STATEWIDE – August 1 is Colorado Day, the 142nd anniversary of Colorado’s statehood date, Aug. 1, 1876. Proud Coloradans will mark the occasion by wearing their Colorado state flag T-shirts – just like they do every other day of the year.

Colorado’s colorful state flag is its most popular symbol, but the surprising tales of Colorado’s other state symbols are every bit as colorful. In the current issue of Colorado Life Magazine, the statewide publication celebrates our less T-shirt-ready but equally fascinating Colorado emblems in a major feature called “The Stories Behind Colorado’s State Symbols.” Here are some highlights.

State bird: Lark bunting

Colorado’s state bird, the lark bunting, is neither a lark nor a bunting – it’s a type of sparrow. It was also something of a dark horse as the state legislature prepared to vote on a state bird in 1931. The lark bunting was essentially a third-party candidate that trailed far behind the two clear contenders, the meadowlark and the bluebird.

Supporters of each bird flocked to the Colorado State Capitol to lobby for their pick and disparage the other birds in a debate that got shockingly nasty. When legislators soured on the frontrunners because they were already state birds elsewhere, the lark bunting found the opening it needed to stage a dramatic, come-from-behind victory.

State tree: Colorado blue spruce

In 1933, the Colorado blue spruce became the official state tree … of Utah. Colorado’s western neighbor beat Colorado to the punch, but Colorado eventually got around to naming it our state tree six years later. Utahans must have gotten tired of people asking them why their state tree was named after Colorado, because they switched to a new tree in 2014. This time, Utah legislators picked a tree without any Colorado connotations whatsoever: the aspen. Hey, wait a minute … .

State flower: Colorado blue columbine

Coloradans feel protective of the columbine, the state flower. That’s good, because state law says Coloradans have a “duty to protect” them from “needless destruction or waste.” Because of this, many Coloradans believe that picking columbines on public land is a jailable offense. That’s not so.

True, it is against the law to remove or destroy an entire columbine plant, but the most severe penalty is a $50 fine. The law even allows people to pick as many as 25 columbine blossoms per day, although that doesn’t make it a good idea. Picking blossoms on a mountain hike not only robs others of the chance to enjoy them, it puts columbine pickers at risk of vigilante justice when fellow hikers find out what they’ve been up to.

State fish: Greenback cutthroat trout

For a while, it seemed like Colorado’s state fish might not actually exist. The greenback cutthroat trout was declared extinct in 1937, but that status was retracted when live greenbacks were found 20 years later in Rocky Mountain National Park. Colorado’s decades-long campaign to reintroduce the greenback to its former habitat was so successful that the legislature declared it our state fish.

Then came bad news in 2007, when it looked like the fish might have to be “re-extincted.” All those greenbacks the state reintroduced? DNA tests showed they weren’t greenbacks after all. Thankfully, researchers discovered a tiny holdout population of genuine greenbacks in 2012, and the state fish is now being “re-reintroduced.” For real, this time.

For more of the stories behind Colorado’s state symbols, check out the current issue of Colorado Life Magazine, which also includes the tale of how a Colorado Springs high school principal saved the state folk dance (the square dance) from nationwide extinction; how the state heritage sport (pack burro racing) is basically a donkey marathon; and how the self-described “CEO of the Stegosaurus Anti-Defamation League” is still trying to extract the world’s first identified stegosaurus (state fossil) from its rocky tomb more than 140 years after its discovery in Morrison.

Colorado Life Magazine publishes six issues a year in celebration of the nature, history, people and culture of Colorado. Based in Fort Collins, Colorado Life is available on newsstands statewide and by subscription for $21 for one year and $38 for two years.

To subscribe, call (970) 480-0148 or visit ColoradoLifeMagazine.com.

Caption: Colorado blue columbines blossom below Trappers Peak in the Flat Tops Wilderness Area. The state flower is protected by law, but it isn’t illegal to pick them – just bad mountain manners./Photo by Jack Brauer/Colorado Life Magazine