The 1976 Winter Olympics in Denver seemed like a wonderful idea six years prior, when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) awarded the games to Colorado’s biggest city. The Games were positioned as the perfect celebration of both the United States’ bicentennial and Colorado’s centennial anniversaries. And where better to host a Winter Games than in the majestic Rocky Mountains?

But the 1976 Denver Games never happened. In November 1972, the Denver Olympic Organizing Committee (DOOC) served notice to the IOC that the city would be unable to host the games due to a lack of available funding. Four months later, the Olympics were awarded to Innsbruck, Austria – the city had hosted the 1964 Games and thus already possessed the necessary facilities and infrastructure. The United States would have to wait another four years to host the Winter Olympics, in Lake Placid, New York.

Despite the ideal timing, Coloradan citizens and politicians alike were concerned about the Games and the effects they could have on both the state’s coffers and the rich environment in Denver and the surrounding areas where events like downhill skiing were to be held. In January 1971, less than a year after the IOC awarded the Games to Denver, State Representative Bob Jackson spoke up on both issues.

“The decision time is now,” Jackson told the Associated Press. “We ought to say to the nation and the world, ‘We’re sorry, we are concerned about the environment. We made a mistake. Take the Games elsewhere.’”

Dick Lamm, another representative who would go on to become Colorado’s governor from 1975-1987, felt the state was being taken for a ride by Olympics representatives with no respect for the environment. “Every time I ask a question about ecology, the Olympic people tell me, ‘Don’t worry, we are going to take care of that.’” Lamm told Ski Magazine in December 1971. “But a state which has never taken down as much as a single billboard to improve the environment is not going to run an Olympics which the ecologists would like.”

Swiftly, environmental activists in the area formed a group called Protect Our Mountain Environment (POME) to protest Olympic development in Colorado’s Rockies. POME protested the hosting of ski jumping, cross-country and biathlon (the Nordic events) in the Indian Hills, the nearest foothills of the Rockies. DOOC planners tried to move these events to Evergreen, a 9,000-person suburb 15 miles west of Denver, but residents swiftly formed a similar opposition. Claims followed that Evergreen was not a suitable host for such events and would have required either artificial snow creation or potentially even trucked in from other parts of the state. Eventually, Olympic organizers agreed to host ski events in Vail and Steamboat Springs — 97 and 156 miles from Denver respectively.

Although the problem of the Evergreen and Indian Hills protesters was dodged, the wide distances between the event areas was primed to create even more transportation costs, particularly in the form of airlifts between the three cities. The United States was just coming off a recession in 1970, characterized by high inflation rates, and there was a clear desire from those in both Denver and within the IOC to put on an “economical Games,” both for Denver and for the future of the Winter Olympics.

These concerns were only accelerated as the 1972 Sapporo Games began the next winter and the $70m price tag began catching the attention of Olympic insiders and outsiders alike. IOC president Avery Brundage noted the high costs at Sapporo, Squaw Valley, California (1960), Innsbruck, and Grenoble, France (1968) and questioned whether the Olympic movement could continue to find cities willing to dole out such massive sums for the Winter Olympics, which at the time drew roughly one-seventh the participants of the Summer Games and one-third the number of countries, according to Sports-Reference.

Denver’s planners insisted they could put on the Games for $30m. But by January 1972, DOOC had already spent $1.1m without building a single facility nor hiring a single contractor. “For that $1.1m,” Jackson told reporters, “the Denver Olympic Committee has only one thing. That’s permission to host the Games. There’s been nothing spent for sites, housing or transportation.” With respect to DOOC’s “economical” cost estimates, Jackson added, “We feel it is unrealistic to assume Colorado can get by for that amount when expenditures at other sites have exceed that 10 or 20 times.”

As 1972 pushed on, it became clear Jackson was correct and the DOOC’s estimates were well below the actual cost. In May, Denver organizers formally asked the IOC to drop the four-man bobsled event due to issues securing a suitable (and suitably cheap) course. Amilcare Rotta, the Italian head of the Bobsled Federation, was incensed, saying “It is unthinkable that we should do without the four-man event.” It was clear by this point the Denver organizers were scrambling to make things work. The DOOC had claimed in its original bid that the facilities were “80% in place.” By 1971, Colorado’s Lieutenant Governor admitted, “We lied a little,” in order to secure the bid.

It soon became clear the so-called “economical Games” were also part of the “little lie” necessary to win the bid. Organizers managed to put forth a referendum on the 1972 ballot – organisers for Boston’s 2024 Olympic bid are trying something similar – which would amend the state’s constitution to specifically prohibit the state from levying taxes or appropriating funds to aid the staging of the Denver Games. The DOOC said they only needed another $4m, but this number was well below the actual amount that would have been spent. The federal government had already pledged another $15.5m in taxpayer money, but according to an AP report, that sum would be “far short of what Denver says it needs to insure the success of its project.” Even the DOOC admitted the $4m figure was low, but claimed the rest would be made back in operating revenue and television licensing from the Games. The referendum’s proponents argued the eventual costs of the Games would be as high as $110m once everything was paid off.

Denver was not the first Olympic city to lowball its initial cost estimate. According to a 1972 story in The New Republic, the Squaw Valley Olympics cost California taxpayers $13.5m against a $1m estimate. The Grenoble Games cost $250m, $50m of which was paid by French taxpayers, and as of 1972, the city was heavily in debt and had raised property taxes by 125%. The lasting value of facilities was also often overstated. When the land used for the Squaw Valley Olympics site was put up for sale by California, The New Republic reported there was only one bid, for a mere $25,000.

State election officials predicted a record turnout of over 75% for the 1972 election, fueled in part by the Olympic issue. Coloradans overwhelming supported the constitutional amendment, effectively rejecting the Games, as a United Press International report stated the measure passed by over 1.5 to 1. A similar referendum at the Denver city level also passed overwhelmingly. Business officials attempted to save the Games, as there was nothing stopping private funders from keeping the Denver Olympics on. But knowing full well how much debt the other Olympic cities had racked up, they declined, and the DOOC officially withdrew its invitation to host the Games within the week.

To this day, Denver remains the only city to reject an Olympic bid. In 2009, Lamm discussed the movement to boot the Olympics out of his state. “The organizing committee here was in way over their heads,” Lamm told ColoradoDaily.com “They overestimated the benefits and underestimated the costs. Colorado was generally persuaded that they didn’t have an adequate grasp on the figures and Colorado was very much liable to have to fund dramatic cost overruns.”

Since then, the only difference is that the millions have turned into billions. The 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, pitched at $554m, wound up costing at least $1bn. The Sochi Winter Olympics, pitched at $12bn cost, wound up costing anywhere from $23bn to $51 bn, depending on how you calculate the total.

As income equality becomes a more important world issue, the Olympics have fallen under intense scrutiny in a number of potential host countries. The most desirable locations for the 2022 Winter Games, such as Norway and Sweden, have dropped out of the bidding, leaving just Almaty, Kazakhstan and Beijing, China — neither of which is ideally prepared for winter sports in terms of either climate or facilities. Boston, the US Olympic Committee’s choice for the 2024 Summer Olympics, has seen a large public uprising against spending.

Denver’s rejection of the Olympics may have tainted the city forever in the eyes of the IOC and the Olympic community. “This is a tremendously poor reflection on the United States,” said William Kimbrough, director of the group Citizens for the 1976 Winter Olympics, following the withdrawal of the bid. Indeed, when Denver made a bid for the 2018 Winter Games, the United States Olympic Committee rejected it in order to focus on Chicago’s now-failed bid for the 2016 Summer Games. But if the disaster that was the proposed 1976 Denver Games and the financial catastrophes that have befallen so many other Olympic cities are any indication, today’s Denverites may be thanking their elders from saving them from themselves.