The Colorado National Guard turns 160 years old on Thursday, dating to the territorial legislature’s establishment of two citizen-soldier military companies on Jan. 23, 1860.

Within the United States, the Colorado National Guard has assisted in various natural disasters, including the 1864 flash flood of Cherry Creek in present-day Denver. Additionally, the organization once helped to combat a grasshopper infestation. In 1937, millions of nests of eggs hatched in Colorado and the grasshoppers ate all vegetation. National Guard troops used flamethrowers from slow-moving trains and explosives to try to kill them off.

“Some people are making jokes out of the fact that the National Guard was called into service to help fight the grasshopper plague,” said then-Gov. Teller Ammons. “But it is one of the most serious situations that ever confronted Colorado.”

The Colorado National Guard’s first military engagement on behalf of the federal government occurred during the Civil War, when the “Colorado Volunteers” fended off Confederate soldiers from Texas.

In 1945, the Colorado National Guard’s 157th Infantry Regiment helped liberate the Dachau concentration camp, and one year later the federal government recognized the Colorado Air National Guard as the first such unit in the nation.

Thousands of Colorado National Guard and Air National Guard members have deployed since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and their work now includes using cyber, space and missile defenses.