Colorado’s new $1 coin won’t have mountains on it, it’ll have the Pueblo chile pepper

If you collected state quarters back in the day, and let’s be honest, most of us had that cardboard map with the little slots, you probably remember the 2006 Colorado quarter. It featured a sweeping view of the Rocky Mountains, a stand of evergreens and a banner reading “Colorful Colorado.” Twenty years later, Colorado is getting a new coin, and this time, the mountains are taking a back seat to something a little spicier.

Gov. Jared Polis announced that he’s nominated the Pueblo chile to be featured on Colorado’s 2028 American Innovation $1 coin. The U.S. Mint program issues a dollar coin for each of the 50 states, the District of Columbia and the five U.S. territories, with each coin recognizing an innovation or innovator from that state. Colorado submitted five designs, and the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts reviewed them on Sept. 17 and selected design CO-01 as their favorite, a chile plant loaded with mirasol peppers reaching toward the sun against a backdrop of mountains, forests and plains with the words “Colorado Pueblo Chile.” The Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee will review it in early October before Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gives the final stamp of approval. And yes, some of them will be minted right here in Denver.

The coin specifically honors the Mosco variety of Pueblo chile, which has one of the best origin stories in Colorado agriculture. Dr. Mike Bartolo, a Pueblo County native working at Colorado State University’s research facility in Rocky Ford, inherited a bag of chile seeds in 1991 after his uncle Harry Mosco passed away. Bartolo’s dad found the seeds while cleaning out Mosco’s garage. With no intention of becoming a plant breeder, Bartolo grew four rows of the seeds just because he had extra space in his test plots, and one plant stood out. It was bigger, meatier and hotter than the rest. He spent the next seven or eight years selectively saving and replanting seeds from that single plant until he had a stable variety. He named it the Mosco in honor of his uncle, and it’s now the dominant chile grown on the St. Charles Mesa near Pueblo. It rates between 5,000 and 20,000 on the Scoville scale, compared to New Mexico’s Hatch chile at just 500 to 1,000.

Speaking of New Mexico: Polis and Colorado officials used the announcement to stoke the eternal chile rivalry. “The Pueblo chile is simply the very best chile that exists and a key ingredient in delicious dishes across the state and country,” Polis said. But the best line came from a former state representative down in Pueblo, who told 9NEWS: “Now New Mexico’s governor has to walk around with a Colorado chile coin in her pocket.” Former Pueblo Mayor Nicholas Gradisar added, “This recognizes the tremendous role that agriculture plays in the economy of Pueblo and the surrounding area.” So while the old Colorado quarter gave America the mountains, the new dollar coin is giving them something you can actually taste.