Colorado’s 1904 election was the most corrupt, historians say

DENVER — Claims of election fraud have become all too common in recent years, whether they’re based in evidence or not.

But 120 years ago, Colorado did experience significant corruption in its gubernatorial election.

“It’s very hard to quantify corruption but if you could, I would be really surprised if the Colorado of 1904 election was one of, if not, the most corrupt elections in the 20th century in America,” said Devin Flores, assistant editor with History Colorado. “It was really, really bad.” 

More than a century ago, the election on every Coloradan’s mind was who would be their next governor. 

Incumbent Republican James Peabody was running against the state’s former Democratic Gov. Alva Adams. Flores said at this time, corruption was all too common in Colorado elections. 

“The police let people out of the county jail with the instructions, ‘Go vote as many times as you can, in as many precincts as you can,'” Flores said. “There was one of these people who later testified to the state house that he individually had voted over 100 times in different precincts in Denver. And there was one precinct in Denver that had fewer than 100 registered voters in it and more than 700 votes were cast in that precinct.” 

Ballot stuffing was rampant. Flores said voter fraud wasn’t just ignored by the police, but facilitated by it at this time. 

And the rural areas of the state were no more straight-laced. 

“Especially in places like Cripple Creek, Walsenburg and Trinidad, the companies that owned these industries controlled local politics so tightly that they could very easily and very aggressively threaten peoples’ jobs,” Flores said. “And that scared people.” 

When Adams won the governor’s race by a narrow margin, unsurprisingly, Peabody demanded an investigation.

“This was a massive, massive investigation and basically, what it found was everybody was so corrupt that there was no real way to call it,” Flores said. “It just seemed bottomless.” 

That investigation spanned five months with 2,000 witnesses and 200,000 pages of testimony. When investigators subpoenaed Huerfano County Clerk Juan Montez in to testify with his county’s ballot box, he showed up but didn’t bring the ballot box. 

“They put him on a train with a law enforcement official and as the train was leaving Denver, just as it was on the outskirts of the city, he jumps off of the moving train and runs off into the night,” Flores said. “For about 24 hours, he became, very briefly, the most wanted man in Colorado.” 

Montez was caught soon after. Investigators learned the clerk hadn’t bothered to use the official ballot box, leading every vote in Huerfano County to be tossed out, Flores said. 

Still, the result of who had won the gubernatorial race was unclear. 

“It became very, very difficult to figure out what actually happened because the investigation itself was flawed from the beginning,” Flores said. 

In March 1905, Adams resigned after being governor for around two months. Peabody was put in place but resigned just after 12 hours later. 

Jesse McDonald, Adams’ lieutenant governor, was sworn in. He ushered in a fresh start and put Colorado in the history books. 

“Colorado, because of this election and how crazy it got, is the only state in United States history to have three governors in a single 24-hour period,” Flores said. 

In the years following the 1904 election, a lot changed with how many in Colorado viewed elections.

Flores said voters took a stand against corruption by forming citizen political organizations. Newspapers began to point out when political machines were influencing elections and lawmakers also took action to put laws in place that would ensure more fair elections. 

“I do think both the system and the people learned quite a bit from the 1904 election. It took a while to stick,” Flores said.