Edgerton is an

extinct town A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...

at the confluence of Monument Creek and West Monument Creek north of present-day

Colorado Springs Colorado Springs is the most populous city in El Paso County, Colorado, United States, and its county seat. The city had a population of 478,961 at the 2020 census, a 15.02% increase since 2010. Colorado Springs is the second-most populous c ...

in El Paso County,

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

, United States. It was across from

Black Forest The Black Forest ( ) is a large forested mountain range in the States of Germany, state of Baden-Württemberg in southwest Germany, bounded by the Rhine Valley to the west and south and close to the borders with France and Switzerland. It is th ...

. The Edgerton post office operated from June 16, 1870, until August 28, 1902.

Stage station and hotel

Edgerton Hotel - Teachout Hotel - late 19th century

In the 1860s, Edgerton Hotel was established as the first

stage station A stage station or relay station, also known as a staging post, a posting station, or a stage stop, is a facility along a main road or trade route where a traveller can rest and/or replace exhausted working animals (mostly horse riding, riding h ...

north of

Old Colorado City Old Colorado City, formerly Colorado City, is a former town and a neighborhood within the city of Colorado Springs, Colorado. Its commercial district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. It was founded during the Pik ...

on the route to

Denver Denver ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of ...

. The stage coach horses were swapped for fresh horses at the station. The station and two-story Edgerton Hotel, along old Camp Creek Road, were run by Leafy Teachout and her son, Harlow. The site of the hotel, stables, and stone barn are in a meadow along the Santa Fe Regional Trail. There are some ruins of the stone foundations.

Native Americans

Of the Native Americans who were in the area, the

Ute people Ute () are an Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin, Indigenous people of the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau in present-day Utah, western Colorado, and northern New Mexico.Pritkzer''A Native American Encyclopedia'' p. 242 Historically, their t ...

were friendly. They sold beads to settlers and would sometimes get a free meal of biscuits. The

Cheyenne The Cheyenne ( ) are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. The Cheyenne comprise two Native American tribes, the Só'taeo'o or Só'taétaneo'o (more commonly spelled as Suhtai or Sutaio) and the (also spelled Tsitsistas, The term for th ...

and

Arapaho The Arapaho ( ; , ) are a Native American people historically living on the plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Lakota and Dakota. By the 1850s, Arapaho bands formed t ...

were hostile to the settlers, who make their houses to be like fortresses–make of stone and wooden walls as much as three-feet-(0.9-meter)-thick. Some had narrow slots just wide enough to use to shoot a rifle from inside the house. Families would huddle together during uprisings. In 1868, there were raids by Native Americans, who stole 150 horses from Harlow Teachout, and two young boys were killed in another raid.

Railroad station and early village years

The

Denver and Rio Grande Railroad The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad , often shortened to ''Rio Grande'', D&RG or D&RGW, formerly the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, was an American Class I railroad company. The railroad started as a narrow-gauge line running south fro ...

was constructed east of Monument Creek and a railroad post office was opened in 1870 at Edgerton. In 1872, David Edgerton homesteaded 160 acres and established a ranch. The village grew around his ranch and was called Edgerton after him. In 1881, a post office and the VC Lewis Hotel were established.

Village growth

Residents were engaged in the lumber industry.

Academy School District 20 Academy District 20 is a school district located in El Paso County, Colorado. It is in the northern part of Colorado Springs, Colorado, Colorado Springs, Colorado and the area surrounding the Air Force Academy. List of schools Elementary *Ac ...

was organized in 1886 by residents of Douglass, Pine, and Woodmen Valleys over a 36-square-mile (93.2 km²) area in 1874. (Pine and Douglass Valleys are immediately northwest of the Edgerton town site. Students from Woodmen Valley rode horses to school.) Classes were held in houses until 1886 when the Edgerton School opened near the railroad stop for Edgerton. Located on a mesa above the mouth of West Monument Creek, it was the first schoolhouse for the district. It generally taught grades one through six, but sometimes up to grade eight. Two lakes, one of which was called Ice Lake, were built by five pioneers in the mid-1880s. Their business was the Cascade Ice Company. During the winter, they harvested blocks of ice from the lakes and sold the ice to keep food cool, before there was refrigeration. The ice was loaded onto insulated railroad cars to be transported for sale elsewhere. There are ruins of the dams used to create the lakes, but there is no evidence of the original "ice lakes". The town also had a general store. The town's residents were upset after the Kearney Ranch murders of Mrs. Kearney and her six-year-old grandson, James Hand, in 1886. Their bodies were found after they had been brutally murdered and signs that a meal that was about to be served. There were three place settings, but the identity of the additional person was not known, but believed to be the murderer and someone known to the family. There were 50 residents of the settlement in 1890 and 350 people living there by 1902. Many of the residents suffered from

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...

, and they came to the area seeking treatment.

Transition

The hotel closed when the new and faster means of transportation meant few customers. It became a farm and ranch house, and then the property was leased as pasture land, and the building burned down in 1941. The railroad post office closed in 1902 and it was moved to Pikeview. The Edgerton School closed in 1915 with the opening of the Woodmen Valley School, which was the only school in the district until 1957. When the highway, now

Interstate 25 Interstate 25 (I-25), also known as the Pan-American Freeway, is a major Interstate Highway in the western United States. It is primarily a north–south highway, serving as the main route through New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming. I-25 st ...

, was built in the 1920s, there were even fewer visitors and it eventually ceased to exist as a village. The school site is now part of the

Air Force Academy An air force academy or air academy is a national institution that provides initial officer training, possibly including undergraduate level education, to air force officer cadets who are preparing to be commissioned officers in a national air forc ...

near the South Gate. It is along the Santa Fe Regional Trail that connects to the

Pikes Peak Greenway Pikes Peak Greenway is a trail in Colorado Springs, Colorado that parallels Monument Creek (Arkansas River), Monument and Fountain Creek (Arkansas River), Fountain Creeks and winds through and alongside parks, like Monument Valley Park, and spor ...

at the Ice Lake trailhead.

References

External links

State of Colorado
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History Colorado
{{coord, 38.9606, -104.8359, type:city_region:US-CO_source:map, name=Edgerton, display=title 1870 establishments in Colorado Territory Former populated places in Colorado Former populated places in El Paso County, Colorado Geography of El Paso County, Colorado Ghost towns in Colorado History of Colorado Populated places established in 1870 Pre-statehood history of Colorado