The History Colorado Center – A New Canvas for Colorado's History

Ed Nichols, President and CEO of History Colorado, the Colorado Historical Society, and Colorado's State Historic Preservation Officer, joins City Club of Denver to share History Colorado's new focus for the future as the History Colorado Center is constructed at 12^th Avenue and Broadway in Denver.

Since its founding in 1879, this statewide organization has collected a wide variety of material evidence from the state's past. The extent of History Colorado’s collections is vast, documenting the social, cultural and economic life of the state with 250,000 accessioned artifacts; 750,000 historic photographs; 15 million documents; 22,000 books housed in the Stephen H. Hart Library; and 140,000 inventory files on historic buildings, structures and sites.

With the acquisition of 4,500 artifacts from the Mesa Verde area in 1889, History Colorado holds one of the most extensive collections of Ancient Puebloan artifacts from the region in the world, supported by extensive Plains Indian and Puebloan holdings. Artifacts and documents that shed insight into European exploration and settlement also are part of History Colorado’s collections, including such artifacts as Kit Carson's buckskin coat and William Henry Jackson's collection of 20,000 glass-plate negatives and prints, which famously documented the growth and transformation of the West. Manuscript collections reflect Colorado's commerce and trade, mining booms and agricultural expansion that opened up the region, as well as the development of railroads, ranching, and the establishment of cities and towns.

Mr. Nichols will shed some light into the transformation that is occurring with History Colorado, as well as share some tantalizing hints as to the type of upcoming exhibits and special events that the History Colorado Center plans to produce for the new History Colorado Center.

Ed Nichols' family first arrived in Colorado in the 1870s from New York and started the Cliff House Hotel in Manitou Springs. He graduated from Fountain Valley High School in Colorado Springs. He received a degree in Biology from Williams College, Williamstown, Mass., and an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, Evanston, Ill. He now resides in Denver with his wife Marguerite Upson Nichols. They have three children, Christopher, Anne and Chad.

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