Colorado

A mining rush that became a state in the middle of a war and a centennial. Gold near Pike's Peak in 1858 brought a hundred thousand people west under the slogan Pike's Peak or Bust, most of whom left again; silver at Leadville and later Cripple Creek proved far more durable. The rush displaced the Cheyenne and Arapaho, and the Sand Creek massacre of November 1864, in which Colorado volunteers killed around two hundred mostly women and children at a camp flying a US flag, was condemned by congressional investigation and is now a national historic site. The Ute were removed from most of the western slope in 1881. Statehood came in August 1876, the country's centennial year, which is where the Centennial State name comes from. Labour conflict in the mines was among the most violent in the country, culminating in the Ludlow massacre of 1914, where National Guard and company guards killed strikers and their families including eleven children. Water is allocated by prior appropriation - first in time, first in right - a doctrine developed for mining that now governs the arid west. Denver is the capital. Colorado has the highest mean elevation of any state. Denver is also the largest city and sits exactly a mile above sea level. The state has fifty-eight peaks above fourteen thousand feet. Mesa Verde's cliff dwellings are a World Heritage site. Its rectangular border is one of only two among the states. Colorado legalised recreational cannabis in 2012, among the first anywhere.

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