Sunday, October 25, 2026

Colorado elects the convention that will write its state constitution

1875 · Colorado Territory

On October 25, 1875, voters across Colorado Territory elected the delegates to a constitutional convention. They met in Denver that December, finished the constitution in March 1876, and Colorado became the 38th state on August 1, 1876.

Colorado had tried for statehood before and fallen short more than once, first when its own voters rejected a constitution in 1864 and then in Washington, where President Andrew Johnson vetoed statehood bills. In March 1875 Congress tried again with an enabling act, which told the territory to elect a convention and write a constitution.

The election came on October 25, 1875. Voters chose 39 delegates, a mix of lawyers, miners, ranchers and businessmen, who gathered in Denver in December. Over the winter they argued through the questions that still shape Colorado: how to handle water rights, how much power to give the legislature, how to treat the mines and the railroads, and whether women should vote. (They did not grant it then. Colorado men approved women's suffrage in 1893.)

The delegates signed the finished constitution in March 1876. Voters approved it that July, and President Ulysses S. Grant proclaimed Colorado a state on August 1, 1876, a century after the Declaration of Independence. That is where the nickname Centennial State comes from.

The document has been amended many times since, but it is still the one the October 1875 election set in motion.

Sources: Colorado State Archives: Colorado history timeline · Wikipedia: Constitution of Colorado · Wikipedia: Timeline of Colorado history

The Blizzard of '97 finishes with a 21-degree afternoon

1997 · Denver

By the time the October 1997 blizzard ended on October 25, Denver's official total stood at 22.1 inches. The afternoon high that day reached only 21°F, the coldest October 25 high on record, and the 0.81 inches of melted precipitation is still the date's wettest.

The second day of the October blizzard was the cold one. The high on October 25, 1997, reached only 21°F, which remains the coldest daytime high for the date in Denver's records. The storm's water content that day, 0.81 inches once the snow was melted, is also still the date's record.

When the snow finally stopped, the official two-day total was 22.1 inches, and the wind had piled much of it into drifts. Across eastern Colorado, ranchers lost cattle in the storm, and it was blamed for several deaths statewide.

The low for October 25 fell to 8°F, still the record for the date (2020 later matched it). The next morning would be colder still.

Sources: Extreme Weather Watch: Denver October 25 records · NWS Boulder: Denver October extremes · KOAA: A look back at the historic blizzard of 1997

October 25 weather extremes: 84 degrees or 8

Denver

Denver's record high for October 25 is 84°F, from 2017. The record low is 8°F, reached twice: in 1997, after the blizzard, and again in 2020.

The warmest October 25 in Denver was in 2017, when the high reached 84°F. The coldest reading for the date, 8°F, has happened twice: once in 1997, as the October blizzard ended, and once in 2020, during the Arctic outbreak that closed out that warm, smoky fall.

The average for the date sits much closer to the middle, with a high in the low 60s and a low in the mid-30s. The extremes are what people remember, and October 25 has had both kinds.

Sources: Extreme Weather Watch: Denver October 25 records