Transcript Pikes Peak Region History

Pikes Peak Region History
• Pikes Peak was a beacon
to settlers, and the land
around it served as a
cultural crossroads. For
hundreds of years the
area has attracted Native
Americans, explorers,
mountain men, miners,
farmers and ranchers,
health seekers, and
tourists.
Pikes Peak Region History
• Sometime before 1300 A.D.
the Ute Indians moved into
Pikes Peak region from the
West. Beginning in the early
1500s, Apache bands
moved onto the High Plains
of Colorado from the North.
They were pushed out by
the Comanches in the
1700s, who in turn were
forced south of the
Arkansas River by
Cheyenne and Arapaho
Indians a hundred years
later.
Pikes Peak Region History
• The first European explorers
came in the name of the King
of Spain. Francisco Vasquez
de Coronado came very close
to the present-day boundary of
El Paso County during his
fruitless search for rumored
cities of gold and silver in
1540-42. In 1806 Zebulon
Montgomery Pike left Fort
Bellefontaine, near St. Louis,
to trace the Arkansas and Red
Rivers as well as to
spy on the Spanish
settlements of New Mexico. He
would attempt-unsuccessfullyto climb the peak that today
bears his name.
Colorado Springs History
• After gold was discovered in
Colorado in 1858, a different
breed of fortune seeker
flooded to that portion of the
Front Range loosely referred to
as the Pike's Peak gold
regions. Most came to dig for
the valuable metal; others
came to make profits off the
diggers. When gold was found
in South Park in 1859, the
town of Colorado City sprang
up on Fountain Creek, its
businessmen intent on
supplying those gold seekers
using the Ute Pass route to the
Park.
Colorado Springs History
• Colorado Springs was founded
in 1871 as a resort destination
for tourists visiting the
American West, almost at the
foot of Pikes Peak, and close
to the Garden Of The Gods,
Cave Of The Winds, and
Seven Falls. In 1870, W. J.
Palmer bought 10,000 acres of
land in the vicinity of a wild
frontier town named Colorado
City (now just a neighborhood
named Old Colorado City), and
a year later Colorado Springs
was born. He outlawed
saloons, gambling, and
alcohol, and went on to build
The Antlers Hotel.
Colorado Springs History
• While farmers and
ranchers made up a good
portion of the region's
population, they were not
the only settlers. The
arrival of the railroad and
a growing population,
encouraged by creative
advertising campaigns,
brought health-seekers,
merchants, laborers,
teachers, doctors, and
others.
Colorado Springs History
• Colorado Avenue crossing Monument Creek (c.1890)