History Colorado Center

The State History Museum Of Colorado, Opened In 2012 And Run By A Society Founded In 1879. Best Known For The Great Map A Vast Terrazzo Floor Map Of The State That Visitors Walk Across And For Closing Its Own Sand Creek Exhibit After Tribal Objection And Rebuilding It In Consultation. · Denver, Colorado

The state history museum opened on Broadway in 2012, and the thing everyone remembers is the floor. The Great Map is a terrazzo map of Colorado laid across the atrium that you walk over, with wheeled 'time machines' you push across it that trigger stories where they stop - a mining town, a dust-bowl farm, a ski jump. Upstairs are Keota, a plains town the dust bowl emptied, and Living West, which puts Mesa Verde, the dust bowl and the mountains in one argument about water and survival. The museum's most significant moment was less comfortable: its Sand Creek Massacre exhibit was closed in 2013 after the Cheyenne and Arapaho objected that it had been built without proper consultation, and it was rebuilt with them. Few museums correct themselves that publicly, and the rebuilt gallery is the most important thing in the building. For anyone new to Colorado this is also the best first stop in the state: an hour here makes the mining towns, the plains and the ski valleys legible.

1200 Broadway, Denver, Colorado, 80203, United States

Open most days year-round during daytime hours, typically closed one weekday and on major holidays. Admission is charged and is modest, with reduced rates for children, students and seniors. Special exhibitions may carry a surcharge. Parking is in a paid garage beneath and around the building, shared with the Civic Center district, and the museum is a short walk from the Capitol, the Denver Art Museum and the Clyfford Still Museum.

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