Colorado’s southern Rocky Mountains and adjacent High Plains are home to some of the most vast, intact, and minimally disturbed natural ecosystems remaining in the western United States. Colorado moreover ranks among the top 10 states in the USA for percentage of land that is in the public domain, and hence a very long history of land conservation, stewardship, and research and interest in natural history. Despite extensive knowledge gained about the biota of Colorado over the prior century, the lichens of Colorado have never been thoroughly nor comprehensively inventoried beyond the geographically and/or temporally limited efforts by a handful of scholars over the years. Two years ago, we launched a large-scale study of the state’s lichen biota, targeting all ecosystems, elevations, geographical regions, and substrates. Our field collections and subsequent identification efforts have revealed the magnitude of the task ahead: a first full and comprehensive lichen inventory. Here, we describe two new species of Caloplaca s.l. to science, Tassiloa friogranitica and Pyrenodesmia praemonatana, provide IUCN conservation assessments for both, and discuss their morphological and molecular affinities to close allies. Finally, we report on 32 species of lichens and allied fungi newly documented in Colorado for the first time to our knowledge, along with an additional 17 species otherwise known only from one or a few pre-existing collections in the state.