President Ulysses S. Grant signed the proclamation admitting Colorado as the 38th state, capping a decade-long push driven by the silver and gold rushes that had swelled its population. The territory's admission came exactly 100 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, earning it the enduring nickname "the Centennial State."
Colorado's path to statehood had been contentious. An earlier attempt at admission in 1866 was vetoed by President Andrew Johnson, partly over disputes about the territory's constitution and partly due to the political turbulence of Reconstruction. By the 1870s, however, mining wealth from Denver and the mountain towns had transformed Colorado into a place Congress could no longer ignore.
The timing was no accident. Boosters and politicians deliberately timed the admission to coincide with the nation's centennial year, giving the new state built-in symbolic weight. Grant's signature made it official without fanfare, but the moniker stuck immediately in newspapers nationwide.
Colorado's flag today still carries a red "C" for Centennial, a quiet daily reminder of this deliberate historical branding — a state that entered the Union wrapped in the same patriotic bunting as the nation's 100th birthday party.