Exhibition gathering over fifty historical artifacts spanning eight hundred years of American history, many on loan and rarely seen together in the US West.
Moments That Made Us is on view at the History Colorado Center in Denver through October 18, 2026. It's a big one: more than fifty treasures that witnessed key inflection points in American history, spanning eight hundred years and rarely seen together, especially in the US West. Much of what's on display is gathered in Colorado for the first time—more than half the objects are on loan and have never been exhibited in the state before.
The collection runs the full length of the country's story. It starts with ceramics made by Ancestral Puebloan people and tobacco pipes used by the Jamestown colonists. From there, it moves into the Revolutionary era with the spurs George Washington wore during the winter at Valley Forge. You'll find a Ford's Theater playbill for Our American Cousin from the night Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, and the inkwell in which generals dipped their pens to sign the Confederate surrender at Appomattox Court House.
It keeps going through the 20th century: an 1893 Colorado women's suffrage ballot, the bat Jackie Robinson swung as a Brooklyn Dodger, moon rocks from Apollo 11, and a New York City fireman's helmet from the September 11, 2001 attacks. Seeing these things in one room lets you trace a line from the early Southwest through the Revolution, the Civil War, the fight for the vote, and into the space age and beyond.
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The exhibition is presented in recognition of America's 250th and Colorado's 150th anniversaries, supported by a Celebrate America! campaign. Admission is included with general admission to the center, so you can work it into a full day at the museum. It runs through October 18, 2026.
