History of Colorado Springs, Colorado

Before it was founded, the site of modern-day Colorado Springs, Colorado, was part of the American frontier. Old Colorado City, built in 1859 during the Pike's Peak Gold Rush was the Colorado Territory capital. The town of Colorado Springs, was founded by General William Jackson Palmer as a resort town. Old Colorado City was annexed into Colorado Springs. Railroads brought tourists and visitors to the area from other parts of the United States and abroad. The city was noted for junctions for seven railways: Denver and Rio Grande (1870), Denver and New Orleans Manitou Branch (1882), Colorado Midland (1886-1918), Colorado Springs and Interurban (1887-1932 horse/electric tram), Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe (1889), Rock Island (1889), and Colorado Springs and Cripple Creek (1900-22 Short Line) Railways. It was also known for mining exchanges and brokers for the Cripple Creek Gold Rush.

Palmer, Spencer Penrose, and Winfield Scott Stratton provided land and funding for parks, buildings, and non-profit organizations. It was a home to successful mine owners, artists, and writers. The climate and mountain setting made it a popular tourist destination and health resort. A dry climate supported resorts for people with weak lungs or tuberculosis, including the 19th and 20th century Colorado Springs sanatoria.

The city supported three World War II and Cold War military installations. The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) center was located within the city before relocating to Cheyenne Mountain.

Geological history

Notable landforms, such as the Cheyenne Mountain on the city's southwest, were formed of Precambrian Pikes Peak granite uplifted in the Ancestral Rocky Mountains. Formation of the city's hills—including the Mesa, Institute Heights, and Knob Hill—created valleys for the Camp, Cheyenne, and Fountain creeks which enter the city on the west; Monument Creek from the north; and Cottonwood & Sand creeks (east). Bluffs formed with American Lower Eocene coal deposits of the Colorado Springs lignite field. Eponymic mineral springs, which flowed in 1912 from aquifers under the elevated landforms, included Horn's Mineral Springs at 1210 Lincoln, Monument Springs on Monument Creek's west bank in Monument Valley Park, and Jimmy's Camp Springs. There were also other springs located at that time on Bijou, Kiowa, 7th, and Cucharra streets and West Cheyenne Road.

Before founding

Native American settlements

Ute people have believed that the Pikes Peak region is their home. Their name for Pikes Peak is Tavakiev, meaning sun mountain. They lived a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Summers were spent in the mountains, which was considered by other tribes to be the domain of the Utes. In the fall they would travel down Ute Pass and visited the springs where they "made offerings to the spirits of the springs for good health and good hunting". From there they began a journey eastward to hunt buffalo. They spent winters in mountain valleys where they were protected from the weather. Garden of the Gods artifacts from up to 3,500 years ago, such as grinding stones, "suggest the groups would gather together after their hunt to complete the tanning of hides and processing of meat." For instance, grinding stones found there from B.C. were used by the Ute people.

Arapaho, Cheyenne, and other tribes also gathered in the Manitou Springs and Garden of the Gods areas. Cheyenne Mountain, named after the Cheyenne people was considered a great source of timber for teepee poles. Waterfalls were believed by the Cheyenne and Arapaho to be a spiritual place where one might gain inspiration, which may have been why they visited the local Cañons.

By 1882, Utes were forced to live on reservations in southwestern Colorado and eastern Utah.

Treaties and settler exploration

Part of the American frontier, Colorado Springs land was in New France (1682 treaty), New Spain ( 1762 treaty), and the United States' Louisiana Purchase beginning in 1803. When the region was bought by the United States with the Louisiana Purchase, explorers entered the area. Zebulon Pike explored the region in November 1806. The land including the current city was designated part of the 1854 Kansas Territory and on June 24, 1857, a team of Major John Sedgwick's Column camped at the mouth of Jimmy Camp Creek. In 1858, a subsequent April US Army camp was near Soda Spring in Manitou Springs, and the Lawrence Party camped at Garden of the Gods in July before establishing a town in or after September of that year at Montana City, which is now part of Denver, Colorado.

Foundation

Gold rush settlement

Colorado City, now called Old Colorado City, was founded at the confluence of Fountain and Camp creeks on August 13, 1859, making it the first Pikes Peak region settlement. The Colorado City area became part of the Jefferson Territory on October 24 and of El Paso County on November 28, 1859. From November 5, 1861, until August 14, 1862 (including one legislative session), the city was the Colorado Territory capital. It then moved to Golden, before it was finally moved to Denver in 1867.

Roads into the area included a toll road that connected to the northeast with the Overland's 1865 "Despatch Express Route". Southward out of Colorado City a stage road (now Old Stage Road) traversed through South Cheyenne Creek's canyon to Cripple Creek, and a carriage road through North and South Cheyenne Canyons and westward was the Ute Pass Wagon Road. Another route into the area was the north–south Cherokee Trail / Jimmy Camp Trail, which was near the Goodnight–Loving Trail. The Jimmy Camp Trail was one branch of the Trapper's Trail, a trail used by trappers and explorers from 1820 and during the gold rush. Trapper's Trail ran north–south from Fort Laramie to the El Pueblo trading post in the present Pueblo County, and from there branched off to Bent's Old Fort or Taos, New Mexico.

Colorado Springs founding and incorporation

Civil War General William Jackson Palmer came to the Colorado Territory as a surveyor with the Kansas Pacific Railway in search of possible railroad routes. Dr. William Abraham Bell from England was also part of the survey party. Having viewed the valley in the shadow of Pikes Peak as an ideal town site in July 1869,
Palmer and Bell founded Fountain Colony, downstream of Colorado City, on July 31, 1871, and it was laid out by the Colorado Springs Company that year. The town was named Colorado Springs by 1879. It was named for springs found along Monument Creek as early as 1871. Four chalybeate mineral springs were later discovered along Monument Creek in October 1880.

The El Paso County seat transferred from Colorado City in 1873 to the Town of Colorado Springs. Early infrastructure included of irrigation canals along streets and a drinking water supply from Manitou's Ruxton Creek by 1879. Water was diverted to the Ruxton Creek Basin from the Middle Beaver Creek basin in 1889.

The town was "Little London" for the many English tourists and settlers actively recruited by Palmer's English associate Dr. William Abraham Bell and Palmer's English financial backers who provided the capital for his railroad, Denver and Rio Grande Railroad served the city beginning October 1871. In 1873 Colorado Springs became the county seat for the county; Previously, Old Colorado City was the county seat.

The Pikes Peak region was one of the most popular travel destinations in the late 19th century United States. The town saw an influx of writers, artists and people from England in the late 1870s, some of whom made their home in the town. Some of the key attractions were Garden of the Gods, Glen Eyrie, Pikes Peak, and Cheyenne Canyon.

Domestic and international travelers were drawn to the high altitude, sunshine, mineral waters, and dry climate. The town was described as "a veritable Eden for consumptive invalids". At the peak of its period as a health resort for tuberculosis treatment in Colorado Springs, there were 17 tuberculosis hospitals in the area. The permanent residents fear of catching the highly contagious disease nearly resulted in a state bill that would have required tubercular patients to wear bells to announce their presence.

The Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind and Colorado College were founded in 1874. Palmer opened the Antlers Hotel in 1882. Colorado Springs incorporated on June 19, 1886,

After settlement

Late 19th century and early 20th century

Colorado Midland Railroad began service in the town in 1885. Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad service began in 1889. Trolleys ran to Manitou Springs the following year. Colorado Springs grew by 164% when 11,140 people settled in the town between 1880 and 1890.

After the Cripple Creek gold discovery in 1891, the people who made a fortune from the gold rush and industry built large houses on Wood Avenue, then in the undeveloped downtown area of Colorado Springs. Several large stone buildings like Colorado College, St. Mary's Church, the first Antlers Hotel, the library, and the county courthouse were built on wide streets, in anticipation of significant population growth. By 1898, the city that had grown through annexations of Old Colorado City, Ivywild, Roswell and other towns was designated into quadrants by the north–south Cascade Avenue and the east–west Washington/Pike's Peak avenues, along with voting precincts 27-41 and five wards with the fire alarm zones.

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