By this time Colorado Springs was at hand, and as we had decided, like all other sensible people who come to Colorado, to sojourn awhile there and at Manitou, our cars were side-tracked. And while Amos betook himself to the preparation of our evening meal, we admired the gorgeous sunset, and disposed our effects for the first night out.
Henry Ward Beecher once said that while the new birth was necessary to a true Christian life, it was very important that one be born well the first time. Colorado Springs was born well. It was organized on the colony plan, and the first stake was driven in July, 1871. Intelligent and far-seeing men were leaders of the enterprise, and in no way was their sagacity more apparent than in the insertion, in every deed of transfer, of a clause prohibiting, upon pain of forfeiture, the sale or manufacture of alcoholic beverages on the premises conveyed. This temperance clause was introduced by General W. J. Palmer, the president of the colony, who during his services as engineer of railway extensions, had observed the destruction which the unrestrained traffic in intoxicants worked to life and property. It was not sentiment, but a sound business precaution, as the result has proved. Of course this provision has been contested, but it has been legally sustained, and has given the town the best moral tone of any in Colorado. The location was also wisely chosen, broad and regular streets were carefully laid out, a system of irrigation established, thousands of trees planted, and reservations for parks set aside. Some of the avenues running north and south might with propriety be designated boulevards, being 140 feet in width, with double roadways separated by parallel rows of trees. Other trees shade the walks at either side, and at their roots flow rapid streamlets of clearest water. The drives are smooth and hard, and the soil never becomes muddy, the moisture penetrating rapidly through the light gravelly loam. The gentle inclination southward renders drainage a very simple matter.
Seen from the railway, the town appears to be located upon a considerable elevation. In fact it stands upon a plateau in the midst of a valley. The thirty-five miles of streets and avenues are closely lined with substantial business blocks, pretentious residences, or tasty cottages. The pink and white stone of the Manitou quarries is largely used; and pent-roofs, ornamental gables, red chimneys, and the whole category of renaissance peculiarities, have representation in the architecture. The dwellers in these abodes are principally of the cultured and refined classes. Invalids from the intellectual centers of the East find health and congenial society here, while numbers of opulent mine owners and stockmen make the Springs their winter home.
The public buildings are all creditable; the Deaf-Mute Institute, Colorado College, the churches and schools being specially noteworthy. The Opera House is a veritable bijou, handsome and convenient in all its appointments, and with a single exception not surpassed west of the Missouri. The new hotel, The Antlers, erected at a cost of over $125,000, is of stone, and is without doubt the most artistic and elegant structure of its kind in the State. It occupies a sightly position at the edge of the plateau, and from its balconies and verandas a marvelous and most inspiring view is presented. The foothills lie along the west, about five miles distant, the massive outlines of Cheyenne Mountain a little to the left, and the huge red towers that mark the gateway to the Garden of the Gods lifting their crests over the Mesa at the right, while above them all is reared the snow-crowned summit of Pike’s Peak. To the north, is seen in the foreground the gray shoulders of the buttes, and in the distance the dark pine-covered elevation of the Divide. Easterly the land rises gently in a gray, grass-clad plain, until it cuts the blue horizon with a level line; while southward the mountains trend away, purple in the distance.
Colorado Springs lies under the shadow of Pike’s Peak; and in the short autumn days the sun drops out of sight behind the mountain with startling suddenness at four o’clock. Then come the cool shadows, when fires have to be replenished, and doors and windows closed. From ten o’clock until the sun hides behind the hills, the blue skies, the soft breezes, the grateful warmth, suggest that month in which, if ever, come perfect days. The June roses are absent but the days are as rare as a day in June. The average temperature here is sixty degrees, and there are about three hundred days of sunshine in the year.
Within a radius of ten miles about the Springs are to be found more “interesting, varied and famous scenic attractions than in any similar compass the country over,” we are told by the guide, and we are quite ready to believe when they are recounted. A drive of three miles across the Mesa, with its magnificent mountain view, brings you to Glen Eyrie, the secluded home of General Palmer, originator of the Denver and Rio Grande railway. “At the entrance you pass a little lodge—a sonnet in architecture, if one may so express it—the small but perfect rendering of a harmonious thought; you cross and recross a rushing, tumbling mountain brook over a dozen different bridges, some rustic, some of masonry, but each a gem in design and fitness; then at last, after the mind is properly tuned, as it were, to perfect accord, the full symphony bursts upon you. In the shadow of the eternal rock, with the wonderful background of mountains, surrounded by all that art can lend nature, is this delicious anachronism of a Queen Anne house, in sage-green and deep dull red, with arched balconies under pointed gables, and carved projections over mullioned windows, and trellised porches, with stained glass loopholes and an avalanche of roofs.” A little distance from the house strange forms of red sandstone lift their heads far above the foliage, like a file of genii marching down on solemn mission from their abodes in mountain caves, while on the ledges of the gray bluffs opposite the eagles have built their nests. Farther up the Glen, and yet a part of it, is Queen’s Cañon, a most rugged gorge, in which the wildness of nature has been for the most part unopposed. The same turbulent brook comes dashing down, in a series of cascades and rapids, from the Devil’s Punch-Bowl, near the head of the Cañon. Rustic bridges cross it near the foot, one of which is made the subject of an engraving; but soon the pathway breaks into a mere trail, which leads over boulders and fallen tree-trunks, or clings to precipitous cliffs which tower high overhead.
One mile north of Glen Eyrie is Blair Athol, with its exquisitely tinted pink sandstone pillars; while about the same distance to the south is the Garden of the Gods, which it seems, however, more proper to classify with Manitou’s environs. Five miles northeasterly from the Springs are Austin’s Bluffs, and a few miles west of these, Monument Park. Nearer by, and due west, are the Red and Bear Creek Cañons. An excellent way of reaching Pike’s Peak is by the Cheyenne Mountain toll road, which terminates in a good trail passing the Seven Lakes. The Cheyenne Cañons, at the northern base of the mountain of the same name, are greatly frequented, and justly rank high in the category. They are two in number.
South Cheyenne Cañon is full of surprises. “The vulgar linear measure of its length is out of harmony with the winding path over rocks, between straight pines, and across the rushing waters of the brook that boils down the whole rocky cut. The stream, tossing over its rough bed and dropping into sandy pools, drives one from side to side of the narrow passage-way for foothold. Eleven times one crosses it, by stepping from one rolling and uncertain stone to another, by balancing across the lurching trunk of a felled tree, or by dams of driftwood; and, finally, skirting a huge boulder that juts out into the water, and jumping from rock to rock, the head of the Cañon is reached. The narrow gorge ends in a round well of granite, down one side of which leaps, slides, foams and rushes a series of waterfalls. Seven falls in line drop the water from the melted snow above into this cup. Looking from below, one sees (as in our illustration) only three, that, starting down the last almost perpendicular wall and striking ledges in the rock, and oblique crevices, send their jet shooting in a curved spray to the pool. In this deep hollow only the noonday sun ever shines, and a narrow bank of snow lies against one side in the shadow of the cliff. Going up the Cañon, with the roar of the waters ahead and the wild path before one, the loftiness and savage wildness of the walls catch only a dizzying glance, but coming out, their sides seem to touch the heavens and to be measureless. The eye can hardly take in the vast height, and with the afternoon sun touching only the extreme tops, one realizes in what a crevice and fissure of the rocks the Cañon winds. Across the widest place between the walls a girl could throw a stone, and from that it narrows even more. The cool, dim light down at the base contrasts strangely with the red blaze that reflects from the top of the high walls; and emerging from one group of pine trees, a turn in the Cañon confronts one with a whole wall of sandstone burning in the intense sunlight. A comparison between this and the Via Mala and the other wild gorges of the Alps is impossible, but had legend and history and poetry followed it for centuries, South Cheyenne Cañon would have its great features acknowledged. Let a ruined tower stand at its entrance, whence robber knights had swooped down upon travelers and picked out the teeth of wealthy Hebrews; let a nation fight for its liberty through its chasm; and then let my Lord Byron turn loose the flood of his imagery upon it. After all, its wildness and untouched solitude are most impressive; and without history, save of the seasons, or sound, save of the wind, the water and the eagles, centuries have kept it for the small world that knows it now.” So discourses a very charming lady writer.