The ship was powered by four General Electric turbo-electric drives with steam provided by eight oil-fired Babcock & Wilcox boilers.

[2][3] She was armed with a main battery of eight 16 in /45 caliber Mark 1 guns in four twin-gun turrets on the centerline,[a] two forward and two aft in superfiring pairs.

The secondary battery consisted of sixteen 5-inch (127 mm)/51 caliber guns, mounted individually in casemates clustered in the superstructure amidships.

From 8 June to 26 September 1925, the ship participated in a voyage to visit American Samoa, Australia, and New Zealand with several other battleships of the fleet.

The ship arrived in Hilo, Hawaii, on 26 June and sailed two days later for Lahaina Roads, where the students practiced firing the 5"/51 caliber guns in whose casemates they were berthed in hammocks.

[8] Liberty in Honolulu began on 1 July, but was interrupted the following day so Colorado could join the search for Amelia Earhart.

[9] She rendezvoused with the United States Coast Guard cutter Itasca on 7 July; and launched seaplanes to search the Phoenix Islands.

[8] From 27 January 1941, Colorado was based in Pearl Harbor undergoing intensive training exercises and taking part in several war games until 25 June, when she departed Hawaii for the West Coast.

Undergoing overhaul at the Puget Sound Navy Yard, she was not present for the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December.

During the refit, her 5in/51 battery was reduced to 8, both to create space for more anti-aircraft guns and to free up some to arm merchant ships against surface raiders.

She operated in the vicinity of the Fiji Islands and New Hebrides from 8 November 1942 to 17 September 1943 to prevent any further Japanese expansion in the Pacific.

She sailed from Pearl Harbor on 21 October 1943 to provide pre-invasion shelling and fire support for the invasion of Tarawa, returning to port on 7 December 1943.

She provided the pre-invasion bombardment and fire support for the invasions of Kwajalein and Eniwetok until 23 February, when she headed for the Puget Sound Navy Yard for another overhaul.

A week after her arrival she was struck by two kamikaze bombers, which killed 19 crewmembers, injured 72, and moderately damaged the ship.

After a few repairs at the island of Ulithi, she joined Task Force 54 (TF 54), the pre-invasion shelling group for the invasion of Okinawa, at Kerama Retto.

She was part of the Operation Magic Carpet force, making three runs to Pearl Harbor to transport 6357 soldiers home, before returning to Bremerton Navy Yard for her deactivation.

[4] The ship's bell and helm is currently on display in the University of Colorado Navy Reserve Officer Training Corps, Wardroom.

A 5 in (130 mm)/51 cal deck gun from Colorado was donated to the Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society in 1959, and is displayed at the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle.

Six of Colorado's 5/51 cal guns were put aboard the protected cruiser USS Olympia, after she became a museum in Philadelphia in 1957.

Boards from her teak-wood deck were re-purposed to form a wall in the main lounge of Haggett Hall at the University of Washington.