Sunday, November 1, 2026

Colorado's first territorial legislature draws the map: 17 counties, with Denver the seat of Arapahoe

1861 · Colorado Territory

On November 1, 1861, Colorado's first territorial legislature created the territory's original 17 counties. Arapahoe County, which then stretched east to the Kansas line, got Denver City as its county seat.

Congress created Colorado Territory in February 1861, and the first territorial legislature met that fall. One of its first big jobs was dividing up the map. On November 1, 1861, it created 17 counties: Arapahoe, Boulder, Clear Creek, Costilla, Douglas, El Paso, Fremont, Gilpin, Guadalupe, Huerfano, Jefferson, Lake, Larimer, Park, Pueblo, Summit and Weld.

Arapahoe County was enormous, a strip running from the mountains east across the plains to the Kansas border, and Denver City was its seat. The name was not new. Kansas Territory and the unofficial Jefferson Territory had both used it for counties around the gold camps. This time it stuck.

The map started changing almost immediately. Guadalupe County was renamed Conejos within a week, and over the next half century the original 17 were split again and again. Arapahoe lost Denver in 1902, when the City and County of Denver became its own county, an arrangement that still sets Denver apart from every other city in Colorado.

Colorado has 64 counties today. The first 17 are where all of them started.

Sources: Wikipedia: Arapahoe County, Kansas Territory (1861 county history) · COGenWeb: Colorado county divisions · Colorado State Archives: Colorado history

Denver takes over its own water system

1918 · Denver

On November 1, 1918, Denver's new Board of Water Commissioners took over the city's water system from the private Denver Union Water Company, paying nearly $14 million raised through bonds. The board is still in charge as Denver Water.

For most of its first 60 years, Denver bought its water from private companies, and the arrangement was a running fight over rates, service and franchise terms. In August 1918 the city's voters settled it, approving bonds to buy the Denver Union Water Company and a five-member, nonpartisan Board of Water Commissioners to run it, at arm's length from City Hall.

The handover came on November 1, 1918. The new board took over operations and paid the company nearly $14 million.

The independent board is the reason Denver Water looks the way it does today: it built the reservoirs and tunnels that bring Western Slope water under the Continental Divide, including Dillon Reservoir, and it still answers to its own commissioners. The deal closed ten days before the end of World War I, in the middle of the 1918 flu pandemic, and the system it bought has served the city ever since.

Sources: Denver Water: history · Colorado Water Conservation Board document (1918 purchase) · Wikipedia: Denver Water

November 1 weather extremes: 78 degrees or 1

Denver

Denver's record high for November 1 is 78°F, from 1988. The record low is 1°F, from 1951, when the afternoon high only reached 23°F. The snowiest November 1 brought 6.5 inches, in 1972.

November 1 has been both a fine fall afternoon and the first real day of winter in Denver. The warmest on record came in 1988, at 78°F. The coldest came in 1951, when the low fell to 1°F and the high never got above 23°F, both still records for the date. That 1951 storm also left 4.2 inches of snow.

The snowiest November 1 was in 1972, with 6.5 inches. On average the date sees a high in the upper 50s and a low around 30, with only about a one-in-nine chance of snow.

November usually starts gently. Every few decades it reminds Denver what month it is.

Sources: Extreme Weather Watch: Denver November 1 records