A Science and Culture Celebration Day at the Colorado Capitol

Last week, on a bright blue sky day, my husband and I drove to Denver, Colorado, to attend the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District --known as SCFD--2024 Celebration of "Culture For All" event being held on the first floor of the Colorado State Capitol building.

The SCFD is a seven-county tax district created and approved by Colorado’s General Assembly, and renewed by voters multiple times over more than 30 years. It is the second-largest cultural funding mechanism in the United States. We fund nearly 300 organizations across our front-range urban corridor, distributing more than $60 million annually.

You can read more about the SCFD on this link and see a list of the many organizations it supports on this link.

In our invitations, we were told we would "experience interactive exhibits on the first floor of the Capitol hosted by a selection of our funded partners, including Mr. Bones from the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, the Filipino American Community of Colorado, HawkQuest, Mudra Dance, and the Broomfield Veterans Memorial Museum," and that  "pastries and beverages will be provided!"  How could we resist this fun opportunity?

I was greeted by the big SCFD mascot bear and we were given a bag to hold all the information handouts that the organizations present that day would be handing out.

It was hard to miss "Mr. Bones" sponsored by the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, which was actually a man wearing a dinosaur costume.  The schoolchildren who were visiting that day were excited to see him!

We then went around the room to visit all the booths. The first stop was at the Philippine-American Society of Colorado.

"The Philippine American Society of Colorado is a nonprofit organization dedicated to cultivating, preserving, promoting, and sharing the Philippine culture and heritage through educational and cultural opportunities that would enrich and enhance the lives of its members and the people of Colorado."  They host multiple events during the year and have a choir and dance troupe.

Next, we stopped at the Butterfly Pavillion booth. The Butterfly Pavillion has been a favorite place to take our grandchildren over the years. You can read prior blog posts I wrote about those visits--here-- and here.  The famous "Rosie the Tarantula" was in attendance and my husband was brave enough to hold her this time! I opted to just take photos with my cell phone.  We were excited to learn that a new larger Butterfly Pavillion is in the works with fundraising still going on--click here to read more about that.

The next booth was HawkQuest.  HawkQuest's approach to education in classrooms and lecture halls is participatory, allowing the audience to experience HawkQuest's eagles, owls, falcons, and hawks at close range. They do not have a facility to visit, but bring the raptors to events.

Information from their website:

"HawkQuest offers four distinct outreach programs, plus booth appearances and special events. We bring live birds of prey to people of all ages, from preschool children to senior citizens. We strive to impress upon our audiences the importance of preserving ecosystems and the wildlife that depend on them. Through understanding the world around them, diverse populations will appreciate that they can influence the environment positively."

Volunteers displayed the birds on their arms and told us some of the fascinating facts about the raptors found in Colorado.

We saw a wonderful HawkQuest presentation at an outdoor Buffalo Bill Day fair in Golden, Colorado--click here--to see that blog post.

An interesting part of the HawkQuest display!

Next, we visited the wonderful Broomfield Veterans Museum exhibit. 

Information from their website:

"The Broomfield Veterans Museum honors local veterans of all the United States conflicts and peacekeeping efforts, from the Civil War to the present, from all branches of service. The museum not only shares the stories of Colorado veterans, but it is also a center for veterans to connect, students to learn about our nation’s history, groups to explore the rotating exhibits, and families to honor their loved ones who served in the military.
The museum houses nine rooms of exhibits, a library with over 3,000 history/military books and hundreds of archived videos of veteran interviews, and a multimedia room that seats over 40. The museum is free and open to the public and offers docent-guided or self-guided tours, and, twice a month, a presentation called Coffee and Conversation, where you can hear fascinating stories from local veterans and historians."

We definitely hope to visit this museum one day soon.

 The last booth display was for the Mudra Dance Studio located in Cenntenial, Colorado. Mudra celebrates East Indian cultural diversity using the medium of dance and music.

Information from their website:

 Our students learn the beautiful rhythmic movement of the North Indian classical dance “Kathak” (dancing a story) with folk and modern elements. Their performance group performs all around Colorado, extending to other states and countries as well, and is available for hire for dance performances, cultural events, private, and public, and in schools.

You can see photographs of past dance performances on their website at this link. I gave them my name and e-mail address to be notified of their next dance performance.

The Colorado State Capitol is a beautiful building!  I could not resist taking some photos of it as we walked around the SCFD celebration.   We have visited the capitol before on free tours and I blogged about an exclusive guided tour we were able to take a few years ago where we were able to visit the entire building including the very top of the dome, which you can read on this blog link.

We enjoyed the refreshments available to visitors at the celebration, before leaving the building. We enjoyed the event very much and learned about many new places that we hope to visit and performances to see.

We also took a brief walk around the outside of the capitol. It's always fun to see the "mile high above sea level" markers on the front steps of 5280 feet (1609 meters),  As measurement became more exact over the years the markers' location changed a few steps.

A close-up of a marker engraved into the Capitol step

A closeup of the view of snowy 14,130-foot (4,306 meters) Mount Blue Sky in the distance (formerly known as Mount Evans). The Mount Blue Scenic Highway is the highest paved road in America to the top and is open from late spring to early fall. 

The SCFD Celebration at the Colorado State Capitol event was a fun event to attend and to learn about some of the 300 organizations in the seven counties of Colorado that it supports. 

Some organizations are free every day such as Broomfield Veterans Museum, City of Lakewood Art Exhibitions, Heritage Lakewood Belmar Park, Foothills Art Center, Colorado Music Hall of Fame, The Aurora History Museum, Depot Art Gallery, and Louisville History Museum

Other Organizations from across the metro area, such as the Denver Art Museum, the Denver Zoo, the Museum of Nature and Science, the Denver Botanic Gardens, and the Denver Center for Performing Arts, also provide hundreds of free days and free programs each year made possible, in part, by funding from SCFD.-- the dates for those free days in 2024 are on this printable free day updated bookmark.

There is so much to see and do in Colorado!

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156 Anniversary of the Sand Creek Massacre

Today was the 156th anniversary of the Sand Creek Massacre.  A few years ago my husband and I visited the Sand Creek Massacre Historic Site located in a remote area of  Kiowa County, near Eads, on the great high plains of Colorado. This site is sacred, controversial, symbolic, and a reminder of a national tragedy that happened on November 29, 1864.  

Please click on to enlarge tread.

Along the Big Sandy Creek, about 700 Cheyenne and Arapaho native people were living peacefully at a winter camp in what was then Colorado territory. They believed they were under the protection of the US Army by treaty. Many of the men were away hunting for food, so the camp consisted of mainly old people, women, and children. At dawn on November 29, 1864, approximately 675 U.S. volunteer soldiers, commanded by Colonel John M. Chivington, attacked the sleeping natives with guns and cannons. Black Kettle, one of the peace Chiefs, raised an American flag and white truce flag above his tipi, as he had been promised protection, but he also had to flee. While many managed to escape, about 200 women and children, and the elderly struggled to run in the sandy earth of the dry creek bed. Some women tried to dig trenches in the creek bed, or in the hollow logs of cottonwood trees to hide their children, but most were mercilessly slaughtered during the eight hours of fighting. During the afternoon, and the next day, the soldiers wandered over the field committing atrocities on the dead, taking native belongings as souvenirs, and burning down the encampment, before departing the scene on December 1, to resume campaigning.

More about the massacre and other photos can be seen on a prior blog post I wrote about the event --click here.   

The tragic story of the Sand Creek Massacre brings us forward to a present-day tragedy that occurred this summer that resulted in strong protests in Denver.  During those protests, the Civil War Union Soldier statue that you see above was torn down from its pedestal in front of the Colorado Capitol Building.  

Upon serious reflection after the protests, a decision was made in a 7-2 vote of the Capitol Building Advisory Committee, to permanently replace this pedestal and statue with a sculpture of a Native American woman mourning the atrocities of the Sand Creek Massacre.  Representatives from the tribes which suffered at Sand Creek 156 years ago spoke to the committee and helped them make this decision

“They were wiped out,” Otto Braided Hair, of the Northern Cheyenne and a descendant of Sand Creek survivors, told the committee. “Their voices are no longer heard. Their wishes and concerns were no longer heard. Those are the people we speak for.”

To see a prototype of the proposed replacement statue click here.  It will be designed by Havey Pratt a Cheyenne and Arapaho tribal member and a descendant of a Sand Creek survivor. He is recognized as an accomplished master Native American Indian artist. He said the idea of using a grieving Native American mother came to him in a dream.  When it is erected in the future I will take photos of it and update this post.

Meanwhile, the Union soldier statue, erected in 1909 to memorialize those who died defending Colorado from an attempted Confederate insurgence, was loaned to History Colorado Center for a one-year period. The museum approached the state with the offer to display the piece with commentary that explains the differences in how various groups have interpreted its meaning, including tribal anger that the same cavalry units memorialized by the statue for heroism in the Civil War also perpetrated the Sand Creek Massacre two years later.  After that, the statue will most likely be placed in Denver's Veterans Park, which seems like a better place for it to be.

I hope all who celebrated Thanksgiving had a wonderful day!  This year was very different for us, as it was only me and my husband at our celebration dinner, but I still prepared a turkey and all the trimmings, including apple pie for dessert. We didn't Zoom with our family, as everyone was on a different schedule, but we talked on the phone and texted.   It was good to give thanks for all our blessings.  I am also thankful for all of you who read my blog and comment--thank you so very much as you bring joy to my days throughout the year!

 Stay happy, safe, and healthy!

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Colorado State Capitol Tour

The Colorado State Capitol, located at 200 East Colfax Ave, Denver, Colorado, is one of the most beautiful and historic buildings in Denver. I've taken a tour of the building three times--click here to see a post about my second tour during the Christmas season.  
The tour I took this time at the end of May was extra exciting for me, as I was able to see both the chambers of the State Senate and the State House of Representatives, as well as climb up to the viewing platform of the dome!

Information from the Capitol's website: The Capitol building houses the Senate, the House of Representatives, the Office of the Governor, the Office of the Lieutenant Governor, and the Department of the Treasury. The elected officials in the building work to make laws and administer state government. The Capitol building was designed by Elijah E. Myers, and its construction lasted from 1886 through 1901. The Colorado Capitol was designed on an axis in the form of a Greek cross and resembles the basic design of the nation’s Capitol in Washington, D.C. The cost of the construction was about $3 million. The cost of replicating this building today is impossible to determine.

We began our visit by admiring the designs on a metal security barrier outside the building, made up of symbols significant to Colorado.

Next, we climbed the steps leading up to the building entrance. There are 3 "Mile High" (5280 feet) markers on the steps.  Our guide told us that the measurements change as new scientific equipment becomes more sophisticated, and also as the sea level rises!  I believe the shiniest marker at the top was the most accurate. In the collage above you can also see the views we had from the steps.  The Denver City and County Building is across the way and the Front Range and the Rocky Mountains are in the distance.  All photos in this post were taken with my cell phone.

The dome of the capitol building was recently re-opened after a restoration project which you can read about here.  The cast iron exterior of the dome was restored, and the project also included replacing and re-gilding the copper plates underneath the iconic gold-leafed dome. More than 65 ounces of pure gold was donated to the project from the same Teller County source that produced the original gold that adorned the dome a century ago.

Tours of the building are free. Information on how to take a tour can be found here. The Colorado State Capitol welcomes about 300,000 visitors annually, with nearly 70,000 visitors taking tours of our beautiful and historic Statehouse.

We found out that the front entrance of the capitol is no longer being used--visitors must enter through a basement entrance where security scanners are located. We then walked upstairs to the main level, where I took the photos in the collage above.  The capital interior is really stunning with craftsmanship that echoes past excellence and would be difficult to replicate these days. There is marble, stained glass, brass railings, carved stonework as well as carved doors and lintels and trim, and magnificent chandeliers and light fixtures. 

The walls are trimmed in Colorado rose onyx (also known as Beulah red marble), a type of stone so rare that all known reserves were used in the capitol’s construction. Colorado rose onyx itself was quarried in the town of Beulah, Colorado. White Yule Marble from the quarries near Marble, Colorado was also used throughout the capitol for the floors. Even the door handles have the state seal imprinted on them! There are portraits on the walls on the main level of past governors of Colorado.

One governor, Ralph L. Carr, is also honored by this plaque for his courageous stand during WWII. The plaque reads: "Dedicated to Governor Ralph Carr as a wise, humane man, not influenced by hysteria and bigotry directed against the Japanese Americans during World War II. By his humanitarian efforts, no Colorado resident of Japanese ancestry was deprived of his basic freedoms, and when no others would accept the evacuated West Coast Japanese, except for confinement in internment camps, Governor Carr opened the doors and welcomed them to Colorado. The spirit of his deeds will live in the hearts of true Americans.”

In the lobby of the Governor's office is a life-size fiberglass horse named "Scout." Scout was a resident of Governor John Hickenlooper’s office when he was mayor, and now welcomes visitors in his state capitol office.

This beautiful brass oval has an open floor that looks down to the basement. The capitol was coal-heated in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Wagons used 14th Street to bring coal in and take the coal ash out. However, some thought that was unsightly, so tunnels were dug underground to move the coal ore carts. Today the tunnels are used for utilities. The capitol has a geothermal power plant in its sub-basement. This is the first state capitol to use a geothermal system to both heat and cool the building. The water comes from an aquifer below the capitol and after being used, the water is returned to the aquifer so there is no loss of water.

Two beautiful quilts are hanging on the wall of the first floor of the capitol.  The Centennial State Quilt is the one with the red border in the collage above. Twenty-five Capitol volunteers spent 250 hours completing this quilt, depicting Colorado's symbols and emblems. The 38 stars on the quilt represent that Colorado was the 38th state admitted to the Union.
The white quilt and hand-embroidered wall hanging is called "Women's Gold," and is a tribute to the historical achievements of Colorado's women in its first 100 years of statehood. It is entitled "Women's Gold" because of the yellow roses found in mining camps by gold seekers. 3,500 people put at least one stitch in the tapestry.

There are eight murals painted on the walls of the rotunda in honor of Charles Boettcher. The murals were painted in 1940 by Colorado artist Allen True. Each mural is accompanied by an excerpt of a poem written by Thomas Hornsby Ferril, who was later named Colorado's poet laureate.

The magnificent Grand Staircase leads to the second floor. The marble staircase is adorned with oak leaves and acorns cast in brass.

A section of the ornate second floor.  Many stained glass panels are located here that depict famous Coloradans. 

Views from the second floor. A portrait of Henry Cordes Brown hangs here. In 1859, Brown journeyed to Colorado by ox team with his wife, son, and all of their belongings. He arrived in Denver on July 10, 1860, and resumed his trade as an architect, carpenter, and builder. In 1863, he claimed 160 acres, known as “Brown’s Addition” in Denver. Brown donated 10 acres to the state, part of which is the current site of the State Capitol building. Brown also built the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver --you can see my post about that magnificent hotel here.

Looking up at the spectacular capitol dome!  The circular "Colorado Hall of Fame" stained glass windows are portraits of 16 individuals who contributed to the initial growth and development of the state. These windows were placed in the dome in 1900.

Looking from the gallery to the Colorado House of Representatives chamber. 65 members are elected to serve two-year terms.

The chambers of both the House and Senate were recently refurbished and retiled and skylights that had been covered were reopened. 

The Colorado Senate Chamber. 35 Senators are elected to serve four-year terms.

The beautiful refurbishment is also evident here.

The third floor of the capitol building contains the "Hall of Presidents."

In November of 1978, Mr. and Mrs. Harry Sullivan notified the Colorado Department of Education of their intent to donate a collection of original oil paintings by portrait artist Lawrence Williams. Entitled "Gallery of Presidents," the collection included 38 portraits of Presidents of the United States. Since then private donations paid for subsequent portraits.

We were excited to be able to go up into the dome on this tour! 

First, we read some very interesting placards about the history of Colorado the building of the capitol, and the recent dome refurbishing, in a museum area that is sentimentally referred to as "Mr. Brown's Attic," after the man who donated the land on which the capitol stands. Mr. Brown's Attic, a 2,000-square-foot public gallery located between the third floor and the dome, is dedicated to the history and significance of the Capitol building. It features photographs, displays, and artifacts that tell the story of the Capitol from its beginnings to the present day.

We then walked up a narrow staircase up to a platform inside the dome. What a view looking down! The circular windows were all easier to see. The writing is backward as they are meant to be read from the exterior.  This was Chief Ouray's window.

Walking outside, the views we saw were amazing!  This view is looking west towards the Rocky Mountains in the distance. Some brass markers pointed to significant mountains and told their elevation.  Lookout Mountain is close to where I live.

This photo shows a small view of the walkway around the outside of the dome.

Some more views and markers. The sky looks stormy but we had no rain that day.

Pike's Peak is 65 miles away and not too easy to see that day because of cloud cover.

The views of downtown Denver were wonderful!

 If you ever have the chance to visit Denver, Colorado I highly suggest you take a tour of our Colorado State Capitol building--there was so much to see and my post just showed a fraction of all its beauty and historical significance.

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