It had been a time of depression across the country.

Men and women everywhere out of work.

In Colorado, almost a third of all the banks failed.

It would take massive recovery programs created by President Roosevelt's new administration to put both young and old back to work and to help restore the country's economy.

Suddenly, it was December 7th, 1941.

In the Territory of Hawaii.

Japanese warplanes attacked the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor.

One day later, President Roosevelt asked the Congress of the United States for a declaration of war.

Yesterday, December 7th, 1941.. World War II was to engulf this country for a period of four years.

In infamy.

Colorado would send 138,000 men and women to the armed forces.

2700 would never return.

It was called a coupe, it was Ford's newest and latest model of their Lincoln Continental that came off their assembly line in January of 1942.

The designers were quite proud of the classic lines of the V-12, 130 horsepower engine of the all leather interior.

He was one of the first cars built with powered windows, but with the country at war, it would also be Ford's last model for the duration because tanks and airplanes would be built instead.

In fact, even to drive this automobile or any family car during World War Two, you had to have special stamps justify the rationed gasoline.

Your allotment each week was three gallons.

It was one of the many sacrifices asked of civilians as the nation geared up for the war effort In Colorado, Military bases seemed to expand overnight.

Denver's Lowry Airfield developed quickly new technical schools to train men in the latest techniques of photographic reconnaissance and armament procedures.

Nearby Fitzsimons Hospital geared up for incoming casualties.

Camp Carson, south of Colorado Springs, grew from tents and makeshift quarters in 1942 to the largest military base in the state by the end of the war, in the mountains northwest of Leadville.

A select group of young men were trained as the 10th Mountain Division to fight the enemy from skis.

Many would return after the war to help develop important new ski resorts close by.

In southeastern Colorado, A different kind of camp was established quickly near the town of Granada.

It would house some 8000 Japanese, most of them American citizens forcibly moved here from their homes along the Pacific coast.

After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, there was a growing distrust and resentment on the part of government and military officials against all of us Japanese Americans.

I don't know what they thought we would do, but their solution was to evacuate all of us from the West coast into camps like Granada in southeastern Colorado.

There, we tried to carry on a normal family life as best we could.

The living quarters were very small and cramped.

Some of the men worked in the field growing crops, while others took leadership in the upkeep of the camp.

Each camp had their own schools and teachers.

There were even graduation ceremonies for the seniors.

It was a discriminatory act on the part of the United States government.

The Japanese Americans were just as loyal to this country as any other Americans.

As a matter of fact.

Over 33,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry served in the armed forces of the United States to help win World War II .

It would be an episode in our history that many of us wished had never happened.

On August 6th, 1945, a secret weapon carried by a single United States bomber was dropped over Japan.

The energy released the mass of the bomb times the speed of light squared an unbelievable amount of destructive power.

It would not only end the war, but it would change the world forever as the nuclear age was born.

Our leaders back in our nation's capital thought that such power was a permanent deterrent against all future wars, and would help establish our position of strength in the world.

The mood of the government, even ten years later, reflected America's determination to remain strong militarily near the city of Colorado Springs.

It meant the beginning of the North American Air Defense Command, with headquarters to be built far inside Cheyenne Mountain, behind bomb proof doors here would be constructed and ultra secret command post to alert our nation in case of possible air attack by enemy forces.

If for any reason an emergency occurs, Nara can instantly alert the white House Canadian headquarters in Ottawa.

The Strategic Air Command to take whatever action is necessary.

Colorado was fast becoming a center not only for national security, but a base for research and development as well.

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

It's called the Titan 34D.

One of the most powerful rocket boosters on Earth.

It was designed and produced here at the Martin Marietta Aerospace Center near Denver.

The Titan, for over a period of 25 years, has had great success in more than 300 launches as a space and ICBM booster.

Engineers here were even responsible for designing NASA's Manned Maneuvering Unit, the Space Propulsion Backpack, for shuttle astronauts.

The unit allows them to maneuver outside the shuttle on breathtaking spacewalks.

Such research and development in space would eventually affect all of us with its tremendous outgrowth of computer technology.

Growing as well in this period of Colorado's history was manufacturing at the Gates Rubber Company in Denver, the workforce had grown to over 5000 men and women, producing more of the V-type fan belts for automobiles and industry than anywhere else in the world.

Up north by Greeley, the Monfort feedlots had thousands and thousands of cattle just gaining weight to help feed the growing population of the state and the Great Plains region.

Skiers, both young and old, were learning a new place geography.

Locations with names like Aspen, Steamboat Springs and a new but small development called Vail.

Tourism became one of the state's biggest businesses.

Twin tunnels were even bored under the Continental Divide to speed up interstate automobile traffic between the eastern and western slopes.

By the 1980s, after more than 100 years of being a state, perhaps it was time for reflection to take stock of our resources to plan for the future.

Had we paid too big a price for all this growth and development?

I believe we have paid too big a price for the growth that we've endured.

We in fact, didn't have to pay that price.

Good planning can allow you to locate people and economic activities, and not pay the kind of price that we have paid in the last 20 or 30 years, which is unlivable smog, sprawl, high cost per capita.

And one of the major problems of facing Colorado is how are we going to get the water to support the growth?

It will be called the Two Forks Reservoir.

A mammoth project designed to store for Denver and its suburbs 20 miles up the South Platte River Canyon, over a million acre feet of additional water each year when the dam and all construction is finished.

Remember that an acre foot of water is just what it says an acre of ground covered with water to a depth of one foot.

Perhaps an easier way to remember it is that one acre foot of water will supply the needs of a family of four people for an entire year, so an additional 1 million acre feet of water is indeed a lot of water.

Or is it?

We estimate the Two Forks reservoir, along with other sources of supply, would allow the Denver metropolitan area to survive for the next 30 years, with conservation programs added to that, we could stretch our supply to the year 2025.

Beyond that, it's difficult to predict.

When water is available real estate developers are not long in contracting for heavy pieces of equipment to scrape clean new sections of land, and then tapping into that water supply between 1940 and 1980.

The population of our Centennial state tripled.

With most of these new Coloradans settling in cities like Colorado Springs, Metropois Denver, Boulder, Greeley, and Fort Collins.

If we could look down on the Front Range of the Rockies and draw a map of such urban growth, it would look like this in places almost a continuous corridor of cities from Pueblo up through Fort Collins.

What will it be like in the year 2000?

Let me give you two scenarios one if we don't do anything, I think we will live in a big, sprawling, unlivable city, which we're going to have Denver and Colorado Springs and Denver and Fort Collins and Boulder all growing together in a very Los Angeles of the Rockies.

But if we do it right, if we, in fact, went in with good planning and some foresight, I believe that we could have a lovely metropolitan area with enough water, with much cleaner air, and without the Los Angeles type of model that I think we're now heading for.

For years, Coloradans were used to a clear view of the mountains.

Now, that view is often obscured with what we've called the brown cloud, a sea of bad air that often settles in and around Denver during its daytime hours.

It's air pollution at its worst.

Particles from automobiles, industrial pollutants, wood and coal burning emissions, dust all trapped in the air above our capital city on wetter days.

Pollution rates are often at their highest levels, particularly when inversions occur.

Higher layers of clean, warm air trapping below the colder layers of polluted air, with no way for it to escape until it warms up.

Part of the problem is seen below.

Thousands and thousands of automobiles being driven into the city each day, returning home in the evening rush hour, and whether those cars are powered by gasoline or by diesel fuel, both contribute to the brown cloud.

So to do the trucks, busses, airplanes, industrial and electrical generating plants, even the homeowners fireplace is responsible for helping to create this problem.

Problems and more problems.

Is growth the number one problem?

What part does water play in all of this?

Are the laws that we have strict enough, or is it a matter of educating people to what's needed here in the state of Colorado?

Even young people have their viewpoints towards these issues.

I think we've grown too big too fast, especially along the Front Range of the Rockies, where we once had farms and grasslands.

We now have cities.

It seems like the problem only gets worse and worse, because more and more people want to move to our city to live and work.

Maybe there should be some new laws passed to restrict the state's growth, or some kind of statewide planning group that could help determine where and how many homes, industries, and towns could be built.

It seems like even the problem of pollution doesn't get much better relying upon volunteer programs.

I think it will take our state lawmakers to help us decide what's best for all of us.

I just don't think you can stop growth in our state by passing new laws.

Problems such as front range cities, pollution, a new airport.

They can be solved if communities and governments would work together.

But where are you going to get more water?

It's as if everything centers around the problem of water.

There just isn't enough for cities and for agriculture.

It seems to me that how we use what water is available to us in the future will help provide the answers to the problems of growth.

Now, what do you think?

After all, in a few years, the problems of water, front range, growth, agriculture and the light may well be your problems too.

Are there reasonable answers to such issues that will satisfy a majority of Coloradans?

Can we use wisely the resources that we have here in our Centennial State, and still preserve the environment for all of us to enjoy?

These are challenges for the future.

They'll need your help too.