The Stephen H. Hart Research Center provides access to the History Colorado Collection as well as research and reproduction services. The Research Center is open via appointment Wednesday through Saturday from 10am-3pm. Please visit the Research Center page for more information. Research Center staff are happy to help with virtual assistance at cosearch@state.co.us or by telephone 303-866-2305.
Since its founding, History Colorado has been collecting and preserving Colorado history. Among the most significant holdings in the permanent collection are the Colorado newspapers. With statewide reach and statewide representation, History Colorado’s newspapers include publications from each of the state’s 64 counties, preserving the extraordinary history of ordinary people and capturing history in the making.
History Colorado has been digitizing historic Colorado newspapers through the National Digital Newspaper Program since 2016. Nearly 200,000 pages of Colorado newspapers have been digitized--with much more to come--and are available on the Library of Congress’ Chronicling America database, a massive resource which contains over 17 million pages of historic US newspapers from the 18th century up to the 1960s, free and publicly accessible.
Here you’ll find a complete list of newspapers that have been digitized not only for Chronicling America, but also for the Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection (CHNC). History Colorado works closely with the Colorado State Library, providing access to titles in our microfilm to CHNC. This collection is freely accessible online and is a tremendous research tool for scholars, genealogists, students, and history enthusiasts alike. CHNC currently includes more than 1.9 million digitized pages, representing more than 475 individual newspaper titles published in Colorado from 1859 up to 2019.
In addition to links to the newspaper titles in both CHNC and Chronicling America, many titles here have a downloadable informational essay that brings the title to life through its publication history. Within any given issue, local newspapers give us a snapshot of life within a community. Take a walk through history as it happened as you explore History Colorado’s newspaper collection.
History Colorado’s responsibility as a museum organization includes rectifying, reconciling, and uplifting underrepresented stories, objects, people, and places. Some of the materials in our collection reflect positions, norms, and values that are no longer—or never were—consistent with those of History Colorado (formerly the Colorado Historical Society) or its staff. We do not endorse prejudiced, stereotyped, or offensive material in our collection and actively work to place those items in context and with interpretation from our communities, as they are an important resource in the study of past and contemporary cultures. For more about how History Colorado does this work, see the History Colorado Anti-Racism Grounding Virtues statement.
If you find inaccuracies or misrepresentations in any object records, please contact cosearch@state.co.us to help us better represent and access our collection.
State of Colorado Accessibility Statement
The State of Colorado is committed to providing equitable access to our services to all Coloradans.
Our Ongoing accessibility effort works towards being in line with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.1, levels A and AA criteria. These guidelines not only help make web content accessible to users with sensory, cognitive, and mobility disabilities but ultimately to all users, regardless of ability.
This website is just part of a meaningful change in making all State of Colorado services inclusive and accessible. We welcome comments on how to improve this website's accessibility for users with disabilities and for requests for accommodations to any State of Colorado services.
The State of Colorado is partnering with Aria to connect those who are blind of have low vision with highly trained visual interpreters to remove barriers when using digital services for free for up to 30 minutes per session. To learn more about Aria please visit, https://oit.colorado.gov/accessibility/aria
OIT_Accessibility@state.co.us