2012, Colorado became the first state to legalize the possesion and sale of retail cannabis, with the first stores opening on January 1, 2014. A decade later, the state again led the way in the legalization of therapeutic psilocybin.

Holiday Lights
Coloradans have had plenty of bright ideas. But the most celebrated may be its invention of outdoor holiday lighting, created by a Denver electrician wanting to perk up a bedridden son in December 1912. The Denver City and County Building is decked out in light displays throughout the year.

This list has been updated from “150 Colorado Classics: A Starter Set of Places to Go, Things to See,” originally published in the Best of Denver 2026.