History Colorado’s Lost Highways Podcast Reveals the Rocky Mountain West’s Lesser-Known Stories

By Natasha Lovato

If you’ve done any exploring around Colorado, you know the state has many stories to tell. Colorado became the 38th state in 1876. Since then, historians have accumulated more than two million photographs, 200,000 artifacts and 11 million documents. The collection, compiled during the past 140 years, has been stored in the bowels of the state’s historical agency, now known as the History Colorado Center.

Queue the Lost Highways: Dispatches from the Shadows of the Rocky Mountains — a podcast bringing Colorado’s illustrious history to light.

Every other Wednesday, catch a new episode of a six-episode season presented by History Colorado and sponsored by the Sturm Family Foundation. Immerse yourself in the power of storytelling through any podcast streaming service, such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher.

Season one explores the roots of contemporary topics such as talk-radio culture, same-sex marriage and American Indian mascots. It also brings forth insights on Japanese incarceration and forced relocation during World War II, minority settlements and the “Red Elvis,” a man who could have been John Denver had he not defected to cold-war East Germany.

With the ever-growing spotlight on Colorado, Lost Highways provides the historical perspectives and dialogues that have shaped the Centennial State.

Join hosts and producers Noel Black and Tyler Hill as they set out to discover their home state through stories they can't believe they had never heard.

“Our first episode Six Gay Weddings and a Horse is near and dear to me,” Black said. “I was raised by a pack of feral lesbians so that’s probably why.”

Black and Hill both agreed hearing the stories firsthand was the best part of their storytelling process.

“We interviewed Governor Polis for the first episode, which was an amazing experience,” Hill said. “The beautiful thing about these stories, about history, is that they’re evergreen. History is never going to change, it’s just a matter of if we learn about it or not.”