A Brief History of Colorado Springs

Theiophytalia kerri, an objectively boring-looking dinosaur with a big booty, dies in what will become Garden of the Gods.

Militocodon Lydae — the objectively cute ancestor of all hooved animals — lives at what is now Corral Bluffs in Peyton.

Ancestral Puebloans, and then the Ute, Arapaho and Cheyenne call Colorado Springs home. The peak that rises above it is called Ta’wa, or Te’wa, or Mountain of the Sun.

Colonel Zebulon Pike takes the southern route west after Lewis and Clark take the north. With a failed attempt to scale the mountain that would later bear his name, he declares it “unclimbable.”

Botanist Edwin James summits Pikes Peak.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ends the Mexican-American War and opens the west to the tidal wave of Anglo settlement that will wash over everything.

Julia Archibald Holmes summits Pikes Peak in a pair of “bloomers.”

Though the first Colorado territory gold rush did not lead to the discovery of gold in the Pikes Peak region, it did lead to the discovery of coal. Old Colorado City, which is filled with the brothels and saloons of western lore, becomes the first territorial capital for a brief period.

Colonel John Chivington massacres hundreds of Cheyenne and Arapaho at Sand Creek.

Union General William Jackson Palmer and William Bell arrive on their narrow gauge DNSF railroad, which they are trying to build south before their competition does. Stunned by the scenery, they decide to buy up the land for pennies on the dollar, subdivide it and sell lots to pay for their railroad enterprise. They call it “Fountain Colony” at first, and, yes, there were many fountains in the region at that time that have since dried up and been lost.

Cripple Creek gold rush brings millions in capital to Colorado Springs. Winfield Scott Stratton, a carpenter, becomes the first millionaire in the area. He and his partner in the Portland Mine, Jimmie Burns, work with the labor unions in Cripple Creek and Victor for more than a decade.

Stratton invests his enormous wealth in services and amenities for the poor and working classes. He installs a trolley system, builds what is now the post office at the corner of Pikes Peak and Nevada Avenues and the courthouse, which is now the Pioneers Museum.

Stratton dies and Burns is sidelined by the other mine and mill owners. Led by Spencer Penrose, the consortium of owners quickly crushes the unions and the union culture.

With the wealth from Cripple Creek and a massive copper mining operation in Bingham, Utah, Penrose builds The Broadmoor Hotel, polo grounds and a casino. In 1916, he completes construction of a road to the top of Pikes Peak and holds the first automobile race to the top. He begins amassing an exotic animal collection that will eventually become the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.

Julie Penrose establishes The Broadmoor Art Academy, a summer residency and art school at her home where the museum now stands. Classes are taught by renowned modern painters of the time, including Birger Sandzen and Boardman Robinson.

Designed by architect John Gaw Meem, The Fine Arts Center opens its doors. Paintings by Renoir, Cezanne, Picasso and Van Gogh hang on the walls. Martha Graham dances barefoot on the stage in the theater beneath a “mobile” set designed by Alexander Calder.

Spencer Penrose dies. He is interred at the Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun above the zoo.

After years of economic stagnation, city leaders see the eve of World War II as an opportunity to bring a stable economic base to Colorado Springs and offer thousands of acres of land to the Army, which eventually becomes Fort Carson.

Raymond Cyrus “R.C.” Hoiles buys the Colorado Springs Gazette and Evening Telegraph and adds it to his growing Freedom Communications empire. He uses the editorial page to promote his libertarian economic philosophy, which places individual freedom above all communal concerns.

With the successful integration of Fort Carson and the tens of thousands of soldiers it brought to Colorado Springs, the city offers more land in the north to the Pentagon, which establishes the Air Force Academy.

R.C. Hoiles and Gazette Editor Robert LeFevre establish The Freedom School, a libertarian retreat and summer academy in a box canyon just outside of Larkspur. They bring renowned libertarian economists Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises to lecture. Charles Koch of Koch Industries is among their most illustrious graduates.

With growing Cold War fears about nuclear Armageddon on the rise, drilling and construction begin inside Cheyenne Mountain to create the Air Force base now commonly known as NORAD.

Colorado Springs Utilities delivers its first water from the Blue River on the Western Slope of Colorado. Colorado Springs will eventually get 80% of its water needs met with engineered diversion systems coming from the far side of the Rockies.

The Burns Theatre, which was built as an opera house by mining magnate Jimmie Burns in 1912 and widely considered to be as close to acoustically perfect as a performance space can be, is torn down as part of widespread urban renewal efforts in the 1970s, which also include the demolition of the second Antlers Hotel. The Burns is replaced with a bank drive-through and parking lot.

The U.S. Olympic training center is built on the campus of the former Ent Air Force base at Boulder Street and Union Boulevard.

Ted Haggard establishes New Life Church in the living room of his home.

After a decade of economic doldrums, the Colorado Springs City Council offers evangelical parachurch ministry Focus on the Family a massive tax break to move its headquarters from Orange County, Calif., to Colorado Springs.

As dozens of other religious non-profit organizations followed Focus on the Family, a local group called Colorado for Family Values launches a successful ballot initiative that would prevent any legislative body in Colorado from enacting laws to protect gay, lesbian or bisexual people. Colorado, and Colorado Springs in particular, are labeled as the “hate state” and “hate city,” respectively. The state is widely boycotted. Voters also pass Douglas Bruce’s TABOR, or Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, a Colorado constitutional amendment that restricts tax revenues at all levels of government within the state.

Though Amendment 2 passes, The Colorado Supreme Court strikes it down as unconstitutional.

After years of culture war divisions in the community, Colorado Springs finally finds something voters can agree upon as they pass TOPS, the Trails, Open Space and Parks sales tax of 1 cent for every 10 dollars toward the purchase and preservation of open space. Mary Lou Makepeace becomes the first woman to be elected mayor of Colorado Springs.

President George W. Bush invites Pastor Ted Haggard of New Life Church to be on his Monday “prayer team.” Haggard’s church has since grown from his living room into an octagonal mega-church on Colorado Springs’ northern edge.

Harper’s publishes an article by religion writer Jeff Sharlet in which he describes Colorado Springs as “The Evangelical Vatican.”

Pastor Ted Haggard of New Life Church is caught soliciting sex and methamphetamine from male prostitute Mike Jones in Denver.

Colorado Springs shuts off its streetlights and stops watering and mowing its parks during the sub-prime mortgage financial meltdown.

Colorado Springs shifts from a “council-governor” form of government where the mayor isn’t much more than a glorified city council member to a “strong mayor” form of government where the mayor functions with more executive power and the city council oversees legislation.

Colorado and Washington become the first states to legalize marijuana. Colorado Springs, as a “home rule” city, only allows medicinal marijuana dispensaries. The Waldo Canyon fire destroys much of the Mountain Shadows neighborhood.

Thousand-year flooding compounded by the fire damage wreaks havoc across the region.

The Black Forest Fire highlights how vulnerable the city and surrounds are to fires that start in the Urban-Wildland Interface as climate disasters intensify.

Amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, UCCS Professor of Geography John Harner publishes “Profiting from the Peak,” the book you should read if you really want to understand local history.

Nigerian-born Yemi Mobolade becomes the first Black man elected mayor of Colorado Springs.