What Would Colorado Look Like if Secessionist Movements Passed?

Colorado is well-known for its signature rectangular shape and is even referred to as "the box state" by some, but there have been past movements that if they had passed, would have changed the state's geography in a big way.

Colorado Secession Movements: Huerfano

Huerfano County is located in southern Colorado right between Pueblo and Trinidad with its largest city being Walsenburg.

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However, back in the 1930s, a sports journalist turned senator named Sam T. Taylor spearheaded a proposal that the county secede from Colorado to become the state of Huerfano. Obviously, Taylor's idea never came to fruition.

Colorado Secession Movements: Costilla, New Mexico

Another failed secession movement took place back in 1973 in Costilla County, Colorado, which is also located along the state's southern border. However, this time the county wasn't proposing a new state, but rather to become part of New Mexico.

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Like the Huerfano proposal decades prior, Costilla County's desire to secede never came to fruition.

Colorado Secession Movements: North Colorado

Finally, in 2013 a number of counties in the northeastern portion of Colorado expressed interest in seceding to create a new state called, simply, North Colorado.

The idea was a product of Coloradans in the mostly rural counties of Morgan, Logan, Sedgwick, Phillips, Washington, Yuma, Kit Carson, and Greeley's county of Weld. These counties argued that the more urban areas of northern Colorado didn't share the same interests with areas that relied on things like agriculture and oil and gas to drive local economies.

However, voters opted to reject the idea and North Colorado never became a state.