About The Archives

This website maintains a physical archive of historical photographs and other items that primarily relate to the automobile history of Colorado’s mountains.

The primary goal was originally to document every Continental Divide sign in Colorado’s history, and to provide a resource for dating photographs of these locations. The Continental Divide sign archive is still the main focus of the archive project.

Other items have been acquired along the way that relate to Colorado’s automobile history in the mountains, and these have been added to the archives as well. Items that are found within the archives include: photographs, postcards, slides, toll road tickets, tokens and medals, trail maps, films, and more.

Image Use & Permissions

Image Use

Please do not use any images from the archives without permission.

Permission for publication may be given on behalf of Coloradotopia as the owner of the physical image or item and its scanned image. This is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which may also be needed before republishing an image. Coloradotopia does not assume any responsibility for outside use. Copyright status may vary for each image in the archives.

Please inquire for permission before using any images.

Request a Photo or Item

All of the physical images and items that are held in the archives will soon be available to the public upon request for the purposes of preservation, research, and scholarship. Please contact us for more info.

 

Donations?

Berthoud Pass Continental Divide sign in 1963
Berthoud Pass, 1963, CB-63H

No donations right now please. If you have something valuable, please donate it to the Denver Public Library, a local Colorado library or the Library of Congress.

Frequently Asked Questions

There are approximately 200 photographs and small items in the archives right now. Not all of the items have been catalogued and documented on the website.

All items that are held in the archives will eventually be available to the public for the purposes of research and scholarship. Please find the contact form and reach out for more info. Higher quality digital scans of some images are also available on request.

Image Removal Requests – Great care has been taken to identify the copyright status and copyright holder of all images in the archives. It has been ensured that all image use is permissible under US copyright law as well as consistent with Coloradotopia image use policies. If you hold a valid copyright for an image that is used in the archives and you would like it to be removed, you may contact us here. You may also view information about the use of copyrighted images on this website under the fair use doctrine here.