The Book of Colorado Springs

By Manly Dayton Ormes

This work may be thought of as a blueprint or manual of town building; of how the city of Colorado Springs and other cities were planned, developed, and flourished in the western U.S. during the closing decades of the 19th century. Published as a gift to the people of the Pikes Peak region, the Colorado Springs Gazette presented it as the “Book of the Month” for February 1934, shortly after its original 1933 printing. The Book of Colorado Springs remains among the best and most consulted sources of the city’s early history.

Manly and Eleanor Ormes settled in Colorado Springs in 1889. Manly was a Congregational minister, a professor, and a Colorado College librarian. Eleanor was a respected artist. A meticulous historian, Manly earned a reputation for compiling and cataloging any and all information concerning the Pikes Peak region as he assembled the college’s reference collection. This collection inspired Ormes to condense the vast amount of material into a single reference source. The work was left unfinished at Manly’s 1929 death. Eleanor took charge of the project, painstakingly researching, writing, and editing until the book for publication.

This reprint of Manly and Eleanor Ormes’s The Book of Colorado Springs has been re-illustrated, lightly edited, and extensively indexed. Some photographs from the original printing are augmented with a selection of additional photographs from the Pikes Peak Library District’s Special Collections. The language is modernized for easier reading—current American spellings and compound words replace British spellings and hyphenated words. Typos and spelling errors are corrected—as are a few factual errors. Special Collections staff researched and inserted the full or given names of the people who built the region’s infrastructure and created its vibrant civic and cultural foundations. Where possible, for females, given names replace the honorific “Mrs.”; for males, given names replace the initials which commonly identified men at the time of original publication. The new comprehensive index identifies spouses to aid in genealogical research. It is our hope that this revised reprint of the 1933 publication will continue to enlighten readers and inspire them to share in the appreciation of the rich history of the Pikes Peak region.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pikes Peak Library District
• Release date: Nov 7, 2018
• ISBN: 9781567353242

Book preview

Chapter I—Early History

The Territory and El Paso County

To us living in a machine age, fed with a faked romance of Bolshevism and banditry, the contrast of real adventure is not only refreshing, but extremely stimulating to thought. The spirit of initiative and enterprise coursing in the blood of the races that have trod our soil, led them seeking precious things, gold, gems, furs. In doing thus, they little knew they were making ways over the plains, and paths through the mountains.

We look back into Colorado’s history before it was Colorado, and before history was written here, and we can imagine bands of Indians moving down along the Western Slope, and making themselves a refuge in cliffs of the high mesas. These belong to the dim past, we don’t know how many centuries ago. (Through the efforts of an efficient committee, of which Mrs. Mary Virginia Donaghe McClurg and Mrs. Emma Haywood Eldredge were members, the Mesa Verde was made a National Park by act of Congress in 1906.)

When history begins to reach out and identify things, we find that Spain claimed all this great unbounded southwest. Francisco Vázquez de Coronado comes in glittering armor leading in his train a host of caballeros splendidly equipped, with Indians following, brave in war-paint. This is one of the most spectacular events on Colorado’s pages. They were in search of the Seven Golden Cities, and this was only about 50 years after America’s discovery. From that time until the first settlements were made, the oblong of mountain and plain we now call Colorado was a skirmishing ground for explorers, trappers, and traders, of Spanish, French, and Indian blood. The Spanish called it Santo Domingo, and to the French it was the western frontier of Louisiana, ceded back to Spain in 1763 by France after the Seven Years' War. The outstanding explorers before John Charles Frémont came into the Rockies were two Spanish padres, Fray Francisco Silvestre Velez de Escalante and Fray Francisco Atanasio Dominguez. They started from Santa Fe in July 1776, the month and year of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, to seek a way to the California missions. It was by the intermittent roving about of bands and little companies of explorers and traders that ways came to be made over the country. In some such manner the Santa Fe Trail grew.

When Napoleon found himself master of Europe, he took back Louisiana from Spain, but three years later, in 1803, he sold it to the United States Government. There were no definite bounds. It would have scarcely been possible to name any, had there been inclination.

East of the Rockies then it was Louisiana. Under Thomas Jefferson, Congress became interested in exploring these new possessions. Lt. Zebulon Montgomery Pike was sent out with a party of 22 men from Belle-Fontaine near St. Louis, in July 1806. By November’s end they had reached the present site of Pueblo where they put up a slight defensive shelter, the first in our state. Zebulon Pike saw the Peak which he calls Highest Peak always in his journals, and like the adventurous young man he was, his desire was toward the summit. It must have been good weather, for the three men who went with him wore light overalls merely and no stockings. They succeeded in getting to a spur of Cheyenne where in a cave they spent the night.² As they were without blankets, their food and water gone, and the thermometer at four degrees below, they went no further toward the Grand Peak. This figure of Pike stands picturesquely in the foreground of our Colorado local story. He refers to James Purcell, however, as being the first American pioneer-prospector and trapper on Colorado soil. This man he met and knew in Santa Fe when there under Spanish guard.

All through the 1820s beaver skins were money; we read of the William and Charles Bent and Ceran St. Vrain Company and the Rocky Mountain Fur Company with William Ashley and Andrew Henry operating up and down the streams where beaver lived. Kit Carson trapped for a time with Henry.

The unknown possession was being made known as the decades rolled along, through expeditions and writings. Many of these famous and fearless explorers’ names have fixed themselves to our rivers and mountains, as well as to some of our counties and towns. Major Pike’s diaries and Maj. Stephen Harriman Long’s account of his expedition were published in the East; George Frederick Ruxton, Thomas J. Farnham, Rufus B. Sage, John W. Gunnison, John Charles Frémont, Francis Parkman, William Gilpin and others wrote reports and descriptions of the great spaces west of Missouri and Kansas which came to be known as the land of Pikes Peak. Fabulous stories spread concerning the mineral wealth of the region. It was natural that the mountain itself and its immediate neighborhood should be the focal point for gold seekers, and they came.

The first party with any idea of establishing a home were from Lawrence, Kansas, in 1858. Gold was the object which brought them, but as their findings were negligible, and the season a rainy one, a period of less than three months sent most of the fortune seekers back where they came from. A city to be called El Paso was laid out, however, in this vicinity while they were here, and lots were actually sold in Lawrence and other places, through their representations.

Early in 1859, a second company came, lured by reports of those who had gone back, and by the knowledge that some had stayed in the region. There was a little settlement on the Platte, five miles above where Denver was to be; though discouragement at the failure to find gold at once, disbanded it likewise. Some of those fifty-niners went directly there, others, including two familiar names, George A. Bute, later clerk of the District Court, and Anthony Bott crossed the Divide, led by Charley Gilmore, with the idea of locating at the foot of Pikes Peak. Snow was falling when they left the Platte settlement, but when the heights were accomplished, and they looked down the southern slopes, the land clear and sunny sketched before them, they were filled with new courage and hastened on. Another townsite was laid out, this time where Colorado City stands; El Dorado was the name they gave it, expressing their high hopes. Not long it was before some of the Platte people of the former party came down, disputing possession of the ground. The quarrel ran high, all but resulting in bloodshed. They compromised however, and all together built a large company house of logs, to be a nucleus of the future city.

A man named Tucker,³ with Mr. Bute and several others, set out from this El Dorado by the end of January 1859, as representatives of the community to search for the South Park, believing that the much longed-for gold fields would be there. Following the Indian Trail westward, for the Arapahos went into the mountains continually that way, they came upon the soda springs, where they camped a day or so, charmed by the beauty of the scene and the surprise of the waters. Even before this, the springs had been claimed by the trapper Richens Lacey Dick Wooton, whose log house stood there as proof of this ownership. This Dick Wooten was an interesting old character. He must have elbowroom, so when man came within a score of miles of him, he sought further solitudes. He did not abandon his claim without recompense, for Whitsitt & Company gave him $500 for it, in 1859. Whitsitt’s partner sold his interest to one of the Tappan brothers from Boston, Lewis Northey, John G., and George Hopper Tappan. The Boston Tract had its name from these men, who took up 480 acres on the west bank of the Monument, about this time. This has since become one of the additions to our city.

The springs being deserted by these men, they were jumped by one named Slaughter, who put up a frame house of some pretensions. He in his turn lost his rights, and Thompson Girten, owner of Sulphur Springs in South Park jumped them again, making some further improvements. Col. John Milton Chivington after that bought the property for $1,500, reselling to his son-in-law Thomas Pollock. After the site had passed from one to another, George Crater, a Denver man, headed a company to purchase the springs, for which they had to pay by that time $10,000. Later they came into possession of the Colorado Springs Company. This time the price had soared to $26,000.

To go back to the little party bound for South Park; provisions gave out as they reached the Petrified Forest, and they went back to El Dorado City, where they loaded an ox-wagon and started again. This without doubt was the first team that ever went that well-nigh impassable way. They were able to get as far as where Fairplay now is, where they actually did find the glittering gold they sought, in the Platte stream. Full of enthusiasm, they built cabins for winter shelter, determined to stay and begin work in spring. News of the discovery was soon set afloat, and the spring saw a rush of seekers on their way to find the treasure. But many late snows, with the extremely difficult process of washing the gold in a stream filled with huge boulders bred such discouragement and even disgust, that the place was abandoned. About this time or soon thereafter, the John H. Gregory Diggins to the north were reported, and a general stampede went in that direction.

This sounded the knell for El Dorado, and as they say, Choice corner lots went ‘a begging.’ It had come into being only in January; in the spring of the same year it was deserted. New reports of richer discoveries in South Park invited another and much larger stampede. Some people from Clear Creek and Auraria, later Denver, got together with the idea of starting another town at the entrance to the Pass. They formed a company in August of the same fatal year 1859, as follows:

L. James Winchester, President.

Lewis N. Tappan, Secretary, one of the Tappan Brothers.

Anthony Bott, who became the oldest inhabitant of El Paso County.

George A. Bute, once District Clerk.

Melancthon S. Beach, for some time Superintendent of the Town Company, and otherwise prominently identified with the interests of the county.

Julian Smith, who was also one of the Founders of El Dorado City.

Henry M. Fosdick, who lived on the Arkansas, below Pueblo.

Richard Edward Whitsitt, a prominent and wealthy citizen of Denver.

David A. Cheever, the Postmaster of Denver.

Seymour W. Wagoner, the second Probate Judge of the Territory, which was then the Indian County (or Arapahoe County) of the Territory of Kansas. He was appointed by Gov. James William Denver (who gave his name to the present metropolis of Colorado).

Albert D. Richardson, the author of Beyond the Mississippi, and one of the editors of the New York Tribune, who was then traveling in the Far West.

Michael P. McCarty, Henry M. Fosdick, Rufus E. Cable, Thomas J. Higgins & Alfred S. Cobb, Charles W. Persall, A. B. Wade, George W. Putnam, John I. Price, William Park McClure, John T. Parkinson, George N. Woodward, Charles H. Blake, Elisha Pinckney Stout, and Clark & Willis.

These, with perhaps one or two others claimed an extensive town site, on the banks of the Fountain, covering the site of the short-lived El Dorado.

Plats of the town are yet in existence, and show that the 1,280 acres were none too large for the imagined City.

The South Park then through 1859, 1860, and 1861, became a scene of much excitement and mining activity. Thousands flocked there to the Tarryall or Pound Diggins from everywhere, and the high hopes of the company seemed on the brink of realization. The new town at the mouth of the opening into the Pass was to have all the trade from those mushroom growths up there, for little settlements like Fairplay and Buckskin were springing up in a night. The traffic was enormous and everything conspired to promise a thriving city.

That first winter of 1859 and 1860 saw 100 log cabins enjoying life at the entrance to El Paso. The year 1860 saw more than 300 houses in the town beside shops and lots which sold for $400 each. The summit of prosperity was attained when at the Fourth of July Dinner, over 400 people paid $2.50 apiece to sit at the tables.

In an old number of the Missouri Democrat, dated Tuesday morning, March 20, 1860, is a long letter by Prof. Owen J. Goldrick, editor of the Rocky Mountain Herald. He writes from:

Colorado City, Foot of Pikes Peak, El Paso County, Jefferson Territory, March 1, 1860

This is destined to be second to no other city in the great Territory of Jefferson. Good city property here I consider as valuable almost as in Denver City — Choice lots here on Broadway Street are worth from $500 to $1,000. It is situated at the great natural opening, of Ute Pass, from the plains to the parks, and all other points of the gold regions west to Utah. The new free road lately completed from this city to the Park, Blue and Snowy Range Diggings is the choicest, the finest, the most level, and the best constructed for horse, carriage or heavy wagon travel that there is in the country. The prospects for rich and very extensive gold fields lie right immediately west of the town, from the base, ridges and gulch streams at Pikes Peak itself back to the Snowy Range.

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There are now some two hundred and forty fine, handsome looking houses erected, and hundreds more in progress and contemplation. Some very large three-story stone store-houses, and some very handsome Gothic offices and dwellings are completing.

The beautiful red rock quarries and cliffs, within a mile of the city, and also the ridges of beautiful white and brown sandstone, and limestone quarries surrounding, will afford the greatest and cheapest opportunities for putting up the finest stores and warehouses, and the handsome residences this side of Fifth Avenue, New York City. The red clay adjoining the mountains, when mixed with water, makes a mortar as durable as iron ore.

Forests of the finest oaks and pines are near at hand, and also inexhaustible beds of cannel coal within four miles of the heart of the city. The mountain slopes adjoining westward abound with wild grape-vines, and can be easily cultivated for most extensive vineyards, with little or no comparative expense or labor.

Taking it in an agricultural and trading point of view, I consider Colorado City bound to become one of the finest cities and sections in this far West, before two more years, if no earlier.

William Henry Garvin, the original claimant of the Garden of the Gods, ran the first store in Colorado City for the firm of Gerrish and Cobb, and John H. George opened the first saloon. Tappan and Company erected the first frame building in the summer of 1860. It was used for the county offices until Colorado Springs became the county seat.

When the Civil War came in 1861, travel to the West was diverted from the Arkansas Valley to the Platte, which built up Denver at the expense of Colorado City. It was soon found possible also to take teams over the mountains from Denver into the Park mines. Then another knell was sounded!

The busy little town rapidly became a deserted village; its log houses could be had for $10 each; many of them were hauled off to neighboring ranches. In winter when men came down from the mines, there was a show of life, but the rest of the year, it was a very dead place.

It was in 1861 that William Gilpin, who had gone with Frémont to Oregon in 1843, exploring in the Rockies, on his return was appointed governor of Colorado Territory. This was part of the provisional Jefferson Territory formed from portions of Washington, Utah, Kansas, Nebraska, and New Mexico. The first legislature met in Denver, when they located the capitol at Colorado City. Meeting once in the old building where the county offices were, and realizing then what had come to pass, they straightway folded their tents and returned to Denver.

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This photograph is identified as the Colorado territorial legislative hall, Colorado City, 1862. The second session of the legislative assembly of Colorado met in the hall July 7 through July 11, 1862, before adjourning to Denver. A building known as the Garvin Cabin, now located in Bancroft Park, was claimed to be the first legislative hall, however this was disputed by Anthony Bott. James Thurlow photograph, Robert N. Dennis Collection, The New York Public Library (MFY Dennis Coll 90-F38).

It was just before Governor Gilpin arrived, that news came of the attack on Fort Sumter. People excitedly took sides. Gilpin, being a man of great foresight and intelligence, proceeded to take hold of the situation. That first summer and fall he organized and equipped a First Regiment of Colorado Volunteer Infantry, which during the next year played the leading roll in checking the advance of the Confederate Army, in New Mexico. Colonel Chivington after his notable career at La Glorieta Pass, was given supervision of the military district of Colorado in 1863; the regiment broken, and distributed as guards against Indian depredations.

It was through no lack of enterprise or effort that the founders of Colorado City failed to build it up into a town of magnificent proportions. All that could be was done to make known its advantages and to promote its interests; its failure was the result of misfortune, not of fault. In the beginning of August 1861, the Colorado City Journal⁴ was launched, and a weekly edition of 500 copies was printed chiefly for gratuitous distribution. The editor was Benjamin Franklin Crowell, county treasurer, and the publishers were the Colorado Printing Company — Tappan Brothers bearing the greater share of the burden which the publication entailed. The Journal was printed on the Denver Commonwealth press, and partly made up from that paper. It was a six-column paper, the size of the Gazette, and was well filled with local and general news. Its principles were Republican — of the strictest order — its motto Faithful and Fearless, and its terms were $5 a year; single copies, 15 cents. It was published for six months, and circulated far and wide over the Union; but the returns failed to justify the expenditure, and at the end of January 1862 it was suspended.

A copy of the Journal, dated Thursday, November 28, 1861, furnishes hints for a few reminiscences of the early days. The local advertisements extend to about half-a-column in length, the first being that of Melancthon S. Beach, the recorder of the city, and the great real estate man of those times. At the foot of the column comes the notice of the Colorado City and Denver Express Line—Harmon G. Weibling, proprietor, announcing the coaches ran every week between the above points, carrying the United States mail, express matters, and passengers.

Among the local items we find a notice of arrivals — Dr. James Garvin from French Gulch, John Addleman of Delaware Flats, (who was subsequently murdered by the Espinosas, Felipe and José), the Rev. William Howbert and family, accompanied by several other families from Buckskin Joe, Tarryall, and other places in the mines — all to spend the winter, and many to make their permanent abodes in our romantic young city. Then, there is a cry for more stores, more particularly for a dry goods store, for, said the editor (and Crowell knew whereof he spoke, being an observant young bachelor) the ladies will dress well, wear hooped skirts and all that, no matter what the cost.

This number of the Journal contains an account of the Mass Convention for nominating candidates for county officers at the first election after the organization.

The commissioners appointed by Governor Gilpin when he organized the county were Melancthon S. Beach, Henry S. Clark, and Alfred D. Sprague. These met on the 16th of November, 1861, divided the county into election precincts, and appointed judges of election. They then held themselves ready to turn over the reins of office to their successors.

The election took place a week or two afterwards, and resulted as follows: commissioners, Benjamin F. Crowell, John Bley, Alfred D. Sprague; treasurer, Robert A. Finley; clerk and recorder, George A. Bute; attorney, Seymour W. Wagoner; surveyor, Albinus Z. Sheldon; coroner, Robert F. Moore; superintendent of schools, David Powell Dodd; assessor, Samuel G. Hull.

There was, in those days, but little settlement in the county, outside of Colorado City, except along the Fountain Valley, and the voting population was small. The requirements for qualification were of the most liberal character; but, notwithstanding this fact, there were not more than 150 votes cast, if so many.

It is possible that some of these particulars as to the first county election may be slightly inaccurate, as no records of it have been preserved, there being little remuneration then for county officers, and little incentive for the purchase of expensive books. The first tax levied by the new commissioners went up to the fullest extent allowed by law, but it only netted $400. This sum was expended in the construction of two bridges across the Monument — one about opposite to the present freight depot, which, as many of our readers will remember, did duty until the new bridge at the foot of Huerfano Street was built; and one up at Teachout’s. For salaries and fees, there was nothing left, and commissioners and clerks had alike to satisfy themselves with the reflection that Virtue is its own reward. Yet, we are assured, there were people in those days who went around wanting to know what was being done with all the money! Human nature was much the same then as it is now.

On January 16, 1862, the county was divided into three commissioners’ districts, and on the 7th of September, 1863, into three road districts.

It was a rough life in Colorado City at its height. There were shootings and killings, and justice stood on no ceremony. It is said in an early number of the Gazette, that the graveyard started in a proverbially western fashion — by shooting a man for its first occupant. Pat Devlin and Jim Laughlin living together on a ranch, quarreled fiercely. Nothing but blood would heal the breach, but Jim had no weapon. Pat generously offered to postpone the affair until they could be equally accoutered. With the understanding that whichever found the first chance might take it; Jim Laughlin started for Colorado City, where he possessed himself of a double-barreled shotgun. Devlin soon followed him, but Laughlin having been warned, took refuge in a cabin, and fired at his adversary through a window. Devlin was hit, not killed. Within a quarter-hour a jury was gathered, the case heard, and a verdict rendered of justifiable homicide. Maybe there were some Irishmen there but it came out all right for Devlin died, and his body started the cemetery.

Then one Sunday morning some weeks later, the Rev. Howbert, father of Irving Howbert, offered to hold a service in the town. Religious privileges were rare in those times, but not unappreciated. However, it was explained to the preacher that a little public business must be attended to first. A Mexican horse thief had been captured. Justice must be meted out. No doubt he was guilty — it was a question of how to punish. The jury being found, those in favor of hanging were to go to one side, those opposed to the other. Those were short shrifts, and as a little group of objectors started down the street away from the scene, the others escorted the poor chap to Red Canon not far from town, where they performed the dire deed.

After that came the service where the preacher discoursed on righteousness and judgment to come.

Though in 1863, Colorado City made an effort to re-establish herself, it proved futile. Settlements increased along the Fountain, and claims were taken up on the Divide; but when the next year a great flood swept down the Fountain Valley in June, washing out two-thirds of the crops, drowning several people; and following it, in August, an army of grasshoppers, devouring everything the flood had left, discouragement gave way to despair.

Desperation was not complete, however, until Indian marauders came, driving the farming people in terror from their ranches. Up to the summer of 1864, there had been no trouble. Sioux, Arapaho, and Cheyenne occupied the plains up to the base of the mountains, while Utes, their hereditary foes, were in the mountain cañons and pockets. While hatred existed between these tribes the settlers regarded them as friendly toward themselves, called upon to feed, rather than fear them. Depredations began along the Platte; horses and cattle were stolen, people butchered ruthlessly.

The menace came to El Paso County. A family named Hungate, Nathan, wife Ellen, and daughters, Laura and Florence, living some distance in the hills beyond Colorado City ⁵ was murdered in shocking fashion. This gave the alarm; people huddled together in fright in the town, leaving their ranches; a stockade for defense was hastily built. The roads eastward were considered unsafe, and the country seemed cut off from all communication with the States. A party of Indians supposed to be scouting, was come upon in the Garden of the Gods by some armed Colorado City men. They got away by a ruse, and nothing further came of it at the time, though the people were paralyzed with fear.

Then came Sand Creek. It has been stated that Colonel Chivington had been given after his services in New Mexico were completed, a command of a force of military for protective purposes in the Territory. Horses, arms, general equipment were not ready until toward November. Meanwhile affairs in the region were quiet; farmers and their families had gone back to ranches. Irving Howbert, a young man then, was a member of the force under Colonel Chivington. In his book about the Indians of the region, he tells a graphic story of Sand Creek. While the East held the idea that it was inhuman atrocity, frontiersmen having lived in terror through so many months, pronounced it an absolutely necessary and justifiable chastisement of the incorrigible and ruthless Indians. It was fearful retribution, but there were no more raids of any consequence for four years.

In August 1868, Little Raven’s band of two or three hundred Cheyenne passed through Colorado City on their way supposedly to fight Utes in the hills. Denver was wired, and word came back that those Indians were not to be molested, being peaceful. Then in a few days, several cold blooded murders took place along the Monument; young Charlie Everhart where he was herding cattle; old Judge William H. Baldwin, another victim, though he lived strange to say, to boast about it; two little boys, Franklin and George Robbins, watching some sheep near Mt. Washington, sons of a rancher named Thomas H. Robbins. Killings went on this way for over a month as the vengeful redskins rode over the Divide. It was a reign of terror to the helpless folk, scattered along the foothills and nearby plains; hardly a day passed but someone would be picked off, and animals herded away.

A treaty had been made by the Federal Government after Sand Creek with the Indians, apologizing to them for wanton outrages committed then, offering protection, and recompensing them for their losses and suffering. These settlers and pioneers of the 1870s were heritors of earlier adventurers’ callous cruelty. Every Indian was a suitable subject to many of them to be cheated or shot as the occasion pointed. So it was Red against White, and the innocent suffered. This last attack was followed by no revenge, and Time called a truce to savagery.

The County Courthouse

On the north side of Colorado Avenue (Huerfano) and near the business center of old Colorado City, was one of the first buildings over there, and the first independent county building of the county. It was put up originally for a Dr. James Garvin, who was the first to practice medicine in the state. This was during the fall of 1859, and he shared the warm comfort of its probably thin walls, with two other men. Soon after the county organized in 1861, its offices were installed in that building. The territorial legislature met there, the territory having been organized the same year, earlier. They, the legislators, met but once, however, and moved to Denver. Before the county was established, there was no law, and the people became jury when occasion arose. Mr. Ben Crowell’s office was there when he was county treasurer. He considered the safe they gave him unsafe, so at night he put the money into a tin matchbox and hid it in the clock.

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At times called the Colorado territorial legislative hall, this building once displayed a sign proclaiming it the Old Capitol Building. Erected in 1859, the building served as the El Paso County Courthouse and later Sam Wah’s Chinese Laundry. Special Collections, Pikes Peak Library District (013-62).

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Benjamin F. Crowell, ca. 1890, signed papers of incorporation for Colorado Springs in 187Special Collections, Pikes Peak Library District (001-8710).

In 1869, when Irving Howbert became clerk, he induced the county to possess itself of a more comfortable place for its various offices, and a courtroom and vault for records. In 1870, the first telegraph office was installed with Matt France to operate. They say, however, that Ben Crowell did most of the operating. The first Denver and Rio Grande office was there, and General Palmer often came in. In 1873, all offices (county) were moved to a business block for a few months, and then when Colorado Springs became the county seat, the offices and court came here. The commissioners had purchased a lot at the corner of Cascade and Vermijo for a courthouse and other necessary buildings. Contract for a courthouse at the southwest corner of Nevada and Kiowa was let in August 1878 to Joseph Dozier, for $3,750. It was to be a two-storied building, offices below with court and jury rooms above. This second story hall was let for other purposes as well.

In 1891, a plan was discussed for building a courthouse and jail, which was to cost more than all the buildings in the state put together when the old courthouse was first occupied. The first estimate of $250,000 was based on the use of pressed brick, with terracotta trimmings, exclusive of furnishings. That was changed to cut stone at an increase of $40,000. The walls were up by June 1902. There had been much disagreement as to the advisability of using the Alamo Park or South Park for the site. There was also much dissatisfaction about the mounting cost, and the style of architecture (or styles, for it is said that some 30 centuries contribute items toward its composition). In self defense some official wrote to the Gazette about the time of the opening. The Commissioners well know it has been a ‘Tower of Babel’ and we are sorry there has not been a ‘confusion of tongues’ among some who have made unfair and ignorant criticisms. The total cost exclusive of furnishings was $350,000.

In 1903, on the 20th of May, dedication took place, and it was made a grand occasion. All the old county officers, and the pioneers of the county were guests. Most members of the city bar were present, and brilliant and entertaining speeches delivered by Chief Justice John Campbell, Judge Thomas A. McMorris, Judge Louis W. Cunningham, and a number beside.

It was brought out that most of the work of the court in early days, was such as was set down on the criminal calendar, and a few civil suits involving disputes over land titles, water rights, and grazing privileges. Adjudication in 1903, was that which went with the development of a rich and prosperous community. Judge Cunningham in closing his speech on Bench and Bar referred affectionately to Judge James B. Severy who had sat in the old courtroom so many years as his constant guide and counselor.

The historic old courthouse building was offered to the Grand Army of the Republic, when the property at Kiowa and Nevada was sold: the big room had been used by that organization for over 20 years. It was declined.

The history of El Paso County jail goes with the courthouse. The lot owned by the county at Cascade and Vermijo was used for a jail and extra offices when the courthouse went to its present location. The El Paso County jail on South Cascade was built in 1915, in front of and around the old jail, a small and inadequate affair, which had cost the county but little over $2,400. Atkinson and Sons⁶ were the contractors. Mr. Edward E. Nichols of the Cliff House in Manitou, was county commissioner at that time, and Henry M. Blackmer was county attorney. It was June 1892, that it was opened for use. In 1893, a night guard was on duty, and presumably the sheriff took charge in the day time, as there is no record of a jailer. Mr. Leonard Jackson was sheriff a good many years.

The present jail was designed by Thomas P. Barber, and the Pauly Jail Building Company did the interior steelwork, cells, window-bars, etc. Up to the present time it has cost the county $78,800, everything included.

The ministers of the city and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, and other groups have held religious services from time to time for the prisoners in the jail, and in the early days an organ was purchased from Thomas Hext and Frederick J. Williams, a music firm here, for the use of the jail. This item is found on the commissioner’s account books.

Selection Of The Site

The first attempt at a settlement on the present site of Colorado Springs was made by the so-called Lawrence Party. Times were hard, the desire was universal to strike out somewhere to make fortunes without serious effort. Word had been brought to them of the evidences of gold in the Pikes Peak region. A company was organized of about 40. With them came for safe conduct to the mountains a James H. Holmes and his wife, Julia Archibald Holmes, and Robert Middleton, with his wife and child.⁷ They left Lawrence, Kansas, on May 19, 1858, with a trail of 11 wagons drawn by oxen. They took a southwesterly course by way of Council Grove, a famous camping place on the Santa Fe Trail, to the Arkansas River. They moved along on the north bank, to the trail which left the Arkansas River, 12 miles below the mouth of the Fountaine qui Bouille; thence up the latter to the region of Pikes Peak. They went into camp on a creek near the Garden of the Gods. Indeed they gave the name Camp Creek to the stream flowing out of Glen Eyrie and down the valley to the Fountain at Colorado City. As soon as the organization had settled in camp, Frank M. Cobb, John D. Miller, and Augustus Voorhees put out for the summit of Pikes Peak, which they reached without serious difficulty. A day or two after their return, another small band which included Julia A. Holmes, accomplished the same exploit. So far as there is any record, Mrs. Holmes was the first woman to set foot upon the crest of the famous peak.

Many years later one of the members of the party ascending the Peak, published in the Kansas Magazine an account of this trip from which the following extract is taken:

After becoming firmly settled in our camp we prepared to ascend the Peak. We had been told by the Frenchmen at Bent’s Fort that no man had ever stood upon its summit, and no man ever would. But we thought the thing could be done, and we set about it. We did it. A party of four left camp early in the morning, and reached the highest point at sunset. The distance was about twelve miles, and the time about twelve hours. It was a little tiresome, and the air was very thin, but it was not a serious task by any means. Joseph Hooker would march an army up easily if there were rebels at the top.

I have seen several later ascensions recorded in Colorado papers as the first, and I particularly noticed in a Denver paper some time ago an account of several ladies making the trip, and one of them was named as the first woman who ever stood upon the summit of Pikes Peak. I am sorry to spoil the little story, and deprive the said lady of her laurels; but the plain fact is, that one of our before-mentioned ladies ascended the mountain in question during the last week in July, 1858. She remained up there two days and nights, slept upon the eternal snow, and wrote letters to the Eastern press dated at the summit. She did not claim to be a heroine, by any means; but if a record is to be made at all, it should be accurate, and I therefore register our woman’s name, Mrs. Julia Archibald Holmes, then a resident of Kansas, but latterly of Washington, D.C., and secretary of some national organization of women. She is probably the first woman who ever stood upon a point on the American continent anywhere near 14,000 feet above the level of the sea, and, for aught I know, the first woman who ever stood that high anywhere.

Soon after establishing camp, a season of heavy and continuous rain set in, and they were drowned out. They moved into a hollow in one of the rocks of the Garden of the Gods. Visitors to this shelter many years later declared that the smoke stains of their fires still blackened the walls and that the names which two or three of them cut into the stone may still be seen. They prospected for gold in the streams and nearby mountains for a few weeks but finding only traces, they moved south along the mountains as far as the San Luis Valley, looking for precious metal. Later in the summer they moved north to Cherry Creek, where some of them wintered. Others returned to Lawrence. While here, some of them took up land along the Fountain not far from the mountains, and planned a town site at the south end of the present Colorado Springs, naming it El Paso. During the following winter in Lawrence, they sold shares in the new town company, and lots in the new town of magnificent proportions, realizing $2,000. For a short time there seemed to be a prospect that a small settlement would be made, but the enterprise came to nothing. Some of those, however, who took up ranches had part in starting the town of Colorado City in 1859. The future site of Colorado Springs received no further serious consideration until nearly 10 years later. l.53

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Colorado City, ca. 1862. Special Collections, Pikes Peak Library District (001-2070).

Gen. William J. Palmer in 1868, was managing director and superintendent of construction of the Kansas Pacific Railway. It had during that year reached Sheridan in the western part of Kansas. For a year he and his engineers had been engaged on a survey through New Mexico, Arizona, and California for the proposed continuation of this railway to the Pacific coast. While on this survey he had seen southern Colorado. After his return to Sheridan, he made several trips into Colorado. In July 1869, he made his first trip to this region on his way to Denver, coming by way of Pueblo. General Palmer was very reluctant ever to say anything about his exploits, but at the time of the celebration of the quarto-centennial of the founding of the town, most happily he wrote out an account of this and subsequent trips from his recollections, and quoted from letters which he had written at the time. His own words, so graphic and so lucid, will forever remain our principal source of information in the story of the founding of the town; and we make no apology for quoting at length from this address.

On the Santa Fe coach near Antelope, Colo., July 26, 1869.

We rode all