Historical Society Hosts Palmer Divide History Day in Palmer Lake on Saturday

A costumed General Palmer, an open museum, a rare rail speeder and a screening of the Palmer Divide Trilogy anchor the society’s turn at the region’s 250/150 celebration.

PALMER LAKE — The Palmer Lake Historical Society will open Palmer Lake Town Hall to the public on Saturday, July 18, for Palmer Divide History Day, an afternoon of tours, film and living history that begins at noon. The event is the society’s contribution to the Tri-Lakes’ 250/150 celebration, marking the nation’s 250th year and Colorado’s 150th.

The draw is the man the ridge is named for. A costumed General William Jackson Palmer — the Civil War Medal of Honor recipient who founded Colorado Springs, started the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad in 1871, and bought the land that became Palmer Lake — will greet visitors through the day. Palmer Lake owed its existence to that railroad: it was the only year-round water on the summit, and steam trains stopped there to fill up before the run downgrade.

The rest of the schedule leans on the people who keep that history straight. Docents will lead tours of the Lucretia Vaile Museum, two blocks from the town hall and open for the occasion. Local historian Gary Watkins will guide a walking tour of the area. Producer Jim Sawatzki will screen his Palmer Divide Trilogy, the documentary series on the region’s past. A children’s train movie will play throughout the day for younger visitors.

One artifact earns its own billing: a Standard Gauge Railroad Speeder, the small self-propelled car once used by track crews to travel the rails, on display for the day. It is a fitting centerpiece for a town the railroad built.

The Palmer Divide is the geological ridge that runs east from Palmer Lake, splitting the Platte River drainage to the north from the Arkansas to the south and brewing its own weather along the way. People have crossed it for a long time. Native tribes worked the area for millennia; the Dodge Expedition recorded the lake and the dividing ridge in its journal in 1835; homesteaders straddled the El Paso–Douglas county line from the 1860s. Monument grew into the commercial hub when the railroad arrived, and the two towns stayed ranch and farm country until the Air Force Academy opened in 1958 and, later, the Front Range subdivisions filled in.

The society has kept the record since 1956 and is the main repository for Tri-Lakes history. Its museum, named for Lucretia Vaile — a summer resident from 1884, a founder of the Colorado Mountain Club, and a hand in the town’s Yule Log ceremony — began in 1964 in a former railroad section foreman’s house and moved to its present building on Lower Glenway Street in 1981. The society runs on donations and volunteers.

Organizers are asking neighbors to spread the word, new arrivals and lifers alike. For anyone still working out who governs, waters and builds this stretch of the Front Range, a few hours on its history is not a bad place to start.

Getting there

Palmer Lake Town Hall, 28 Valley Crescent St., Palmer Lake. Get directions.