Colorado’s biggest stories of the past decade – The Denver Post

A noted Greek philosopher once said, “Change is the only constant in life,” and the past decade certainly delivered.

Colorado watched as the state’s population exploded, marijuana became legal, a beloved sports icon died and gay marriage became the norm. The state grieved over mass shootings and celebrated a Super Bowl.

And on the eve of a new decade, we can only imagine what’s next.

With that in mind, here’s a look back at some of the decade’s biggest news stories, as selected by the editors of The Denver Post:

Explosive growth and development

Colorado added nearly 800,000 people to its population over the decade, pushing it from under 5 million to above 5.7 million. The bulk of that gain came from people relocating to the state, rather than births, which are decreasing. Most newcomers settled in metro Denver and in a narrow band of counties from Larimer and Weld to the north to El Paso and Elbert in the south.

The construction industry, devastated in the housing crash the previous decade, has struggled to keep pace, and median home prices in metro Denver have doubled, one of the biggest gains in the nation. As Denver-area homes became less affordable, buyers moved up and down Interstate 25, making Fort Collins and Colorado Springs some of the hottest housing markets in the country.

In Denver, developers snapped up land and scraped off old homes and buildings to make room for luxury apartment buildings and row homes. Many long-time residents of Denver’s older and poorer neighborhoods have been dislocated, contributing to concerns about gentrification that weighed heavily in the last city election.

— Aldo Svaldi

Aurora theater shooting

Colorado remembers their names: Jonathan Blunk, A.J. Boik, Jesse Childress, Gordon Cowden, Jessica Ghawi, John Thomas Larimer, Matt McQuinn, Micayla Medek, Veronica Moser-Sullivan, Alex Matthew Sullivan, Alex Teves and Rebecca Ann Wingo.

Those are the 12 people killed on July 20, 2012, when a gunman opened fire in a crowded movie theater during a midnight screening of the Batman movie “The Dark Knight Rises.” Another 70 people were wounded in the killing spree that happened in a decade that witnessed some of the deadliest mass shootings in modern U.S. history.

A jury found the killer guilty of murder in 2015, but spared him from the death penalty.

The shooting would have significant political ramifications in Colorado. State lawmakers passed a ban on large-capacity ammunition magazines and approved mandatory background checks for private and online gun sales. Those laws continue to be controversial and challenged by gun rights groups. Tom Sullivan, the father of Alex Sullivan, who was killed inside the theater, was elected in 2018 to the Colorado House of Representatives.

— Noelle Phillips

Advancements in equality

Hours after the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Utah’s ban on gay marriage in June 2014, Boulder County Clerk and Recorder Hillary Hall began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in defiance of then-Colorado Attorney General John Suthers. Suthers failed to stop Hall, and pretty soon, Denver and Pueblo counties began issuing licenses to same-sex couples.

In July 2014, the Colorado Supreme Court ordered Boulder County to stop issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. But by October of that year, the state high court legalized gay marriage across Colorado — and the U.S. Supreme Court followed suit in 2015.

RELATED: The Denver Post’s best long reads of 2019 that are worth your time

Same-sex marriage became part of the normal fabric of the community. In 2018, Coloradans elected Jared Polis, the country’s first openly gay governor, and welcomed First Gentleman Marlon Reis into the governor’s mansion.

The fight over a balance between LGBTQ rights and religious freedoms dragged on. In 2012, Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips refused to bake a wedding cake for Charlie Craig and David Mullins. The couple sued, and the case eventually went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in Phillips’ favor, saying the Colorado Civil Rights Commission failed to act as a neutral party in the dispute.

— Noelle Phillips

Marijuana legalization

Stoners everywhere celebrated in 2012 when Colorado voters blazed the trail for legal recreational marijuana. Colorado not only became the first state to legalize pot, but it became the only place in the world with such a liberal policy on pot sales.

Since Amendment 64 passed in 2012, Colorado businesses have sold more than $6 billion worth of weed and related products, and the state has collected more than $1 billion in tax revenue.

Thirty-three states and the District of Columbia have followed Colorado’s lead.

Being a trailblazer, though, means being the first to encounter big questions: Just how much THC should be in one serving of an edible; how should pesticides be regulated; does legal weed mean a spike in traffic deaths; where can businesses deposit their money. Meanwhile, the federal government still says marijuana is illegal.

— Noelle Phillips

Transportation growing pains

With the addition of nearly 800,000 newcomers to the state, government planners had to figure out a way to keep them moving. Officials turned to rail, toll roads and more airport gates to alleviate congestion, and they found controversy at almost every turn.

An express toll lane on U.S. 36 opened in March 2016 between Denver and Boulder, and a toll lane is under construction on a heavily traveled stretch of Interstate 25 just south of Castle Rock known as The Gap.

Federal, state and local officials broke ground in January on a $1.2 billion, 10-mile Interstate 70 upgrade through Denver that will build new bridges, add lanes and adjust the interstate’s path by eliminating a two-mile viaduct between Colorado and Brighton boulevards. The project was opposed by residents in the Globeville and Elyria-Swansea neighborhoods, who worried about pollution, noise and ultimately gentrification of their neighborhoods once the project is complete.

Denver International Airport announced two projects: It will add 39 gates at a cost of $1.5 billion and it will expand its terminal in a project that will exceed $650 million. The terminal project has overrun its projected cost amid a fight with the original lead contractor, a lengthy delay and the selection of a new company to lead the construction.

Finally, RTD expanded its train lines, opening the University of Colorado A-Line’s 23-mile route in April 2016 that connects downtown Denver to DIA. The G-Line was overdue when it finally started running in April between Denver, Adams County, Arvada and Wheat Ridge. The starts were less than perfect, with construction overruns, problems with gate crossings and delays that frustrated travelers.

— Noelle Phillips

Oil and gas regulation

While Colorado’s economy chugged along, the oil and gas industry remained a critical, albeit controversial, piece of the pie. Whether it was an up-and-down oil market, fracking in neighborhoods or defining the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission’s mission, the industry dominated business news.

By the end of the decade, natural resources and mining represented $13.1 billion of the state’s gross domestic product and made up 1% of the state’s jobs. In the past decade, crude oil production topped $10 billion at its peak in 2017, up from $2.3 billion in 2010. Natural gas production ended the decade just below $5 billion, down from almost $7 billion in 2010, according to the 2020 Colorado Business Economic Outlook produced by the University of Colorado Boulder’s Leeds School of Business.

But Coloradans grappled with the health, environmental and public safety impacts of natural gas extraction and drilling.

Earlier this year, Colorado officials announced their intention to toughen oversight after a scientific study found operations could expose people to unhealthy levels of benzene and other chemicals. In 2017, a fatal home explosion in Firestone killed two people and injured another because gas was seeping through a cut-off underground pipeline into the house. That incident forced an audit of  A 2016 Denver Post investigation found that at least 51 oil and gas workers were killed on the job between 2003 and 2014, amid lax industry oversight.

— Noelle Phillips

Women in sports

From Olympic podiums in Canada, Brazil and Russia to the wrestling mats at Denver’s Pepsi Center, Colorado’s female athletes pushed the boundaries of excellence.

The world watched Vail’s Lindsey Vonn became one of Alpine skiing’s all-time greats, while fellow skier Mikaela Shiffrin became the youngest slalom champion in the sport’s history.

Domination didn’t end on the slopes. Centennial’s Missy Franklin set world records in the pool, Golden’s Lindsey Horan took home the National Women’s Soccer League MVP trophy, and she and Littleton’s Mallory Pugh helped the U.S. women’s national soccer team win the 2019 FIFA World Cup. Boulder middle-distance runners Jenny Simpson and Emma Coburn pushed the U.S. women’s track and field team to new heights in the Olympic games.

As veterans like Vonn retire, the next generation of Colorado stars are ready to shine. Regis Jesuit’s Fran Belibi dazzled the nation with one-handed power dunks on the basketball court while Valley High School’s Angel Rios and Skyview High School’s Jasslyn Gallegos shattered wrestling’s glass ceiling.

— Sam Tabachnik

Devastating wildfires

Colorado’s renowned forests are a statewide treasure that can all too quickly turn to kindling. And as the state’s climate shifts toward greater aridity, the decade has seen some of Colorado’s most devastating fires, which consumed lives, homes and natural habitats. 

In June 2013, the Black Forest wildfire in Colorado Springs became the most destructive fire in Colorado history, scorching 14,280 acres, burning 489 homes and killing two people. The blaze caused an estimated $420.5 million in property destruction. 

The state’s second-most destructive fire, the Waldo Canyon fire, came a year earlier, killing two people and wiping out 347 Colorado Springs homes. And the decade opened with the Fourmile Canyon fire in Boulder County, which destroyed 169 homes in 2010 — and that, too, was the state’s most destructive fire at the time.

Then in the summer of 2018, the Spring Creek Fire ravaged more than 108,000 acres of Costilla and Huerfano counties, and a coal-fired train operated by a historical railroad started the 416 wildfire that burned more than 50,000 acres north of Durango.

Experts blamed extreme drought conditions for making 2018 one of the most destructive fire seasons in the state’s history, but 2019 was much milder thanks to large amounts of snow in the mountains.

— Elizabeth Hernandez

The Broncos and the Bowlens

On Feb. 7, 2016, minutes after the Denver Broncos defeated the Carolina Panthers to win the team’s third Super Bowl, president and general manager John Elway grabbed the Lombardi trophy and declared, “This one’s for Pat.”

The touching tribute was an ode to owner Pat Bowlen, who in 2014 gave up day-to-day control of the team because of his Alzheimer’s disease. Although he wasn’t able to be in the stands to see his team win Super Bowl 50, “Mr. B” was omnipresent, the guiding presence for four decades of team success.

But as Bowlen disappeared from public eye, the team struggled to regain its championship glory. Since Peyton Manning’s retirement, the Broncos have missed the playoffs four consecutive years and finished the last three season with losing records.

On June 13, Bowlen died at the age of 75. Team ownership remains a question as the Bowlen family engages in a bitter, public battle for control. A three-person board of trustees oversees the team, and will pick Bowlen’s successor. And as the decade comes to a close, there is no sign that any of Bowlen’s children has a clear path to succeed their father.

— Sam Tabachnik

Changing telecom industry

An iconic Colorado phone company evaporated in 2011 when CenturyLink acquired Qwest in a $24 billion deal. The merger created the country’s third-largest landline phone company that employed 47,500 people and served 15 million phone and 5 million broadband customers in 37 states.

Qwest was founded by Denver billionaire Phil Anschutz and invested heavily in building fiber-optic internet infrastructure. Its growth was fueled by a mega-merger of its own in 2000 when it absorbed US West, the Denver-based progeny of the antitrust breakup of AT&T, in a $45 billion deal.

After the CenturyLink deal, Qwest’s bright blue sign was removed from its 52-story downtown skyscraper, and in 2011 the building at 1801 California St. was sold for $215 million.

The merger was part of shifting communications landscape as more people dropped landlines in favor of mobile phones and companies gobbled up each other to expand their networks across the country.

As a new decade dawns, Douglas County-based Dish Network is poised to reestablish the Front Range as a telecom hub. If a T-Mobile-Sprint merger is finalized, Dish (and its stockpile of wireless spectrum) has been approved to become the country’s fourth major mobile phone service provider.

— Noelle Phillips and Joe Rubino

Flood of 2013

The clouds swelled in September 2013, dropping a five-day deluge of rain across two dozen counties along Colorado’s Front Range. Rivers overflowed. Homes flooded. Roadways crumbled.

Nearly a year’s worth of precipitation pounded the state in less than a week, causing a historic 100-year flood that was deemed Colorado’s costliest natural disaster with damage reaching $4 billion.

Nine people died, more than 1,800 homes were lost, almost 500 miles of roads were shut down and more than 1,000 people had to be rescued and evacuated by helicopter. More than 17 inches of rainfall cut access to entire communities including Jamestown, Lyons and Estes Park.

The flood re-shaped entire towns and neighborhoods, displacing thousands of Coloradans and prompting upward of $2 billion in federal, state and local money allocated toward recovery efforts.

— Elizabeth Hernandez

The beer industry

Changes brewed in the Colorado beer industry over the last decade — and, in particular, this past year.

Coors, a 147-year-old company, made Chicago its new headquarters, leaving its Golden brewery as its major presence back home. New Belgium Brewing, the largest craft brewer in the state and the third-largest in the country, sold to an international conglomerate. And Colorado’s oldest craft brewery, Boulder Beer, planned to shrink from distribution across 34 states to solely selling pints out of a local brewpub — until Denver-based contract brewer Sleeping Giant swooped in, keeping Boulder Beer on shelves. 

And longtime Colorado residents now only have fond memories of beer with 3.2% alcohol by volume after Jan. 1, when 1,600 grocery and convenience stores across Colorado were allowed to sell full-strength beer for the first time since Prohibition. 

Looking back on the 2010s, sales to private equity or big beer, growth in specialty brewpubs and second taprooms were other common themes. Starting in 2015, Fireman Capital invested an undisclosed amount in Longmont-based Oskar Blues, and Anheuser-Busch InBev bought out Breckenridge Brewing. Then Denver’s founding Wynkoop Brewing in 2016 stopped all of its retail sales. By 2017, Boulder’s Avery Brewing had sold a 30% stake to Spain’s Mahou San Miguel (with 40% more finally sold this year). Meanwhile, cash infusions and competition led to Colorado breweries opening taprooms as far afield as North Carolina or closer to home in Denver, as was the case for Oskar Blues, New Belgium, Odell and now Ska Brewing.

For all the upheaval, Colorado still ranks second-highest in the U.S. with 396 active craft breweries, based on the Brewers Association’s most recent data. We also rank first for craft beer’s economic impact.  

— Josie Sexton

Updated Dec. 31, 2019, at 3:47 p.m. Because of an error by a reporter, the original version of this story misidentified one of the two major wireless carriers that are looking to merge. T-Mobile is the company seeking to acquire Sprint. Also, in the section about the Aurora theater shooting, John Thomas Larimer’s last name was left out.