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 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-unsuccessfully- to 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)