Did Adolf Hitler Own Land in Colorado?

Q: "What maniacal leader owned 8,960 acres of Colorado land in the 1930s but never lived to see it?"

A: "Adolf Hitler."

So reads a clue in the history category of Trivial Pursuit's "Know-It-All" edition. But the answer raises several fundamental questions that can be summarized in a single word that begs for italics.

Really?

Our attempt to figure out if this claim has a basis in reality or is simply a bizarre and hilarious urban myth that's somehow persisted for decades turned into a weeks-long battle between fact and fiction. We'll leave it to you to determine the winner — but here's what we discovered.

The Colorado Historic Newspapers website contains what appears to be the first reference to Hitler's alleged slice of Colorado — an article from the Oak Creek Times published on