The Young Years of Colorado Springs

1870′s in Colorado Springs

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In October, 1871 Queen Palmer arrived in Colorado Springs at was to be her new home. What she found was a dusty wilderness and her new home (Glen Eyrie) was not yet finished. She never adapted very well, but she did try. She preferred indoor activities and dancing while the rest of the women that were there enjoyed hiking and roughing it. She noticed that there was no school in the little town and decided to start one. In November of that year she started a day school for the children in the area. She lasted five weeks and realized that she wasn’t cut out to handle the everyday problems. After the Christmas break, she hired a schoolteacher at her own expense to continue the tiny school. In March of 1872, Queen Palmer would leave the area and never live there again, though she did make visits. There is even a school today named after her. She died in 1894 at age 44 in England. Her body would eventually be buried in Evergreen cemetery.

1872 also marked the first hotel in Colorado Springs. Yes, it was called the Colorado Springs Hotel and built by Palmer at the corner of Cascade and Pikes Peak. It was billed as the “most elegant hostelry between Chicago and San Francisco”. It had two stories , dormer windows and a porch across the entire front. The only problem was that alcohol could not be served.

There were about 300 folks living in Colorado Springs around that time in about 55 homes. Most of these homes were prefabs and don’t survive today. However; in 1873, Henry McAllister became director of the Fountain Colony (he too, was from PA and a friend of General Palmer); he decided to build a home for himself and his family. He had seen what the winds could do to buildings in the area, so had it made extra strong. It survives today at 423 N. Cascade Ave and you can still visit as its now a museum.

The mid and late 1870′s were a tumultuous time for Colorado Springs. There was a general panic in 1873, that caused General Palmer to default on his loans. If not for friends McAllister, William S. Jackson, Dr. Willie Bell and William Wagner all might have been lost. They held things together and William Wagner even became Colorado Springs first mayor. Around the end of 1872, the county seat of El Paso moved from Colorado City to Colorado Springs where it remains today.

On a better note, in 1873 Congress approved money to build the Army Signal Corps station on top of Pikes Peak. The work improved roads and a telegraph tower was also built. People across the nation enjoyed the daily report about the life at 14147 feet. They learned that water froze at 34 instead of 32 degrees and that it boiled at 178 instead of 212 degrees (that’s why cooking is so different at altitude). Potatoes had to be cooked for hours and beans never did get tender.

1874 was a busy year for the small town of Colorado Springs. William Jackson started the El Paso County Bank, Colorado College was started and General Palmer donated land to establish the Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind , and his newspaper was flourishing ( Colorado Springs Gazette) which is still published today. The original location was Tejon and Colorado Ave where you can today see a plaque for it and where the new Olympic Training Center offices will soon be located.

The panic of 1873 started a depression in the United States. Fountain Colony however, was growing like a weed, increasing in population by about 500 residents a year and about 200 buildings each year during this time period. A new irrigation ditch was built, cottonwood trees were planted along the ditches lining the streets and Winifred Stratton moved to town in 1874 to become a carpenter (he would later become a millionaire and we’ll discuss him later).

In 1875, President Ulysses S. Grant stopped in and stayed at The Manitou House in Manitou Springs and was surprised by all the visitors there. These visitors were mainly “lungers” (tuberculosis patients), who were now on the mend after re-locating to the climate. The “lungers” would make Colorado Springs grow even more as some of them decided to permanently move here. What a difference they made! No longer was Colorado Springs just a resort for the wealthy.

Do you have some early history of the area you’d like explored? Do you have a story or some trivia about early Colorado Springs? Please, leave us a response and we’ll try and answer your questions or share your tale.

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