Broomcorn Express

BY DAVID R. FEINEMAN
TREASURER, BROOMFIELD HISTORICAL SOCIETY

The state of Colorado will celebrate its 150th anniversary, also referred to as a sesquicentennial, on August 1, 2026. If you are a comparative newcomer to Colorado, you might not know that the state actually has two official state songs: “Rocky Mountain High,” by John Denver which you probably already know was adopted in 2007, and an earlier song called “Where the Columbines Grow,” by A.J. Flynn, which you may not know was adopted in 1915.

In advance of the upcoming Colorado Day celebrations, you might want to create a playlist of Colorado music to get you in in the mood. As it turns out, some of the research has already been done for you. The Southwest Colorado Local Organizing Committee of America 250-Colorado 150 created a free toolkit called “Sing Colorado!” specifically for anyone who wants to review the diversity of music with a Colorado connection.

In the online Sing Colorado! toolkit is a Spotify playlist curated especially for Colorado music—sample programs offered as guidance, in whole or in part, to use for 2026 commemoration performances, creative curriculum ideas, a musical database,  and history notes on musical pieces.

The full Colorado Spotify list is in the April – June 2026 issue of the Broomcorn Express.

You should be aware that their list includes songs not just about Colorado, but also pieces written or performed by Colorado artists. You’ll also see that sometimes the list has the same song performed by different artists. Nevertheless, I suspect most people may never have heard many of these versions. Obviously, it is not an exhaustive list; how they left out classics like Poco’s “A Good Feelin’ to Know” and “Rocky Mountain Breakdown,” Pure Prairie League’s “Boulder Skies,” or even Warren Zevon’s “Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead” is a mystery to me. 

What About the 250th US Anniversary?

There are also curated playlists of songs for our upcoming national celebration. As you might expect, these vary quite a bit in their focus and contents, but a good starting point might be one created by NPR. Its focus is on the themes of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and features artists like Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, Aretha Franklin, and Paul Simon. 

You can find that Spotify playlist at:

https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/6TGUa6G72cWzHswqSJ6vxb?utm_source=generator

What has music got to do with our history?

If you made it this far, you might be wondering if this article even belongs in the Broomcorn Express. But history has had a deep relationship with the music and its popularity. Songs like “Yankee Doodle” were popular with soldiers marching off to fight in the Revolutionary War, and even during the dark days of the Great Depression, people were singing “Happy Days Are Here Again.”¹ Music can freeze perceptions of topics like social and political change, environmental awareness, struggles about racism, and desires for freedom that can be immediately brought back into focus through songs in an emotionally stirring way that may eclipse what we can do by simply writing about history. So assembling and hearing songs about and by Coloradoans can add another dimension to our thinking about where we have been and how we got to this place and time.

You can find scholarly articles that try to look at how music can aid in understanding historical events as a primary source of information, a record of change over time, and alternative narratives. We need to consider music as just another source of information about our history that may need critical evaluation to understand if it over-romanticizes the past or produces a distorted narrative of events.² The US 250 playlist clearly tries to examine diverse concepts covering themes of freedom, struggle, and cultural diversity throughout the country’s history. Regardless, music (including the mostly pop music in the list) used in conjunction with our historical commemorations is a way to make history more accessible by people today, particularly with respect to events that may have occurred before they were born.

You might not have previously considered music to be a historical source. Music has the power to preserve memory, shape narratives, and connect audiences emotionally to the past while encouraging thoughtful, critical listening.  Hopefully this article will make it easier for you to explore how music and Colorado history connect with each other in a year of historic celebrations.

Endnotes

1. “The Music and History of Our Times | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History,” n.d. https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-now/journals/music-and-history-our-times.

2. Active History. “Music as a Gateway to Understanding Historical Practice,” January 15, 2012. https://activehistory.ca/blog/2012/01/16/music-as-a-gateway-to-understanding-historical-practice/.

BY DAVID R. FEINEMAN
TREASURER, BROOMFIELD HISTORICAL SOCIETY

If you have ever seen an ARC Thrift Store commercial, you’ve heard that Colorado has “the coolest state flag,” which is obviously something of a subjective opinion. Research might show that there is little consensus on the topic, with one source having our flag assigned to #6 coolest, with New Mexico in first place [1]. The article did explain that their criteria for ranking was based on three factors: visual appeal, symbolism, and historical context. The authors recognized the high standard of both clean design and symbolism used in the selection of colors in the Colorado flag. 

Colorado Day is coming up on August 1, and this would be a good day to think about flying the Colorado flag at your house. Officially, you have the right to fly the state flag whenever you think it is fitting and appropriate because the bill that made it the official state flag says that it belongs to the people of the state of Colorado. But what do we know about the history of the flag itself?

Flags Over Colorado

The Colorado state archives provides a list of the previous assertions of ownership of the land currently within the borders of the state.  By their list, an argument could be made that eight different flags could have been flown over Colorado before acceptance of the current one as the official state flag [2].

As with so many things, there appears to be a lot of online misinformation about the current flag, but you can find a definitive history in the Denver Public Library special collections and archives [3] Here is some of the information available:

• Work on the flag was initiated at a meeting of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) in November, 1910. The group thought it was a travesty that Colorado didn’t have a state flag. They were unaware that one had already existed since 1907!

• By December 1910 the DAR had come up with a proposed flag design, which revived interest in updating the official state flag. Unfortunately, their  specific proposed design was not well liked.

• Andrew Carlisle Carson submitted a new design that consisted of two horizontal stripes of Yale Blue, with one white stripe (all of equal width) between, and a large red “C” with a gold center at the end near the pole.

• On April 25, 1911, the Colorado State Senate passed Bill No. 118 making that new design the official state flag.

• By 1929, it became apparent that there was a problem with the flag design because the required shades of red and blue weren’t defined in the 1911 bill.

• In 1964, the design specification was changed again to clarify the placement of the “C” and the relative sizes of each element.

The Symbolism of the Flag

On a symbolic level, the colors were chosen for their specific relevance to the state—the blue to represent the sky, the white for our snowcapped mountains, and the red for the color of the land. Some say the gold C represents sunshine, while others note that gold mining was an important industry early in the state’s history.

The letter C can obviously be interpreted as an abbreviation of Colorado, but it can also represent “Centennial,” (the year of our statehood), or our state flower, the columbine.

Summary

The history of the Colorado state flag is worth caring about because it reveals how Coloradans deliberately created a lasting symbol of the state’s landscape, heritage, and identity—making the flag more than just a design, but also a meaningful expression of Colorado itself and all of us.

Endnotes

1.Swanson, Ned. “US State Flags Ranked: Which State Has the Coolest Flag?” Action Flag, July 19, 2025. https://actionflag.com/blogs/american-flag-insights-and-updates-from-action-flag/us-state-flags-ranked-which-state-has-the-coolest-flag?srsltid=AfmBOooQn9IdxXDJAndn00R0IqQ5v6I-Rd2fbMZ5NmdlnDb_OOuohQ92.

2.“State Flag | Colorado State Archives,” https://archives.colorado.gov/collections/symbols-emblems/state-flag.

3.“The Untold Story Behind Colorado’s Iconic State Flag | Denver Public Library Special Collections and Archives,” n.d. https://history.denverlibrary.org/news/western-history/untold-story-behind-colorados-iconic-state-flag.