John Long Routt was born in Eddyville, Kentucky, and moved to Bloomington, Illinois shortly thereafter where he completed his public school education.

Thomas Patterson and Jerome Chaffee, in House Bill 435, initially provided for the creation of the Colorado state government.

After Colorado was established as a state, the increasingly popular Routt easily won the gubernatorial election without making a single speech in public.

At one point, he arranged a speaking tour for popular women's suffragist Susan B. Anthony and personally escorted her around the state.

[1] After unsuccessfully running for the United States Senate, Routt ran successfully for the governorship again in 1891, and served as Colorado's seventh Governor until 1893.