The Visits — A snapshot of presidential visits to Colorado
From campaigns stops to short detours, presidents have an interesting history with the region.
by Kristin Otts with additions from Kara Mason
U.S. presidents have good reason to visit Southern Colorado. In recent history it has been primarily Democrats visiting Pueblo, a city familiar with blue collar worker issues and unions. Since 2008, Pueblo has been a must on lists of campaign stops among Democrats and Republicans.
But a historical look at why presidents have found themselves in Colorado, and particularly the southern region is interesting. Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke as he passed through. John F. Kennedy came to support a major water project — something that would be unheard of today.
A list of presidential visits to Southern Colorado, and a few other gems, too:
Trump’s Pitch to the Steel City
Donald Trump visited Pueblo once during his campaign. While many thought it was an unlikely stop, Trump stayed on message, which eventually won him the presidency: returning jobs to middle America. Manufacturing jobs, a major driver in Pueblo’s economy, was the reason the now-president stopped in Pueblo.
Trump also made stops in the Denver area, Grand Junction and Colorado Springs during his campaign.
The Obama State
Barack Obama spent a grand total of more than two weeks in Colorado throughout his eight years in the White House. Of the most memorable is his 2008 visit to Pueblo, when Union Ave. was packed with supporters. In 2012 the then-Commander in Chief stopped by Romero’s Cafe while on a campaign stop in the Steel City.
Calling All 90s Kids
The past decade has been a throwback to the nineties, as Colorado was visited by both the Bush and Clinton families several times.
President Bill Clinton has a long history with Pueblo. In Hillary Clinton’s last stop to Pueblo during the 2016 campaign, she said her and Bill love Pueblo and talk about it all the time since first visiting in 1992. During hte 2016 campaign, Bill Clinton stumped for Hillary Clinton at two different events.
He also came to Colorado with Michelle Obama in 2010 to campaign for Senator Michael Bennet. He returned to Denver two years later to participate in a conference at the Bellco Theatre in December of 2012.
Hotel Colorado
Opened in 1893, the Hotel Colorado in Glenwood Springs catered to the rich and famous of the day, with fountains, waterfalls, and an enormous pool where guests could fish for trout. Later, during the 1920s, the hotel became something of a hideout for local gangsters.
Hotel Colorado, located on the Western Slope, also played host to many former US Presidents (and several ghosts–but that’s another article for another day). Most famously, Theodore Roosevelt stayed at the hotel in 1905 for three weeks, during a hunting trip. Legend has it that this hotel is where the America’s favorite toy, the teddy bear, was named after our 26th President. When Roosevelt killed a bear on his hunting expedition, his daughter christened it Teddy. The name later became attributed to a stuffed toy the hotel maids had made for Roosevelt; and so the teddy bear was born.
In 1909, President William Taft visited the hotel, but declined use of the hot springs because “I’ve found it’s much better for a man of my size not to bathe in public.”
1939 saw President Herbert Hoover visit for just an afternoon, as he held a luncheon in the courtyard.
Pueblo Almost Kills President Wilson
Okay, so maybe Pueblo did not almost kill Woodrow Wilson. But, he did suffer a stroke as a result of his trip to the city. After his time in Paris for the Peace Conference in 1919, he returned to the US for a grueling 8,000-mile tour in 22 days. The tour was meant to garner support for both the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations, which Wilson created earlier in the year. The stress of the cross-country trip finally caused Wilson to collapse in exhaustion in Pueblo on September 25th. He made it back to Washington just before suffering a near-fatal stroke on October 2nd.
Wilson recovered from the stroke, but died just five years later in 1924.
Roosevelt takes on Southern Colorado’s Gorge
Theodore Roosevelt visited Pueblo and the Royal Gorge during his time in office. In 1912, Roosevelt addressed Pueblo as part of his Western Tour:
Theodore Roosevelt visiting the Royal Gorge:
Another Roosevelt Visit
Franklin Delano Roosevelt first came to Pueblo in 1936. Two years later in a speech in Pueblo, Roosevelt cited a newspaper article that said it was the first time in twenty years that a President had visited Pueblo.
“I must have been dreaming about my 1936 trip to Pueblo, or else I was not President at that time,” he quipped.
During his speech, Roosevelt talked about the Arkansas River: “The average person on the Eastern Seaboard thinks of the Arkansas as some kind of a little creek that grows in Arkansas and drops down with a lot of floods into the Mississippi. And when I tell them that the Arkansas River starts way west of Pueblo, Colorado… then they go and get their geography books to verify what I said.”
FDR also visited the Royal Gorge quite frequently, by his 1938 speech in Pueblo he had been three or four times, and added that if more people could and travel the US there would be less political divide: “If we could get everybody in the United States to travel all around the United States, we would eliminate in large part our political differences. We would get to know each other better.”
JFK talks water in Pueblo
John F. Kennedy visited Colorado several times–first Denver, in 1960, to campaign for his election and Pueblo in 1962, to celebrate the Fryingpan-Arkansas Reclamation Project. This huge endeavor redirected water from the Western Slope to the Colorado Springs and Pueblo areas. Although the project was, and is, highly controversial, President Kennedy praised the project, claiming that the country would continue to need such projects in order to provide for the growing population of America.
Originally published at pueblopulp.com on February 4, 2014.
