Getting Around/ When it comes to local transportation in the Pikes

PART 12 OF A 24-PART SERIES introducing the rich heritage of our region. Find stories and additional materials online at www.gazette.com/wellsprings.

Next time you're downtown, notice how wide the streets are.

We have Colorado Springs' founder, Gen. William Jackson Palmer, to thank for that.

When Palmer, surveyor Robert A. Cameron and engineer E.S. Nettleton laid out the gridiron street system in 1871, they planned 100-foot-wide streets and 140-foot-wide avenues. Palmer wanted them wide enough so a carriage pulled by a team of eight horses could make a U-turn.

Palmer took pains to highlight the mountain vistas to the west. He designed Cheyenne Avenue and Pueblo Avenue to point diagonally toward Pikes Peak Avenue, the town's central thoroughfare.

In the earliest days, the streets were little more than barren lanes marked by plowed furrows. As the town grew, thousands of trees were planted and handsome homes were built along the wide avenues north of the downtown business district.

Additions to the Springs in the 1880s usually followed the gridiron pattern. An exception was an 1883 subdivision between Antlers Park and land set aside for Colorado College. It featured curving streets - an unusual layout in Western towns.

By 1890, the city was no longer a rugged frontier outpost. It had been transformed into the resort Palmer envisioned. Stylish carriages with leather interiors traveled its streets, which were illuminated by gaslights.

Mayor J.R. Robinson wrote that the city budgeted $62,810 in 1901 to maintain its 80 miles of streets. Hitching posts were set at 15- foot intervals along the major downtown streets. Cobblestone gutters lined Tejon Street from Cucharras to Bijou streets; red flagstone lined its sidewalks. Gravel formed the sidewalks along other streets.

In 1905, New York civic architect and planner Charles Robinson was hired to suggest road improvements. He proposed "center parking" - construction of raised dividers planted with trees, shrubs, lawns and flowers - along some of the thoroughfares. Besides being attractive, they would reduce the cost of maintaining the wide streets, he told the El Paso County Good Roads Association. Cascade Avenue was the first to be "parked," from downtown to Glockner Sanatorium (now Penrose Hospital).

Robinson returned to town in 1912 to develop the city's first comprehensive plan, in which he criticized the overly wide streets and the lack of major arteries. Little was done about his recommendations, though.

A fanfare of publicity in The Gazette hailed the expected arrival of the first "horseless carriage" on July 21, 1899. "If all goes well with his machine," the Gazette wrote, "E.L. Cabler of Denver, accompanied by his wife, will arrive in Colorado Springs this afternoon or tonight." Crowds gathered in the streets to see this wonder, but all did not go well; by the next day, the car had not arrived. Phone calls determined that it had run out of gas near Palmer Lake. A fresh supply was rushed to Palmer Lake from Colorado Springs by train.

On July 24, the maroon and gold car finally made it to Colorado Springs. Cabler spent two days showing off his prize to the fascinated citizens.

The next year, wealthy residents of Colorado Springs started acquiring their own horseless carriages. W.O. Anthony claimed to be the first to own one; he built it himself. Five years later, the number of car owners had grown to 92.

After Palmer was paralyzed in a fall from a horse in 1906, he purchased a White Steamer with a large interior that could carry his wheelchair. For the last three years of his life, his chauffeur drove him along the trails he no longer could ride. The general didn't think much of autos, though; he said they'd never replace the horse.

By 1910, however, more than 800 cars were registered in Colorado Springs. Street paving, which had been talked about since 1900, became a necessity. Tejon Street was the first to be paved; by 1912 all the streets in the downtown district were completed. The rock used was brought by train from Cripple Creek and contained a small amount of gold, allowing citizens of Colorado Springs to brag that their streets were paved with gold.

The Colorado Springs City Council passed the first speed-limit ordinance in 1910, restricting vehicles to 12 mph in the business district and 18 mph elsewhere. But that didn't stop car owners from racing their new toys along Cascade Avenue, because the police couldn't catch them.

By 1920, there were nearly 7,000 registered autos, and the roads rose to meet them. The Crystal Park scenic motor highway was built above Manitou in 1910. Labeled "the crookedest road in North America," it was operated as a toll road and became popular with tourists.

Penrose completed the Pikes Peak Auto Highway in 1915, following the route of an old carriage road to the summit, at a cost of a quarter of a million dollars. He bought a fleet of touring cars to carry Broadmoor guests to the summit and then initiated the instantly successful Pikes Peak Hill Climb.

In 1922, W.D. Corley bought the bankrupt Short Line railroad's right-of-way at an auction for $370,000. He outbid Penrose, who was furious, and promptly began building his own road up Cheyenne Mountain. The Corley Toll Highway opened in 1924 from Colorado Springs to Cripple Creek. (It's now Gold Camp Road.)

By 1920, automobiles had drastically changed the tourist industry. At the turn of the century, tourists stayed for weeks, even months, in the Pikes Peak region's boarding houses, cottages or resort hotels. They arrived by train and traveled locally in buggies or on streetcars or the Colorado Midland railroad. But with their own cars, people could come in for just a day or two and stay at free city camping grounds, such as those at Prospect Lake or at "cottage camps" in Manitou Springs or Ivywild, the precursors of motels. These cottage camps grew in number until gas rationing during World War II curtailed tourism. By then, though, the automobile was a fact of life.

By the mid-1950s, there were 173 miles of streets in the Springs; 146 miles were paved. Nevada Avenue was the main north-south route through the city. But a new era was en route to the Pikes Peak region. It arrived on July 1, 1960, with the opening of the $12 million Monument Valley Freeway. The freeway provided a direct, 12- mile link between the Air Force Academy and Fort Carson and joined U.S. Highway 87. Together they became Interstate 25.

SOURCES

Deborah Edge Abele, "Downtown Historic and Architectural Intensive Survey," 1985

Robert G. Athearn, "Rebel of the Rockies: The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad" (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1967)

Morris Cafky and John A. Haney, "Pikes Peak Trolleys" (Colorado Springs: Morris Cafky and John A. Haney, 1983)

Colorado Springs & Interurban Railway, vertical file, Starsmore Center for Local History, Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum

Leland Feitz, "Colorado Trolleys" (Colorado Springs: Leland Feitz, 1983)

Edward B. Heltemes, "The Automotive History of Western El Paso County Before WWII," in Juanita and John Breckenridge, "El Paso County Heritage" (Dallas: Curtis Media Corporation, 1985)

Mel McFarland, "The Railroads," in Breckenridge, "El Paso County Heritage"

www.cograilway.com/history.htm

www.coloradocollege.edu/library/SpecialCollections/CenturyChest/ Appdx.html

RAILROADS OF THE PIKES PEAK REGION

Denver & Rio Grande Railway: Founded by Gen. William Jackson Palmer; reached Colorado Springs from Denver in 1871.

Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway: D&RG's competitor for a route through Royal Gorge; it leased D&RG tracks in 1878.

Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad: Reached Colorado Springs from the east in 1880; spawned the town of Roswell north of Colorado Springs.

Colorado Midland: Formed by a group of Colorado Springs investors in 1884, ran from Colorado Springs to Grand Junction.

Midland Terminal: Founded in 1894 to carry ore from Cripple Creek to the Colorado Midland station at Divide.

Colorado Springs & Cripple Creek District Railway: Known as the Short Line; formed by a group of investors in 1897 to compete with Midland's Cripple Creek-to-Colorado City route. Gold Camp Road follows its right-of-way.

Colorado Springs & Interurban Railway: Began running in 1887. Purchased by W.S. Stratton in 1900; replaced by bus system in 1932.

Manitou & Pikes Peak Railway: Began running cog trains in 1891 to the summit of Pikes Peak. Bought by Spencer Penrose in 1925; remains in operation.

Manitou Electric Railway & Casino Co.: Ran a line from Manitou Avenue up Ruxton Avenue to the Iron Springs Hotel and the Cog Railway depot.

Manitou Incline Railway: Built in 1907; ran up Mount Manitou and connected with the Barr Trail; acquired by Penrose in 1915; closed in 1990.

Broadmoor & Cheyenne Mountain Cog Railroad: Built by Penrose; ran from The Broadmoor hotel to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo from 1938 to 1974.

PREVIOUS WEEKS' WELLSPRINGS

MAY 8: The First People: The Utes

MAY 15: Pathfinders and Pioneers

MAY 22: The Fifty-Niners

MAY 29: Colorado Springs: Built on sunshine and gold

JUNE 5: Spa in the Rockies

JUNE 12: Old Westside

JUNE 19: The Broadmoor

JUNE 26: A Mountain Forged

JULY 3: The Northwest - "Chasing the Cure"

JULY 10: Springs' economy

JULY 17: The North End

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