Colorado State Archives
Historic Postcard Collection

The 838 postcards that make up the Colorado State Archive's Postcard Collection are excellent photographic resources for visual representations of Colorado tourism and daily life from 1900 to the present. The collection's strengths are in public buildings, main street scenes, town panoramas, amusements, and often focus on the changing forms of transportation throughout the 21st century. The collection includes material from all over Colorado, although the majority of postcards focus on Denver and the "Moffat Road." Postcards provide a vision of how the state not only looked to tourists, but how we as a state wanted to be viewed. As such this collection of photographs is inherently important in any study of Colorado and the changing face of its tourism industry.

The postcards digitized for this project, 415 in all, are accessible using a thumbnail index. If you are interested in obtaining one of the postcards in our display for publication please contact the Colorado State Archives. While viewing the on-line collection is free, we require correspondence if you choose to use our digitized collections on your web site or publication.  We will be happy to provide you with additional information concerning this collection and the fees that are associated with doing research here.

One of the largest publishers of postcards in Colorado was the H. H. Tammen Curio Company, located on 1516 Arapahoe Street as seen in the postcard below. These cards are often identified by an Indian kneeling and working with his hands, or by the other names like Williamson-Haffner and Thayer. The company owned and operated by H. H. Tammen, Carl Litzenberger and Joseph Cox opened its doors for business in 1896 and closed them in 1953. It is their work that the Colorado State Archives proudly displays for you today.