Old Colorado City (historic commercial district) (Colorado Springs, Colorado)

 neighborhood, NRHP - National Register of Historic Places, historic city center, historic district

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Historic neighborhood. Originally the town of Colorado City, founded in 1859 (12 years before Colorado Springs), and annexed by Colorado Springs in 1917.

Originally a gold-rush-era frontier supply hub. Later a saloon and red light district. Then a thriving "downtown" area, surrounded by working-class residences. After that, blighted and neglected. Now gentrified with "colorful" tourist shops and restaurants.

www.shopoldcoloradocity.com

(The outline represents the boundaries of a historic architecture survey performed in 1976 as part of the district's mid-1970s revitalization effort, and corresponds roughly to the extent of Colorado City's commercial core in the early 20th Century. The full extents of the former town and the modern neighborhood of "Old Colorado City" are both considerably larger.)

History:

The roots of OCC go back to the Pikes Peak Gold Rush of the late 1850s, which brought the first significant non-indigenous settlement to what is now Colorado.

The early stages of the rush began in 1858, when rumors of rich gold deposits attracted several "parties" of prospectors to the area. One of the first to arrive was from the town of Lawrence, Kansas (then Kansas Territory) and known as the "Lawrence Party".

The Lawrence Party was organized in the spring of 1858 by John Easter, a local butcher who had learned about the rumored gold in the mountains of what is now Colorado from Fall Leaf, an Indian from the nearby Delaware reservation who had just returned home from having served as an army scout, carrying a bag of gold nuggets he said he had obtained there. The party initially comprised about 50 people, and was led by John H. Tierney. Since Fall Leaf had described the source of his gold as being "near Pikes Peak", the party made the famous mountain its initial destination.

Arriving in early July, the group established a campsite to serve as their base of operations, located at a spot along the creek now known as "Camp Creek", directly in front (to the east) of the Gateway Rocks in the Garden of the Gods. The population of the camp fluctuated as smaller groups split off to search for gold in other areas, while new groups arrived (either from other camps or newly arrived in the area), and still others got discouraged and went home. At its height the population of the camp may have approached 100.

At least two expeditions were sent up Ute Pass to search for gold in South Park. Another ranged as far south as the Sangre de Cristos and the San Luis Valley. But still no gold was found. By September, most of what was left of the Lawrence Party had moved on to the Denver area, where, by then, there had been confirmed reports of successful strikes.

Even at this early stage in the rush, it was predicted by many that the ancient Indian trail over Ute Pass would soon become an important route, and heavily trafficked by prospectors. To capitalize on this, in November several members of the Lawrence Party, led by William O'Donnell and John Tierney, organized a "town company" with the goal of establishing a town near the base of the pass to serve as a supply hub. The town, to be called "El Paso", was to be situated in what is now downtown Colorado Springs. The name chosen (Spanish for "the pass") highlights the significance of Ute Pass to their choice of location.

Several members of the company also staked out homestead claims, where they planned to establish farms or ranches, to the west of the townsite along Fountain Creek (taking advantage of the reliable water supply provided by the latter, as well as the easy access provided by the existing Ute Pass trail). Some of these claims lied within the area that would later become Colorado City.

El Paso apparently never existed except on paper. Though a map was drawn up and circulated, no actual survey was performed, and no lots are believed to have been sold. While the town company claimed to have built one building, since this was done only to reinforce the claim, if it was done at all, it probably wasn't built to a habitable condition.

The town's lack of concrete existence didn't, however, stop the town company from successfully lobbying the Kansas territorial legislature to create a new "El Paso County", with their "town" as its seat, in February of 1859. Like the town, the county existed only on paper, as no government for it was ever organized while the area was still part of Kansas.

Meanwhile, in December of 1858, a month after the "founding" of El Paso, a second town company was established by members of another prospecting party from Westport, Missouri (now Kansas City) known as the "Westport Party". This effort, led by Charles Gilmore, and including Anthony Bott, George Bute, and Westport Party leader John Price among others, sought to establish a town to be called "El Dorado" on the site that would later become Colorado City.

A dispute quickly arose when it was discovered that parts of the El Dorado townsite had already been claimed as homesteads by members of the El Paso company. This was resolved by admitting the prior claimants as additional members of the El Dorado company.

In January the El Dorado company built what would be its town's only building, a log "company house", built to reinforce the company's claim to the land, in addition to serving as its headquarters. Later that month the company sent a team, led by George Bute, up Ute Pass to investigate the feasability of building a wagon road over it.

In the spring of 1859, when the expected gold rush traffic over Ute Pass had failed to yet materialize, both companies abandoned their efforts, and forfeited their claims to their respective townsites.

The expected traffic finally arrived in August, following news of the discovery of the "Tarryall Diggings" in South Park. A meeting was quickly held in Denver by former members of the El Dorado company, plus several others, at which a new town company, the "Colorado City Town Company", was formed. The following day, two members of the new company, Melanchton S. Beach and Rufus E. Cable, arrived at the former El Dorado townsite and drove in a stake to formalize their claim to the land.

Once again this led to a conflict, as later that same day members of yet another town company arrived at the site, intending to claim it for themselves. Realizing that they had been beaten, the other group was forced to find another site for their "Red Rock City", which they did at what is now the Roswell neighborhood of Colorado Springs.

By November of 1859 Colorado City had over 100 buildings. Its popuation swelled with prospectors fleeing the cold of the mountains to spend the winter in Colorado City's comparatively balmy climate.

By the following summer Colorado City had over 300 buildings.

The first "government" in Colorado City was a vigilante group called the El Paso Claim Club, which operated from the town's founding until 1862, when the government for El Paso County was organized.

In November 1861 Colorado City was named the capital of Colorado Territory, as well as the county seat of El Paso County, by the territorial legislature in their first meeting, held in Denver from September to November of that year. However, when the legislature re-convened in Colorado City in July 1862, they found the local conditions so poor that they quickly changed their minds, and after only 4 days voted to adjourn and move the capital to Golden. Colorado City remained the county seat of El Paso County until 1873.

Colorado City's initial growth boom ended in 1862, when what was left of the gold rush traffic (already much reduced by the Civil War) mostly shifted north, through Denver. For the next decade Colorado City stagnated, and its population dwindled. What little was left of its economy was sustained mostly by agriculture. Many of the gold-rush era houses/cabins were moved (either taken down and reassembled, or else simply moved in one piece) to farms and ranches located outside of town. By 1872 only 82 structures remained. The 1870 census counted only 81 inhabitants, out of 986 for the county.

In 1868 Colorado City was connected to the national telegraph network, when a new line between Denver and Santa Fe was built through it.

After the founding of Colorado Springs and Manitou in 1871-72, many of Colorado City's remaining residents left for the prosperous new resort towns. Colorado City did not vanish, however, as its old houses were an exploitable resource for those newcomers unable to afford lots in the new "colonies", and needing a less expensive place to live.

Before 1880, when the Denver and Rio Grande built its spur line to Manitou, many of Colorado City's residents found employment in the transfer business, shuttling tourists and their luggage back and forth between the resort hotels in Manitou and the D&RG depot in Colorado Springs. Others went into the liquor business, taking advantage of Colorado Springs' restrictive liquor laws. In 1873 Fred Behrle opened a brewery. In 1877 Charles Stockbridge established a major brewing and liquor wholesaling business, for many years the largest in the county.

Little new construction took place, however, and Colorado City's population remained low, until 1886, when the Colorado Midland Railroad and its rail yard finally brought substantial employment that didn't require a commute. The population exploded from about 100 in 1886 to over 1500 by 1888.

The town government was incorporated in 1887.

As Colorado Springs grew, so did the market for Colorado City's liquor industry. A row of saloons eventually occupied the entire south side of Colorado Avenue between 25th Street and 27th Street. Behind the saloons, both sides of Cucharras Street between 26th Street and 27th Street were lined with houses used as bordellos.

In the Cripple Creek gold rush of the 1890s and 1900s, the construction nearby of four gold-refining mills, plus other industries, boosted the economy and brought much blue-collar employment to Colorado City. The commercial core saw much new construction (including most of the now-historic buildings that form the basis of its distinctive character today), and the surrounding area quickly filled in with working-class residences.

Later, however, declining production from the Cripple Creek mines in the 1910s, combined with the 1914 banning of liquor sales in Colorado City, pulled the rug out from under the Colorado City economy. In 1917 its declining fortunes forced Colorado City to accept annexation by Colorado Springs. The 1918 bankruptcy of the Colorado Midland brought further hardship.

Over the next half century, various attempts by the city to revitalize the area by attracting new industrial employers failed, and the area languished and decayed. Yet another blow came with the construction of the US 24 by-pass in the 1960s, which re-routed traffic away from Colorado Avenue.

In the mid 1970s, however, a new revitalization effort began, which focussed not on trying to recreate the former Colorado City's industrial past, but rather on capitalizing on its historic architecture. That effort was far more successful, and transformed "Old Colorado City" into a thriving, pedestrian-friendly "downtown" shopping district, full of art galleries, restaurants, ice cream and candy shops, antique shops, and similar businesses.