On August 15, 1870, the first permanent railroad link across the United States from the Atlantic Coast to the Pacific Coast was completed when the final spike was driven in the Kansas Pacific Railway at Comanche Crossing in northeast Colorado. The exact…

William Jackson Palmer (1836–1909) was a military general, railroad tycoon, and founder of Colorado Springs. Though a Quaker from Delaware, Palmer fought for the Union Army during the Civil War. After the war, he moved west and became a civil engineer…