By Lindsay Gypin, University of Denver Libraries
First First Lady of Colorado, First woman to register to vote in Colorado.
Eliza Pickrell Routt was born on January 30, 1839 in Springfield, Illinois. Routt's father died shortly before her birth, and her mother passed away when she was three years old. She married a widowed John L Routt at the age of thirty-five, becoming stepmother to his five children, ranging in age from six to twenty-seven. She died on March 22, 1907 in Denver.
John Routt became the last territorial governor of Colorado, and the first state governor of Colorado, making Eliza Routt the first First Lady of Colorado. Routt actively participated in the Colorado Woman Suffrage Association and was elected President of the Denver Equal Suffrage League. Suffrage was passed in 1893, and Routt became the first woman to register to vote in the city of Denver and the state of Colorado. Routt became the president of the Colorado Non-Partisan Equal Suffrage Association. Routt was also appointed to the State Board of Agriculture, the governing body of the State Agricultural College in Fort Collins, Colorado.
Routt supported Central Christian Church, was a charter and life member of Denver Orphan's Home Association (where she was also elected to the Board of Managers), was a founder of the Woman's Home Club, was a member of the Fortnightly Club, was a charter member of the Colorado Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and was elected to the first Board of Trustees for Colorado Women's College.
Sources:
Cannon, Helen. "First Ladies of Colorado -- Eliza Pickrell Routt." Colorado Magazine. January 1963.
"Eliza F. Routt." Find a Grave Memorial. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/8061332/eliza-f_-routt. Accessed June 16, 2019.