Sprawling Piedmont cities, ghost towns on the plains, earth-toned placitas set against the Sangre de Cristo
Mountains, mining camps transformed into ski resorts--these are some of the diverse regions in Colorado explored
in this fascinating book. Historical geographer William Wyckoff traces the evolution of the state during its formative
years from 1860 to 1940, chronicling its changing cultural landscapes, social communities, and connections to a
larger America and showing that Colorado has exemplified the unfolding of a complex western environment.
Wyckoff discusses how nature, capitalism, a growing federal political presence, and national cultural influences
came together to produce a new human geography in Colorado. He explains the ways in which the state's distinctive
settlement geographies each took on a special character that persists to the present. He leads the reader through
the transformation of the state from wilderness to a distinct region capable of accommodating the diverse needs
of ranchers, miners, merchants, farmers, and city dwellers. And he describes how a state created out of cartographic
necessity has been given uniqueness and meaning by the people who live there.