Colorado Orange

The Colorado Orange apple is back. The fruits of more than 20 years of sleuthing, DNA testing and slogging through a long-forgotten archive of apple drawings and wax casts. It first arrived from Missouri around 1860, and apples were popular among miners, especially the Colorado Orange, which kept well and stayed firm. But it slowly disappeared as orchards became subdivisions. That is until about 20 years ago when the Montezuma Orchard Restoration Project, founded by Jude and Addie Schuenemeyer when they began their horticulture careers in 2001, took on the return of the Orange at their farm in Cortez. You won’t find the Orange apples on store shelves just yet, but you could stumble upon them at a roadside stand.