The Black Forest Fire occurred in mid-June 2013 in a heavily populated woodland area northeast of Colorado Springs. Even though it was fully contained in just nine days, the fire’s proximity to neighborhoods made it the most destructive wildfire in state…

Cheyenne Mountain, a geographical landmark southwest of Colorado Springs, is known for such famous attractions as the Broadmoor Hotel, the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, and, more recently, a bunker underneath it housing the North American Aerospace Defense…

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…

Colorado Springs is the second-most populous city in Colorado, with more than 456,000 residents. Located about sixty miles south of Denver at the base of Pikes Peak, it is the county seat of El Paso County and one of the most popular tourist destinations…

The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at 30 West Dale Street was built in 1936 as a community center for the visual and performing arts. Originally designed by John Gaw Meem using a mix of Pueblo Revival and Art Deco styles, the Fine Arts Center houses…

Colorado, “the Centennial State,” was the thirty-eighth state to enter the Union on August 1, 1876. Its diverse geography encompasses 104,094 square miles of the American West and includes swathes of the Great Plains, southern Rocky Mountains, and the…

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 Front Range is a corridor of the Rocky Mountains and surrounding land stretching 200 miles from the Wyoming border on the north to the Arkansas River on the south. The western border of the Front Range consists of a collection of high mountain ranges…

Begun on June 8, 2002, after a US Forest Service employee started a fire at a campsite, the Hayman Fire is the fourth-largest wildfire in Colorado history. Across a wide swath of foothills between South Park and Colorado Springs, the fire burned nearly…

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…

From the 1850s to the 1920s, gold and silver mining drove Colorado’s economy, making it into an urbanized, industrial state. The rapid development of Colorado’s mineral resources had political, social, and environmental consequences. The mining of gold…

Colorado’s role in the American Civil War (1861–65) was part of a broader geopolitical contest: control of the American Southwest. The war began in 1861, just two years after the Colorado Gold Rush and mere months after Congress established the Colorado…

On June 22, 2012, the Waldo Canyon Fire ignited northwest of Colorado Springs, perilously close to neighborhoods and businesses in one of the most populated areas on Colorado’s Front Range. Although local and federal agencies immediately converged on the…

General William Jackson Palmer (1836–1909) had a lasting impact on the environment of southern Colorado. Palmer’s initial impact on the Colorado environment resulted from his network of railroads through his Denver & Rio Grande Railroad Company. This…