History Colorado Center, Museum and public building in Denver, US

The History Colorado Center is a museum at 1200 Broadway in Denver, opened in 2012 in a building that cost $111 million. Inside, a 40 by 60-foot map of Colorado made of concrete tiles by artist Steven Weitzman fills the entrance, and a steam-punk style time machine rolls across it to trigger stories from different periods.

Construction of the $111 million building began on August 19, 2009, and the museum opened on April 28, 2012, at 1200 Broadway, one block south of the Colorado History Museum, which closed in 2010. It is run by History Colorado, formerly the Colorado Historical Society.

The Destination Colorado gallery recreates Keota, a homesteading town founded in 1880, with actors voicing real residents as visitors pass through the general store and school. Colorado Stories covers the Granada War Relocation Center, where Japanese Americans were held after Pearl Harbor, alongside a Silverton silver mine and Rocky Mountain National Park rangers.

The entrance is at 1200 Broadway, one block south of the old Colorado History Museum site. The building opened in 2012, and the Stephen H. Hart Library & Research Center holds maps, clothing, teapots and photographs from the 1850s. Six permanent galleries, including Living West and Colorado Stories, fill the visit.

One unusual feature is an interactive time machine simulation that transports visitors through different periods of Colorado's past. Using mechanical and digital effects, you can experience how people lived in earlier eras.