Colorado: The Highest State, Second Edition

9. Southern Coloradans

125 Denver may have dominated Colorado news, but other parts of the state were also making history. As railroads opened up the southern part of the state, its agricultural base expanded with the development of tourism, coal, and oil. Colorado SpringS William Jackson Palmer organized and served as president of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad (D&RG). As the name reveals, this line ran from Denver to the Rio Grande in Alamosa. Palmer believed Colorado’s southern region had a bright future. More than a railroad man, Palmer was a town builder. He founded Colorado Springs in 1871 to greet his first train from Denver. Palmer hoped his new town at the base of Pikes Peak would become “the one spot in the West where nice people could gather together and live out their days in gentility and peace.” Tourists did come to climb Pikes Peak, visit Garden of the Gods, and drink the mineral waters at the nearby resort, Manitou Springs. Elaborate hotels in early Colorado Springs included the Antlers Hotel and the Broadmoor. Pikes Peak inspired Katharine Lee Bates to write “America the Beautiful” after she rode up the mountain as part of a group from Colorado College. Southern ColoradanS 9 126 S o u t h e r n C o l o r a d a n S The sunny, dry climate also attracted sick people, who came to try to regain their health. People with tuberculosis, a lung disease that was the country’s main killer, flocked to Colorado Springs and other Colorado communities . Health care became big business; Glockner and Cragmoor were the major tuberculosis sanitariums located in Colorado Springs. The climate brought more people to the state than all the gold and silver rushes combined. Colorado Springs lived up to Palmer’s dream. The town boasted an opera house, a museum, parks, several grand resort hotels, fine homes, churches, and schools. It was the county seat; that is, the county government was located there. The famous author Helen Hunt Jackson moved to this city of culture and recreation. General Palmer built his beautiful stone mansion nearby at Glen Eyrie. The Cripple Creek gold discoveries, on the other side of Pikes Peak, enriched Colorado Springs, which served as the supply and smelting center. Mining millionaires such as Spencer Penrose and Winfield Scott Stratton also invested their money in Colorado Springs. William Jackson Palmer, shown here relaxing with his beloved Great Danes, founded the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, as well as Colorado Springs and many other Colorado railroad towns. Courtesy, Colorado College library, Colorado springs. S o u t h e r n C o l o r a d a n S 127 pueblo Denver’s other rival in southern Colorado was Pueblo, which became the second-largest city in the state and the leading town in southern Colorado. Pueblo emerged as the industrial center, the “Pittsburgh of the West.” Like Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, its mills turned out iron and steel products. Pueblo was older than Denver, but an earlier settlement had been burned by Ute Indians. Rebuilt in 1860, Pueblo grew slowly at first. During the 1870s it acquired two railroad connections—the D&RG and the Santa Fe. Along with the railroads came increased settlement and more industry. William Jackson Palmer and his fellow railroad investors played a major role in the community’s economic development, as they did in other towns the D&RG reached. Plentiful water, plenty of land, and good transportation helped Pueblo grow. By the 1890s twenty-two passenger trains entered and left the city every day. The railroad could easily bring in raw materials such as coal and take the iron and steel mills’ finished products out to many markets. The Colorado Springs, like many other Colorado communities from Alamosa to Westcliffe, was a creation of railroad developers. This 1870s drawing shows how the town grew up around the Denver & Rio Grande tracks. Courtesy, denver publiC library. 128 S o u t h e r n C o l o r a d a n S iron and steel mills produced barbed wire and railroad rails that were sold throughout the Rocky Mountain West. Palmer and other business leaders knew that once the mills got started, their railroads would make more money. Furthermore, the local land they owned would increase in value. Pueblo was a railroad center. Besides the D&RG and the Atchison, Topeka, & Santa Fe, the Union Pacific and several other railroads steamed into town. Pueblo...