For eighty years, the state historical society had two thick ledgers in its possession that went largely unnoticed by anyone other than researchers who knew what they were looking for. The ledgers belonged to a private organization and included details about the men who'd attended meetings of that organization, including their names, addresses, professions and whether they'd paid their membership dues.
"The sort of thing you would expect any organization to keep," explains Jason Hanson, chief creative officer and director of interpretation and research at History Colorado, "but then you know which organization." It was the Ku Klux Klan, which had a strong grip on the centers of power in Colorado in the mid-1920s.