Indigenous History From 1050 to 1450, the area that is now Pueblo was first inhabited by
Paleo-Indians and
Archaic peoples, as well as people of the
Apishapa culture. By 1500, the
Ute hunter-gatherers inhabited the region, who hunted in the mountains during the summer and wintered in warmer areas, such as modern-day Pueblo, during the winter. In 1521,
Spain assumed control of the land, however, very little settlement or occupation ever occurred. By the time of the
17th century, the Ute acquired
horses from the Spanish allowing them to hunt
bison on the plains. The Ute bands of the Pueblo area were the
Tabaguache and the
Muache. Along the eastern Arkansas River, the Jicarilla Apache lived in villages and hunted bison, and grew corn, beans, and squash. During the middle of the 18th century, the
Comanche came through the middle of Colorado on horseback, claiming the Arkansas River valley and pushing up against the boundary of
New Spain. The Ute and Comanche formed an alliance, trading and raiding along modern-day Southern Colorado and Northern
New Mexico. In 1779 between modern-day Pueblo and Colorado City,
Juan Bautista de Anza invaded the area and killed the Comanche leader
Cuerno Verde. Despite the loss, the indigenous peoples continued to fight back against the Spanish, with the Comanche claiming swathes of land from Southeastern Colorado to
Texas. By the early 1800s, the Arapaho entered and claimed modern-day Pueblo as well, having a fierce rivalry with the Ute. The area was also frequented by the
Cheyenne and the
Pawnee. According to accounts of residents who traded at the plaza (including that of George Simpson), the
Fort Pueblo Massacre happened sometime between December 23 and 25, 1854, by a war party of
Utes and
Jicarilla Apaches under the leadership of Tierra Blanca, a Ute chief. They allegedly killed between fifteen and nineteen men, as well as captured two children and one woman. The trading post was abandoned after the raid.
Early development: railroads, steel, expansion, and orphanages In 1848, the United States acquired the Pueblo County area through the
Mexican Cession, ending the Mexican-American War. The Colorado Gold Rush began in 1858, springing interest in the area back up. Independence, a traveling camp opened on the east side of Fountain creek, later being named Fountain City once
Josiah Smith's prospecting party arrived in September. Pueblo as well as Fountain City were both
platted in 1860. The Pueblo, Kansas Territory, post office opened on December 13, 1860. Pueblo became the namesake of the county when the
Territory of Colorado was established by Congress in 1861. The consolidated city became a major economic and social center of Colorado, and was home to important early Colorado families such as the Thatchers, the
Ormans, and the Adams. By the early 1870s the city was being hailed as a beacon of development, with newspapers like the
Chicago Tribune boasting of how the region's lawless reputation was giving way to orderly agriculture with triumphalist rhetoric. One author crowed of Pueblo that "the necessity exists no longer for Sharp's rifles and revolvers. These have been [supplanted] by the plow and the mowing-machine." Pueblo's development stretched beyond agriculture. Steel emerged as a key industry very early, and in 1909 the city was considered the only steel town west of the Mississippi River. Until a series of major floods culminated in the Great Flood of 1921, Pueblo was considered the 'Saddle-Making capital of the World'. Roughly one-third of Pueblo's downtown businesses were lost in this flood, along with a substantial number of buildings. Pueblo struggled with this significant loss, but has had a resurgence in growth. Historically, many people were influenced by the orphanages of Pueblo, and the homes are now all historical sites. The three orphanages in Pueblo were known as Sacred Heart, Lincoln, and McClelland. Lincoln was the first historically black orphanage in Colorado, and one of only seven in the country. Sacred Heart was run by the Catholic Welfare Bureau, while McClelland was run by the Lutheran Church. Several children from Cuba were placed at Sacred Heart as part of "
Operation Pedro Pan". Though the orphanages in Pueblo are no longer in service, the buildings still exist and have transformed with the times. According to the
Rocky Mountain News, in 1988 the Sacred Heart Orphanage was bought by the Pueblo Housing Authority and turned into 40 small-family housing units. '' magazine (1921)
Steel mill The main industry in Pueblo for most of its history was the
Colorado Fuel and Iron (CF&I) Steel Mill on the south side of town. For nearly a century the CF&I was the largest employer in the state of Colorado. The steel-market crash of 1982 led to the decline of the company. After several bankruptcies, the company was acquired by
Oregon Steel Mills and changed its name to Rocky Mountain Steel Mills. The buyout, as well as the end of the union contract in 1997 led to a union strike over pension liabilities, as well as working conditions, wherein the union argued the new owners still needed to pay the pension liabilities provided by the previous owners. With the conclusion of the strike on December 30, 1997, CF&I had replaced several hundred union workers with local employees. In September 2004, both
United Steelworkers locals 2102 and 3267 won the strike and the unfair labor practice charges. All of the striking steel workers returned to their jobs, and the company paid them the back pay owed for the seven years they were on strike. In 2007, shortly after Oregon Steel made amends with the union and its workers,
Evraz Group, one of Russia's biggest steel producers, agreed to buy the company for $2.3 billion. Of the many production and fabrication mills that once existed on the site, only the steel production (electric furnaces, used for scrap recycling), rail, rod, bar, and seamless tube mills are still in operation. The wire mill was sold in the late 1990s to Davis Wire, which produced products such as fence and nails under the CF&I brand name. The facility operated blast furnaces until 1982, when the steel market collapsed. The main blast furnace structures were torn down in 1989 and the remaining ones in 1990. Several of the administration buildings, including the main office building, dispensary, and tunnel gatehouse were purchased in 2003 by the
Bessemer Historical Society. In 2006, they underwent renovation. In addition to housing the historic CF&I Archives, they also house the
Steelworks Museum of Industry and Culture.
"Melting Pot of the West" Due to the growth of the
CF&I steel mill and the employment that it offered, Pueblo in the early twentieth century attracted a large number of immigrant laborers. The groups represented led to Pueblo becoming the most ethnically and culturally diverse city in Colorado and the West. At one point, more than 40 languages were spoken in the steel mill and more than two-dozen foreign language newspapers were published in the city.
Irish,
Italian,
German,
Slovenian,
Greek,
Jewish,
Lithuanian,
Russian,
Hungarian,
Japanese, and
African-American groups arrived in the area at the turn of the century and remain to the present time. The convergence of cultures led to a cosmopolitan character to the city that resulted in a number of ethnically rooted neighborhoods that are typically not seen west of the Mississippi. Respective cultural groups maintain cultural festivals to the present, with the city being home to locations of the
Order Sons of Italy,
American Slovenian Catholic Union, and
I.O.O.F., among others.
Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo Another major employer in Pueblo is Colorado State Hospital. The hospital is the preeminent mental health facility in the Rocky Mountain region. Established in 1879 as the Colorado State Insane Asylum, it was renamed as the Colorado State Hospital in 1917. In 1991, the name was changed to the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo (CMHIP). The Robert L. Hawkins High Security Forensic Institute opened in June 2009 and is a 200-bed, high-security facility.
Home of Heroes Pueblo is the hometown of four
Medal of Honor recipients (tied only with
Holland, Michigan, also with four, each having more than any other municipality in the United States):
William J. Crawford,
Carl L. Sitter,
Raymond G. Murphy, and
Drew D. Dix. President
Dwight D. Eisenhower, upon presenting Raymond G. "Jerry" Murphy with his medal in 1953, commented, "What is it... something in the water out there in Pueblo? All you guys turn out to be heroes!" In 1993, Pueblo City Council adopted the tagline "Home of Heroes" for the city due to the fact that Pueblo can claim more recipients of the Medal per capita than any other city in the United States. On July 1, 1993, the
Congressional Record recognized Pueblo as the "Home of Heroes." A memorial to the recipients of the medal is at the Pueblo Convention Center. From 1846 to 1847, three detachments of the
Mormon Battalion wintered in Pueblo during the
Mexican–American War. ==Geography==