Colorado history

Tuesday, November 3, 2026

November 3 is the day Colorado finally got a real governor, the day a 1946 snowstorm decided it was not finished, and the day a ballot measure later called the Hate State into existence.

John Long Routt is inaugurated as Colorado’s first state governor and addresses the first General Assembly

1876 · Denver

Three months after statehood and a month after the election, Routt takes the oath, delivers his message, and begins the job of running an actual state instead of a territory that still answered to Washington.

Colorado became the 38th state on August 1, 1876, when President Grant signed the proclamation. The election that chose its first governor happened on October 3. But the formal start of state government under an elected executive waited until November 3, when John Long Routt was inaugurated and spoke to the first General Assembly.

Routt had already been the territorial governor, appointed by Grant in 1875. He won the new state’s first gubernatorial election by a narrow margin over Bela Hughes, 14,154 to 13,316. He did not make public speeches during the campaign. The job still required one once he was sworn in. His message that day covered the usual territory: land, schools, the penitentiary, the unfinished business of becoming a grown-up state. He also pushed women’s suffrage, with steady encouragement from his wife Eliza, who was already a figure in the movement.

The state had been on paper for three months. On November 3 it finally had a governor who could be held responsible by the people who elected him rather than by a president two thousand miles away. Routt would serve until 1879, return for a second term in the 1890s, and also spend two years as mayor of Denver. Routt County still carries the name. The building where he stood is gone. The idea that Colorado runs its own affairs is not.

It took three months after the flag went up for the oath to happen. Denver has always been willing to celebrate first and finish the paperwork later.

Sources: Wikipedia: John Long Routt · Colorado Encyclopedia · Colorado State Archives · 1876 Colorado gubernatorial election

The 1946 snowstorm is still falling on November 3, adding another 8.6 inches

1946 · Denver / Stapleton

After 14.3 inches on the 2nd, the storm drops another 8.6 on the 3rd. The high is 27°F. By the time it ends on the 5th the city will be under two and a half feet.

The snow that started at 4:22 a.m. on November 2 did not take a day off. On the 3rd it put down another 8.6 inches downtown. The high temperature managed 27 degrees. Most of the 30.4-inch total that would eventually be measured in the city arrived across the 2nd and 3rd; the 17.7 inches in that 24-hour window remains the greatest November daily snowfall on the books.

Schools were already closed. Streetcars were already struggling. Cars already sat abandoned. On the 3rd the city simply stayed buried while the sky kept writing the same sentence. Livestock losses continued on the plains. Secondary roads stayed closed. A few more roofs considered their structural choices. The continuous precipitation would not stop until early on the 5th, after 70 hours and 46 minutes.

November 3 has also been warm. The record high is 79°F in 2020. The record low is 4°F in 1936. On this particular November 3 the thermometer chose the snowy option and stuck with it. Denver has never needed much encouragement to make a point about the weather. In 1946 it made the point for three straight days and then took a week to clean up.

The leaves that were still on the trees on the 1st did not survive the week. Neither did anyone’s plans.

Sources: Thornton Weather / NWS history · Extreme Weather Watch · Denver Post on historic snowstorms

Colorado voters pass Amendment 2, the measure later struck down in Romer v. Evans

1992 · Colorado

On the same day Bill Clinton wins the presidency, Colorado approves Amendment 2 by 53 to 47 percent. The measure bans local anti-discrimination protections based on sexual orientation. The U.S. Supreme Court will overturn it in 1996.

November 3, 1992, was Election Day. Coloradans voted for president and for a dozen ballot measures. One of them, Amendment 2, asked whether the state constitution should forbid any law or policy that treated homosexual, lesbian, or bisexual orientation as the basis for minority status, protected status, or a claim of discrimination. It passed 813,966 to 710,151.

The amendment was written by Colorado for Family Values after Aspen, Boulder, and Denver had adopted local anti-discrimination ordinances. Supporters called those ordinances special rights. Opponents called the amendment a license to discriminate. Within hours of the results, protests began. Boycotts followed. Conventions canceled. The state earned the nickname the Hate State. Governor Roy Romer was pulled out of bed to help keep the streets calm.

The legal fight went to the U.S. Supreme Court as Romer v. Evans. In 1996 the Court ruled 6–3 that Amendment 2 violated the Equal Protection Clause. Justice Kennedy wrote that the measure imposed a broad disability on a single named group and seemed explicable only by animus. The amendment never took lasting effect.

The same ballot also passed TABOR, the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, which still shapes Colorado budgets. Amendment 2 is the one that left the louder scar and the clearer court opinion. Colorado has spent the decades since arguing about both.

Sources: Wikipedia: 1992 Colorado Amendment 2 · Colorado Encyclopedia · Ballotpedia · KUNC on the Hate State