El Paso County

The Black Forest Community Church occupies a row of three buildings on the southeast corner of Shoup and Black Forest Roads in the rural community of Black Forest in northern El Paso County . The church had its origins in a Sunday school started in 1932, with members incorporating a church...

Cave of the Winds, located in Williams Canyon a few miles northwest of Colorado Springs , is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Colorado. Two schoolboys are credited with discovering the cave in 1880, though various legends hold that Ute and Apache tribes knew about it for centuries...

The Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind (CSDB) was established in Colorado Springs in 1874 and is the only school of its kind in the state. The school’s buildings, constructed largely in the early twentieth century, were designed by major local architects such as Thomas Barber and are united...

El Paso County covers 2,130 square miles in east central Colorado, situated between the southern end of the Front Range and the Great Plains . Pikes Peak , the state’s most famous mountain, lies within its borders, and the county seat, Colorado Springs , is the second-largest city in Colorado. El...

Julie Villiers Lewis McMillan Penrose (1870–1956) was one of the primary benefactors of Colorado Springs institutions in the interwar years. Her husband, multimillionaire Spencer (“Speck”) Penrose , profited from Cripple Creek gold and Utah copper in the early twentieth century. He used his wealth...

The Manitou Springs Spa Building stands on top of Soda (or Manitou) Spring on the north bank of Fountain Creek in downtown Manitou Springs . The three-story Spanish Colonial Revival building was built in 1920 to help revive Manitou’s sagging health tourism industry by offering modern mineral water...

Monument Valley Park is a roughly two-mile linear park along Monument Creek in the heart of Colorado Springs . Developed and donated to the city by William Jackson Palmer , the 165-acre park opened in 1907 and has been one of the city’s most popular recreation sites for more than a century. The...

At the southern tip of Colorado’s Front Range , just west of the city of Colorado Springs , Pikes Peak is the most famous mountain in the state. The Fourteener is one of the most important peaks in Colorado history and plays an essential role in the state’s tourism industry. Standing 14...

Perennially ranked one of the top resorts in the United States, the Broadmoor opened just southwest of Colorado Springs in 1918. Built on the site of a failed casino complex and upscale suburban development at the foot of Cheyenne Mountain , the Broadmoor has grown over the decades into a sprawling...

Established in April 1954, the United States Air Force Academy occupies 18,000 acres on the north end of Colorado Springs . It serves as an air force base and undergraduate college for officer candidates. The academy currently enrolls 4,000 cadets as undergraduates, employs 723 faculty members, and...

Built in 1907–8, the Van Briggle Memorial Pottery Building in Colorado Springs was designed by architect Nicolaas van den Arend to serve as the company’s salesroom, pottery plant, and headquarters. Incorporating more than 5,000 tile and terra cotta components designed by Anne Van Briggle , the...