Ft. Collins was the birthplace of Byron R. White (1917–2002), who as an associate justice of the US Supreme Court beginning in 1962, had been the state's most prominent federal officeholder. Colorado's first US senator, Henry M. Teller (b.New York, 1830–1914), also served as secretary of the interior. Gary Hart (b.Kansas, 1937) was a senator and a presidential candidate in 1984 and 1988.
Charles Bent (b.Virginia, 1799–1847), a fur trapper and an early settler in Colorado, built a famous fort and trading post near present-day La Junta. Early explorers of the Colorado region include Zebulon Pike (b.New Jersey, 1779–1813) and Stephen Long (b.New Hampshire, 1784–1864). John Evans (1814–97) was Colorado's second territorial governor and founder of the present-day University of Denver. Ouray (1820–83) was a Ute chief who ruled at the time when mining districts were being opened. Silver magnate Horace Austin Warner Tabor (b.Vermont, 1830–99) served as mayor of Leadville and lieutenant governor of the state, spent money on lavish buildings in Leadville and Denver, but lost most of his fortune before his death. The story of Tabor and his second wife Elizabeth McCourt Doe Tabor (1862–1935), is portrayed in Douglas Moore's opera The Ballad of Baby Doe (1956). Willard F. Libby (1909–80), winner of the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1960, and Edward L. Tatum (1909–75), cowinner of the 1958 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine, were born in Colorado. Among the performers born in the state were actors Lon Chaney (1883–1930) and Douglas Fairbanks (1883–1939), and band leader Paul Whiteman (1891–1967). Singer John Denver (Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr., b.New Mexico, 1943–97) was closely associated with Colorado and lived in Aspen until his death in a plane crash.
Colorado's most famous sports personality is Jack Dempsey (1895–1983), born in Manassa and nicknamed the "Manassa Mauler," who held the world heavyweight boxing crown from 1919–26.