From time to time, I have commented in these pages on songs that pertain to Colorado – songs like “Get Out of Denver” and “Colorado Christmas” and “On the Natural.”  As you know, there are hundreds of songs written and recorded about our state, and seemingly hundreds of people have compiled lists of the best or worst of those songs.  I have decided to join them, and spend the next several weeks looking at what I consider some of the quintessential Colorado Songs.  This post is the first installment, and I will begin with “Colorado Trail.”

Some of you may know the Colorado Trail as a 486 mile long hiking trail extending from Denver to Durango, at average elevation of over 10,000 feet; but that wasn’t completed

Major cattle trails

until 1987, and this song is much older.  It seems that the trail referred to in the song was a spur of the Great Western Trail that ran from near San Antonio, Texas to Ogallala, Nebraska, and which ran roughly parallel to the more famous Chisolm Trail.  The Colorado Trail was not well known or much used, but it extended all the way to Montana.  All of these trails were used to move cattle to towns located on major rail lines, and all fell into disuse as railroads expanded their service into cattle country. The Chicago Burlington and Quincy Railroad (C.B.&Q.R.R.) essentially followed the Colorado Trail as it brought rail service to Greeley and Northeastern Colorado in 1887.

An interesting thing about this song is that its composers are usually listed as Carl Sandburg and Lee Hays.  Today, we think of Carl Sandburg as the biographer of Abraham Lincoln and the poet who gave us “Chicago” as the “hog butcher for the world.”  However, long before he ever published any book, Sandburg was a traveling salesman and political organizer who traveled across much of the country.  Somewhere around 1910, he acquired a guitar and found that he could attract larger crowds by singing folk songs in addition to reciting poetry and plying his wares. Continue reading →