Before it was the Air Force Academy, the land north of Colorado Springs held two railroad villages, a governor’s old cattle ranch, a Spanish Colonial estate turned country club, an airfield, a clay pit, a factory and the cabins and graves of homesteaders. Colorado bought it from 159 owners between 1954 and 1957. One of […]
Tag: History
Posted inLocal News
When the Black Forest Farmed Foxes
For about twenty years the Tri-Lakes raised silver foxes for their fur, and the largest fox ranch in Colorado stood on land that is now Fox Run Regional Park and the Sanctuary Pointe neighborhood. Fashion, a wartime tax and cheap imports all but finished the trade within a few years of the Second World War, […]
Posted inLocal News
New Website Maps 534 Places in the History of the Palmer Divide
Palmer Divide Research, a free website that went online this month, maps 534 places in the history of the high ground between Denver and Colorado Springs, from the stage stops of the 1860s to the fox farms of the mid-20th century. Each has a page with what is known about it and where that comes […]
Posted inLocal News
Five Acres at a Time: Sixty Years of Zoning in Black Forest
Most of Black Forest has lived under one rule for sixty years: a house for every five acres. The county spread it across the forest in 1965, residents wrote a plan around it in 1974, and for years, by its own account, the county followed the plan. The plan is gone now. The rule is […]
Posted inLocal News
The Palmer Lake Historical Society Turns 70
The Palmer Lake Historical Society was founded in 1956 to publish one town history. Seventy years on, it runs a museum. It celebrates on Oct. 15 in Palmer Lake.
Posted inLocal News
The Road Forked at Monument. Colorado’s Tarred Adjutant General Took the Palmer Lake Branch.
Congress made Labor Day a national holiday on June 28, 1894. Six days earlier, masked men took the commander of Colorado’s militia out of a Colorado Springs hotel and tarred him for protecting striking miners.
Posted inLocal News
A History of the Monument Police Department
From a marshal who was also the mayor and the fire chief, to a department planning around thirty-seven sworn officers: how Monument built its police force.
Posted inLocal News
A History of the Monument Fire Department
In December 1957 The Columbine Herald printed a set of instructions for reaching the Monument fire department. Call GR. 5-2454 during business hours. Call GR. 5-2350 after them, and the Simpson family across from the Higby store would turn in the alarm. If neither telephone answered, walk to the north side of the Simpson house, […]
Posted inLocal News
Colorado at 150: The State That Arrived Late and Picked a President
Colorado turns 150 on Saturday. Its constitution let the legislature, not the voters, cast the three electoral votes of 1876 – and Monument already had a post office older than the state.
Posted inLocal News
Woodmoor, Explained: The Biggest Tri-Lakes Community That Isn’t a Town
Woodmoor isn’t a town. A plain-English guide to the Tri-Lakes community’s history, how it’s governed, and the districts that provide its water, fire and schools.