It was the shining steel magnet of a railroad which eventually drew prosperity to El Paso County. A partial account of the inception and building of the pioneer railway is to be found in the first volume of this history, and its completion in the current volume. In company with ex-Governor Hunt and another friend. General Palmer rode down from Denver to inspect the country south of the "Divide," that he might select a site for a new colony to be founded on the line of his projected rail way. Ex-Governor Hunt, familiar with the region, had proposed the stream-bounded mesa, south of the "Divide," sloping gently to the south from a line of yellow, pine clothed bluffs to the Fontaine. But as snowcapped mountain spur, sparkling streams and fantastic bluffs came into near view, in the still blue clearness of a Colorado autumn day, our pioneers were chagrined to find the tableland blackened over with the devastation a prairie fire leaves in its wake. This temporary disfigurement could not veil the many advantages presented by this town site, and it was definitely decided that a new city should nestle at the foot of Pike's great "Mexican Mountain." A number of Philadelphians had substantially aided the new enterprise with subscriptions and purchases of stock, and to this were added large investments of foreign capital, obtained through an English friend and fellow explorer of General Palmer's. Next in order to the incorporation of the railway company, came that of the Mountain Base Investment Company -- later and better known as the National Land & Improvement Company. This company purchased ten thousand acres of land in El Paso County, on the Monument, and five hundred villa sites on the Fontaine. Some of this land was bought from the government at a dollar and a quarter per acre, and the remainder from settlers who had already preempted it. These purchases were intended to include all the valuable mineral and agricultural lands of this vicinity, and those suitable for town sites along the proposed railroad, all mineral springs, etc.

A Colorado Springs Company was organized in May, 1871, which purchased these lands, and a sub-organization, the "Fountain Colony of Colorado" came before the public with a prospectus, its officers as follows: (President not selected); vice-president. General Robert A. Cameron; secretary, William E. Pabor; treasurer, William P. Mellen; assistant treasurer, Maurice Kingsley; chief engineer, E. S. Nettleton. The trustees were General Wm. J. Palmer, Dr. Robert H. Lamborn, Josiah C. Reiff, General R. A. Cameron, Colonel W. H. Greenwood, and William P. Mellen. The following selections from the first circular of the Fountain Colony will give an idea of its regulations, aims and resources: "By arrangements with the Colorado Springs Company, the Fountain Colony is to have two-thirds of all the town lots and lands owned by said company; also two-thirds of all the villa sites on four hundred and eighty acres about the famous mineral springs, with the exception, of one hundred acres, reserved for the springs proper. A town is being laid out in the center of the larger tract, under the name of Colorado Springs, which will be the present terminus of the Denver & Rio Grande Railway. The town will be subdivided into business and residence lots, varying in price from fifty to one hundred dollars. The adjoining lands next to the town will be cut into small subdivisions for gardening and fruit growing, at an average price of two hundred dollars for each tract. The profits arising from the sale of lots and small sub-divisions of land, will be devoted exclusively to general and public improvements, such as building irrigating canals, ornamenting public parks, improving streets, building bridges, erecting a town ball and schoolhouses, construction of roads to mountain scenery, with the payment of surveying and necessary current expenses.

"Any person may become a member of the Fountain Colony of Colorado, who is possessed of a good moral character and is of strict temperance habits, by the payment tn the treasurer or assistant treasurer of one hundred dollars, which will be credited to him in the selection of such lots and lands as he may desire.

"As fast as the lands are surveyed, one-fourth of the lots and lands will be opened for selection by members actually on the ground. A second fourth will be open for a drawing on the first Tuesday in September, 1871; the third fourth at a drawing on the first Tuesday in March, 1872; and the remainder to be open for a drawing on the first Tuesday in May, 1872: Provided no selections shall be made except by persons actually present. Each certificate of membership will entitle the holder to select either a business and residence lot, or a residence lot and a piece of outlying gardening or farming land under the colony canals; or, in lieu of the above named selections, a villa site at La Font, in the immediate neighborhood of the Springs.

"Within four months from the date of selection every member will be obliged to make such improvements, on some portion of his land, as his means will justify, such improvements to be satisfactory to the board of trustees, or an executive council here after to be chosen from among the members of the colony. If such improvements are not made at the expiration of four months, the locations will be considered abandoned; but the member may have the privilege of making a new location, subject to the same conditions as before; and if on the third location, at the end of a year from the first location said member makes no improvements, his or her money will be returned, with out interest, if demanded." Then follows a general account of the resources and advantages of the country.

At the foot of Nineteenth street, Denver, July 27th, 1871, the first rails of the Denver & Rio Grande Road were laid. By the 21st of October the seventy-six miles of track between Denver and Colorado Springs had been completed, and the first narrow gauge train swept into Colorado Springs, three months after the first town' stake was driven (July 31st, 1871), in a piece of ground now occupied by the Antler's Annex. The town an established fact, no pains were spared to make it attractive and prosperous.

Colorado Springs occupies the center of an amphitheater of mountain and mesa, pine and plain, six thousand feet above the level of the sea. The town proper was laid out in rectangular shape on the line of Monument Creek, one and a half miles long and about one-half mile wide. Avenues of one hundred and forty feet in width alternate with streets one hundred feet wide, sidewalks sixteen feet wide. Visitors jokingly declare they "feel lost upon a boundless prairie" when crossing the streets. The lots were subdivided into business lots 25x190 feet and residence lots 50x190, 100x190, 200x190, according to the distance from the center of the town. Forty-eight blocks 400 feet square were first laid out, and thirty-two additional blocks were laid out two months later, making seventy blocks in the town proper.

Seven thousand cottonwood trees were bought by the founders at a cost of $15,000, and were planted along the streets twenty-five feet apart. A canal six miles long was dug, bringing water from the Fontaine to the northern limit of the town, and in narrow channels this supply flowed along both sides of each street. Miles of these ditches ramify the town and cost nearly $50,000. An experimental garden was laid out (now the hotel Antler s Park) to test the agricultural possibilities of the place; and in the first five years $272,000 were expended upon the site by the colony company. In an early number of "Out West" may be found a "Special Request" from the colony company begging that "straw, papers and shavings may be burned and not allowed to collect in the accquias, also that no one shall 'hitch' horses to trees, and above all that tin cans shall be buried in pits dug for the purpose." That the last request was not heeded we know from ocular demonstration, for one ingenious settler flattened out the tins, and covered his house with them, roof and sides. It formerly glittered in the steady sun shine near the Denver & Rio Grande depot.

The church and the school early took precedence over other institutions. Land was donated to each Christian denomination, and gifts of money were added. When it was proposed to issue $20,000 in bonds for the purpose of erecting a public school house, there were ninety-eight affirmative votes and but one negative. From the foregoing facts it will be seen how Colorado Springs in three respects differed from the typical frontier town. First it offered inducements to persons of high moral status, in lieu of the riffraff, the disreputable camp followers who straggle after the army of pioneers. Secondly, its prohibition clauses were stringent, while the usual new camp has its saloon before it is fairly surveyed. Thirdly, it was not compelled to wait in embryo till the railway came to develop it, but was the creation of the road, and expanded as the latter grew. Such have been important factors in the unparalleled development of Colorado Springs.*

"Happy," says the proverb, "is the nation which has no history." The annals of Colorado Springs' nineteen years of existence are "short and simple," though they could scarcely be called "of the poor." In fact, they teem with statistics of steady growth and material prosperity. But from the very character of the settlement the "blood and thunder" incidents which light the lurid pages of dime novels said to portray frontier life -- are conspicuously absent.

In 1871 an Episcopal Church was organized in Colorado Springs. The first religious service held in the town was in "Foote's Building" on the southeast corner of Huerfano street and Cascade avenue. The place had no resident pastor then, nor for some time afterward, and Rev. J. E. Edwards, rector of the Pueblo Church, conducted the initial services.

July 31st, 1871, the first frame house in Colorado Springs was begun by James P. True. Governor Alva Adams built a house in August of this year. At Christmas of this year there were but few women in the colony; among whom are remembered Mrs. Giltner, Mrs. Palmer and Miss Rosa Kingsley, daughter of Canon Charles Kingsley, who with her brother Maurice occupied a flimsy board shanty during this exceptionally cold winter. It is from Miss Kingsley, the first woman to ascend it. that Monte Rosa derives its name.

In August, 1872. Capt. M. L. DeCoursey erected the structure commonly called the "Gazette" building. It was the office of "Out West," the pioneer weekly. An addition to its height made it the first two-story building in town, and the upper hall might be called the first public center of the city. The Episcopalians held their services there, and the editor of " Out West, " J. E. Liller, an accomplished Englishman, after his journalistic labors of six days were ended, was often called upon to officiate the seventh day as lay reader. This hall was used as a meeting place for an early historical society, as a free reading room, and for the debates of the local lyceum, such as the trial of Judge Conklin for being "found sober." As participant in these last, it is said Hon. Alva Adams learned and practiced that fluent speech which eventually placed him in the governor's chair. This hall was courthouse and also schoolroom, and drill room for the Pike's Peak rangers. (Mrs. General Palmer interested herself in establishing the first school in Colorado Springs and taught and supported it in its first feeble session). License advocates and prohibitionists held their meetings in this same structure, and plotted one against the other at rival sessions. Here the fire department (Volunteer Fire Company No. 1) was organized, and the first town officers were nominated.

In 1877 the El Paso club leased the old public hall, but in a year the "Gazette" which had succeeded "Out West" in 1S73, and had become a daily, took possession of the entire building. In September of 1872, at a meeting of the El Paso County commissioners, Colorado Springs was incorporated as a town, with the following board of trustees: W. B. Young, Edward Copley, John Potter, R. A. Cameron and Matt France.

The Colony Company intended Nevada avenue for the principal residence street in Colorado Springs. With this end in view, the center of the wide street was improved by a double row of trees; Cascade avenue was to be the business street. But in the year 1876 a disastrous fire originating in a livery stable swept away all the buildings on Cascade avenue and Huerfano street, and business retired precipitately to Tejon street, where it has ever since remained. Cascade avenue later became the favorite site for handsome residences because of its uninterrupted view of the mountains and magnificent driveway.

The early expenditures in church edifices were liberal. In 1872-73 a Presbyterian church was built at a cost of $8,000. The Methodist Episcopal organization which had originally belonged to Colorado City was also organized, and built a $1,500 building at the corner of Huerfano street in eight weeks. In 1874 Grace Episcopal Church was constructed, costing $12,000, an artistic building of sandstone. Canon Charles Kingsley preached the first sermon on July 12th. 1874. Colossians, Chap. III:15, "And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful." Miss Kingsley presided at the organ. Charles Kingsley also delivered in the town hall a fine lecture on Westminster Abbey. The author of "Water Babies" could not fail to be an enthusiastic naturalist. When Kingsley was in the midst of an eloquent period, a rare moth flitted by. Without a moment's hesitation or change of countenance the lecturer seized the prize. He continued his lecture, while examining its beauties and kept it clutched tightly in his hand till his last sentence left him free to devote himself to his treasure.

A Baptist society was organized in 1872, and built a brick edifice in 1874. Daring the same year a Cumberland Presbyterian Church was erected, costing $2,000, and a Southern Methodist for $1,500. This year also witnessed the organization of a Congregational society.

In 1873 there was an Indian panic and Colorado Springs organized and armed two companies. One was not called to the field. The other, joined by Denver forces, surrounded the hostiles at nightfall. Brilliant plans were made for the attack next day, but morning disclosed an abandoned camp, and the military were obliged to return without other spoils than the arrows, water bottles, etc., the Indians had left behind.

The only death was that of George Trimble's horse which was shot accidentally by its owner. In this year was effected the removal of the county seat from Colorado City to Colorado Springs.

Prohibition could not be said, like religion, to be "walking in her silver slippers" at this time, even with the help afforded by the colony's stringent regulations. A strong anti-prohibition party was very active in trying to defeat them. The Wanless Block was, in 1873, the scene of tempestuous meetings, at which more than one revolver was drawn. J. E. Liller, rising one evening to speak in behalf of prohibition, was greeted with a storm of hisses, missiles, etc. "Do not disturb yourselves, gentlemen," he said coolly -- "all the evening is before me; I am in no hurry, and will wait till you have quite finished."

In the report of the National Land & Improvement Co. for 1874, it was said that Colorado was comparatively unaffected by the panic then felt in the East, and the following improvements had taken place in Colorado Springs; "Within three years ground was broken for the Colorado Springs Hotel, since which 427 business lots, 515 residence lots and 2,252 acres of outlaying land have been sold. The city has now a fixed population of 3,200, and S50 buildings, many of them costly stone and brick stores and dwellings." This year witnessed the inauguration at Colorado Springs of Colorado College; the Territorial legislature provided for the establishment here of an institute for the deaf and dumb.

In 1875 the effects of the Eastern panic reached the West, and a depression of Colorado real estate followed. There were three consecutive visitations of locusts or "grasshoppers," and general discouragement was felt. In 1876 silver mine claims were staked out upon Cheyenne Mountain but have since been abandoned. The Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia drew all travel thitherward, and the great new West was neglected.

In 1877 Colorado Springs was agitated by one of the most mysterious events of its history. Mr. Schlesinger, private secretary to General Palmer, belonging to a well known Eastern family of German extraction, was a temporary resident of the city during 1877, and prominent in the little society gathered here. One bright September Sunday young Schlesinger rode on horseback out of the city, face turned eastward and was never seen alive again. When his body was found on the Lawson Ranch, there was a bullet hole in his breast, and over his heart a woman's lace handkerchief soaked in his blood. Paces were marked off as for a duel. The marks of carriage wheels were traced on the plain, to and from the fatal spot, but no light has ever been shed upon the mystery.

Gradually El Paso felt the reaction of brightening prospects. The small low houses, thus built because of the costliness of material, or possibly because the early settlers were not quite sure whether or no they were in the cyclone belt, were replaced by more imposing structures. At this time, D. Russ Wood's "Woodside," with its large rooms, facilities for domestic comfort, a lawn, and a flower-filled conservatory was the "show" residence of Colorado Springs. Mr. Wood was a citizen of Montreal, Canada, who came to Colorado for his health in 1873, bringing his wife and family with him, and in 1874 his home, appointed with all the luxuries possible to obtain in those days, was a center of social refinement. Mr. Wood was largely interested in church and city advancement. He died in 1880.

Life was attractive from its simplicity Bright people were as individual as they chose to be, without dread of Mrs. Grundy. With ''low living" there was "high thinking." A story is told of an ancient settler who stood on a bluff near Colorado Springs, and warned a comrade against entering the place. "Don't you never go thar' pard," said he.

"Don't never set foot in that ar town. Why ther' aint a place whar you can get a smile in the hull camp, and they keep six Shakespere clubs runnin' all the year 'roun' !"

A Colorado Springs woman wished to broil a steak for her husband, and had neither gridiron nor broiler. So she rushed to her piano, severed a string, and with it manufactured so excellent a broiler that, as her veracious chronicler averred, " She thus proved her fitness to wrestle with the difficulties of pioneer life." The inference is that the practical dominated the aesthetic.

Much cheap John wit has been leveled at the town because of these tendencies; derisively rather than in good faith, it is dubbed the " Athens," or the new " Hub." It has ever been singularly free from those unsavory manifestations which have often accompanied settlement on the frontier. As a health resort with a population embracing many enforced residents, its places are filled by men who would be wanted at the great centers, if they could exist outside the boundaries of Colorado. Lawyers, doctors, teachers and clergymen stay in self-defense. For his health's sake, a man preached here for years on a starvation salary, who had refused to stand in Theodore Parker's pulpit in Boston.

Colorado Springs offered the virgin delights of an  Arcadia. The ditches meandered through the place like so many rivulets, their edges in summer embossed with flowers. Ditch water was carried in tubs to the houses of those who had no wells, for domestic purposes, and clear cold drinking water was peddled about the streets for twenty-five cents per barrel. This came from Riggs' Ranch (now Colonel De La Vergne's residence). Cows wandered through the thoroughfares, and it was a sight by no means rare, when a spirited damsel picketed her own horse to graze in the overgrown and fence less plats, which the ever provident Colony Company had set aside for public parks -- the Acacia Place and Alamo Square of today, with lawns and beds of foliage plants.

Vegetables grew chiefly in cans, and streambeds and canons glittered with these omnipresent signs of civilization. The market in fall and winter was crowded with game -- herds of silly antelope, bewildered b)' snow, would permit the plains ranchmen to slaughter them, without attempt at flight. The market was supplied with them by " Antelope Jim Hamlin," a nephew of Vice President Hamlin.

Staples were costly; luxuries extravagant. In winter the citizens had their Fort nightly clubs and afternoon teas, with perhaps a Christmas ball at Glen Eyrie, and dances in some store building, where coffee and cakes were served on stoneware, and dim kerosene lamps lighted the charming Eastern costumes of the ladies -- always a minority in early days. The fashionable afternoon promenade was to the post office which occupied one side of a bookstore on Tejon street. No one could doubt that Colorado Springs was a " community of broken families," who saw the anxious faces behind the grille which separated office from store. The one mail was often irregular, and as one of the exiles said:

In summer society played croquet on bare places of hard ground (grass was too expensive a luxury to be trodden under foot), ate strawberries at $1.00 a box, or pears at forty cents per pound, camped in the mountains, or took overland excursions in the parks, and all the year round every one rode or drove in a perpetual picnic under the blue, sunlit sky.

The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad having reached Pueblo in 1876, gave El Paso another highway to the East, and colony reports of 1877-'78 spoke hopefully of the condition of the stock raising interest, and of the numbers of "health seekers."  El Paso returned for assessment in 1878, 24,208 head of cattle valued at $286,985, and sheep, 109,177 head valued at $206,015. The hotel registers of Colorado Springs show over 13,000 arrivals in 1878.

A factor in the revival of public interest and confidence was the mining excitement at the " ("arbonate Camp" of Leadville, from 1S77 to 1880. Now the wisdom which directed the building of the Ute Pass road became manifest. It was the highway to the mines. Freight was carried at four cents per pound, and white covered wagons dotted every mile between Ute Pass and South Park, carrying provisions and returning with ore. Fortunes were made by freighters, trade flourished and the grocery stores in particular bourgeoned out as to quantities and qualities. Several citizens of Colorado Springs were successful in their investments in Leadville mines. Hon. Irving Howbert, B. F. Crowell and J. H. Humphrey were fortunate owners of the " Robert E. Lee."

Many and diverse were the hopes which those interested had entertained of El Paso, but at this stage of her progress, two phases of her development had clearly defined themselves -- she was the "banner sheep county," and she was the favorite health resort. Sheep and cattle men waged war over the grassy plains, but the sheep came to stay, and the cowboy, with fluttering buckskins, sombrero and "chaps" is only an occasional figure, though a picturesque one in the El Paso landscape.

But looking eastward, where sky and plain meet, imagination defines the herder against the horizon -- his slouching figure, flapping sombrero, garments of uniform dinginess by grace of wind and weather, his alert collie at his side, and his grimy merinos or thinner-wooled "Mexicans" feeding in contented monotony. From lambing to shearing and dipping -- such was the even tenor of the shepherd's way. From solitary days (an unwilling contemplation of "the everlasting, face to face with God" between vacant plain and empty sky) he passed at evening to dugout or log cabin, with squalor, baking powder biscuit, bacon and bunk. Such was the unvarnished picture, though sundry young Englishmen with ample means, large tracts of land and ideal ranch houses, formed poetic exceptions that proved the rule.

Storm and circumstance occasionally developed a hero in the quiet herder. In the blizzard of March, 1878, when thousands of sheep perished in eleven feet of snow, there were Spartan endurance and painstaking rescue of the foolish victims, which would have been heroic in a less prosaic cause. During that storm at the " Big Corral" near Colorado Springs, more than a thousand sheep drifted one by one over the precipice, and plunging into the same abyss, the Mexican herder also perished.

In 1878, Colorado Springs erected a courthouse, and a city waterworks system was inaugurated.

In 1878 the hall for public amusements in Colorado Springs was a very small and inconvenient building on Huerfano street, approached by the narrowest of stairways. Handbills were posted over the city, giving in addition to a gorgeous lithograph of Harfleur, the information that on the 29th and 30th of May, 1878, George Rignold and his company would perform Henry V, in the Colorado Springs town hall, with the original scenery. As Henry V was the spectacular drama of the time, and as the scenes were fitted to Booth's theater. New York, it seemed doubtful if it could be performed upon a stage somewhat larger than a pocket handkerchief, where the ceiling was about twelve feet high. In the course of the day, the " Grand Opera House Company" was seen wandering through the streets, and was heard to demand of a ranchman (who had probably not been within the city limits for months before): "Can you tell us where your Opera House is ?"

A good play was a rare pleasure in those days, and the hall was crowded to its utmost capacity. Eight o'clock (the hour announced) came -- half-past eight -- quarter to nine. It was then stated that the dressing room was so small that only one character at a time could make a toilet. " Forty speaking characters were advertised on the programmes." Eventually the curtain rose, disclosing a very small part of one large scene; the " forty speaking characters" ranged at the sides behind inadequate calico curtains, and deluding themselves like the ostrich, with the fallacy that they were invisible. The " famous white horse Crispin " was there, too, though it was never known how he ascended the stairs, and objecting to his confined quarters, he pawed and fretted, sending the company scurrying in affright to the center of the stage, regardless of dramatic unities. When Crispin appeared on the scene, his tail touched the back of the stage, and his forefeet were firmly planted among the footlights. The climax was reached when King Henry, animating his dispirited troops with hot, impassioned words, waved above his head the royal standard. The spear head on the staff became implanted in the low ceiling, and could not be disentangled. Rignold stopped, completely overcome, saying: " This is really too ridiculous, ladies and gentlemen. You must be content simply with the beautiful words of Shakespeare, for I've nothing more to offer you." An under current of mirth ran through actors and audience, which sometimes broke out into open laughter. " Begone!" the king said sternly to the herald Montjoy, -- and then sotto voce, " But I don't know where the devil you'll go to."

In the year 1879 the "Forfeiture Liquor Clause," contained in all deeds given by the Colorado Springs Company, was confirmed in a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States. Suit had been brought by the company in 1874, for violation of the clause against the sale of intoxicating liquor as a beverage. By the decision, the company obtained one of the most valuable lots in the city, at the southeast corner of Tejon street and Pike's Peak avenue. This year also witnessed the building of two new public schoolhouses, and the lighting of the city by gas.

In the spring of 1879 much excitement was felt in regard to the contest between the Santa Fe and the Denver & Rio Grande Roads for the occupancy of the Grand Canyon.

The baggage room at the station was attacked, the local militia under Major Macomber, was called out. The State cavalry was ordered to Colorado Springs to preserve order. Sheriff Becker took possession of the depot, and then relinquished it to the Denver & Rio Grande authorities.

The year 1880 opened prosperously for all the State. The population of Colorado Springs had increased to 5,000, and the assessed value of property was $2,082,740, an increase of 33 per cent, over 1879. The improvements amounted to $400,000, and included a fine business block, which cost $25,000. In July the Denver & Rio Grande completed the five miles of track connecting Manitou & Colorado Springs, an incomparable benefit to the three towns on the line.

In 1881 two wings costing $11,000 were added to the college, and the amount represented in the real estate transfers was more than $1,000,000. The construction of the Hotel Antlers was begun. The first and only execution in El Paso County, under the laws of the State of Colorado, took place during this year. The criminal was "Canty" (so called from his "I can't," whenever a demand was made upon him). He was hung for the murder of Policeman Perkins, at Buena Vista.

The year 1882 was a period of general business depression, and Colorado Springs did not fail to feel the paralysis. With a view to opening the coal mines at Franceville a railroad was begun chiefly through the instrumentality of Hon. Matt France. This was the incipiency of the Denver & New Orleans Railroad (later Denver, Texas & Fort Worth) organized under the direction of ex-Governor Evans, with a view to open the highway for Southern trade and travel.

On the September day of 1881, when memorial services were held in commemoration of the death of President Garfield, a party of young men from the college scaled an unnamed peak in the range, and planting a flag on the summit, named it Mount Garfield. The summit bears a resemblance somewhat fanciful, to a man's figure reclined at full length -- the profile is outlined against the sky, and pines form the heavy beard.

In 18S3, December 31st, Colorado College lost its students' boarding house by fire, and in 18S5 a fire on Pike's Peak avenue between Tejon and Cascade, swept away many stores, etc., of early date.

Colorado Springs was visited by a destructive cloudburst in the summer of 1S84. The wave divided in two branches, one sweeping down the Monument, the other passing over Shook's Run. Much property was destroyed, and Mrs. B. A. P. Eaton, wife of the county superintendent of schools, was swept away and drowned.

Present History. -- The years 1886-1887 marked an era of railroad building for El Paso. The Colorado Midland located its offices at Colorado Springs, and its lines through this region set the quiet mountain glens buzzing with new settlements. In 1888 the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific began to build to this point -- another great stimulus to business interests. In 1889, with no such impetus from without, the growth of the town was greater than in any preceding year. Railroad business increased one third over the preceding year. A million dollars worth of building was done and the census report gives it a population of 11,200, making it the third in rank of Colorado's cities, as El Paso is the third in the list of the counties.

The isolated improvement, or single happening, which made a year's history for the tiny colony nestled under the shadow of the mighty mountain, would be lost in the rush of railways, the clink of chisel, and grate of plane on hundreds of structures -- would be merged in the mighty march of material progress. And together with the growth in things material, the conditions already dwelt upon will convince the reader that the opportunities for the higher life, devotional, educational, social, artistic and musical -- have kept pace with the former, and have fulfilled the early promise of the Fountain Colony.

We close our sketch with a statistical mention of the extent and riches of the place today. The traveler may enter it by one of the six great railway lines. The east and west ends of Pike's Peak avenue are closed by two handsome stone depots, the western structure erected by the Rio Grande Road in 1877, at a cost of $26,000, and the other lately built by the Santa Fe company. If he enters by the western approach he sees long avenues of trees, stretching north and south; the original 7,000 cotton woods have been supplemented by the maple, box-elder, acacia, ash, etc. The green city stands forth like an oasis of the plains. The original boulevards, picturesquely named after streams and mountains of the new West, form but the nucleus in the mazes of some forty "additions" to the original town.

Land has long since grown too valuable to leave large tracts of it to "range cattle" and grazing sheep. Where the latter nibbled, the feeding grounds are platted and planted, and the cattle are now Holsteins or Jerseys securely stalled.

The first building which is conspicuous on the north is the Albeit Glockner Memorial Sanitarium, erected in memory of Mr. Glockner by his widow, at a cost of $27,000.  It is built of pressed brick, trimmed with red sandstone; is three stories in height, and has wide piazzas and glass-covered sun porches. It is heated by steam, has all modern conveniences, and is designed to supply invalids of restricted means with home, properly cooked food, medical attendance and nursing at a nominal rate. South of the Glockner Home are seen some of the finest residences of the city, notably those of J. J. Hagerman, the late Edmonston Gwynne and Louis R. Ehrich, and Colorado College with its dormitory and president's house. At the rear of the residence of Mr. Hager man, low on the west bank of the Monument, and often choked by its shifting sands, is Colorado Springs' sole mineral spring, impregnated with soda and sulphur. Some day it may be developed, if only for the reason that the city may verify its name.

On Cascade avenue the Sisters of Loretto have a brick academy, accommodating one hundred pupils. Adjacent to it, is the site of the new Roman Catholic church, upon which work is begun. This edifice is to cost when completed, from $65,000 to $75,000.

In a park terraced up from the Denver & Rio Grande depot, stands the Antler Hotel. The hotel company was incorporated May i6th, 1881, with General Palmer as president, and in June, 1883, opened the hotel to the public. Three stories are of quarry-faced lava stone with Manitou stone trimmings; the remaining two of wood.  A formal reception was given during the month of June, and visitors averred there "was no such hotel west of the Missouri River." But times change and hotels change with them, and the Antlers is undergoing additions and improvements, which will bring its cost up to date to more than $250,000.

Hotels. -- The Alamo is second in size of Colorado Springs' hostelries. It is four stories in height, of red Kansas City pressed brick, trimmed with sandstone and is situated near Alamo Square on Tejon street. From the central tower 109 feet in height. a fine view is obtained. Additions and improvements to this hotel in 1890 cost $35,000. Other hotels accommodating from seventy-five to one hundred and fifty guests are the Alta Vista, The Elk, Depot Hotel, Grand View and Spaulding House.

The handsomest business block in the city, is the First National Bank Block on the corner of Pike's Peak avenue and Tejon street. It was completed in 1890, of rough pink sandstone, at a cost of $135,000, exclusive of the site. Another costly block erected within the year is the Hagerman building of pressed brick, for stores and offices, worth $90,000. The Durkee Block, to cost $30,000, is now being constructed on Pike's Peak avenue.

Colorado Springs' Opera House, costing over $80,000, was erected in 1880 by three public-spirited citizens, B. F. Crowell, J. F. Humphrey and Hon. Irving Howbert. It was opened to the public in i88i, by Maude Granger in "Camille." Souvenir programmes were distributed. Mesdames Janauschek and Modjeska, Robson and Crane, Frederick Warde, Sheridan, Md'lle Rhea, Charlotte Thompson, Lawrence Barrett, the Knights, the Dalys, Oscar Wilde, Remenji, Joseffy, the Mendelssohn Quintette Club, Henry Ward Beecher and John B. Gough as lecturers, have all given entertainments on its boards. It was the scene of D. L. Moody's labors and is the arena of the large political meetings of the county. The State convention was held there in 1884.

The heights to the east of Colorado Springs are no less thriftily covered with buildings. St. Francis' Hospital, in the care of ten sisters, was built in 1887, at a cost of $40,000, and admits the sick at a low rate, with a ward for free patients. The hospital is situated near the Deaf Mute Institute, as is the large Colonial building of the Bellevue Sanitarium. This contains twenty memorial rooms, and had its origin in the desire of benevolent ladies of the city to care for invalids of moderate means by supplementing their resources with home and medical attendance at nominal cost. The building cost $12,000 and was erected upon a tract of six acres donated by General Palmer. It was opened February 20th, 1889.

Eighty acres of land lying east of the city have been donated by Messrs F. L. Martin, A. A. McGovney and E. J Eaton of this city, to the Typographical Union, and on this ground will be erected the Childs Drexel Home for indigent printers.

Churches. -- The list of church organizations includes two Congregational; Baptist; Episcopal; Presbyterian; Methodist Episcopal; Christian; Methodist Episcopal South; United Presbyterian; Cumberland Presbyterian; Roman Catholic; Free Methodist; Lutheran; and African Methodist Episcopal, and Baptist.

The Baptists, having given up their $7,000 church built in 1874, are now constructing a new one to cost $35,000. It is built of pressed brick with sandstone trimmings, exterior Romanesque architecture, interior Gothic. Its auditorium seats 600; the Sunday school rooms 400.

In 1889 the Congregational body dedicated and opened a handsome stone church which cost about $40,000, and will seat 550. The plans were reduced and modified from those of Trinity Church, Boston.

In 1888 the Presbyterians left their frame edifice (which cost $9,000 in 1S73), and began to worship in a stone church, corner Nevada avenue and Bijou street, which cost about $50,000. Its beautiful ^ell tower recalls in outline that of the new Old South Church, Boston.

The United Presbyterians have completed a brick church which cost $10,000, and will seat 400. The Methodist Episcopal Church was built in 1881, at an expenditure of $12,000. In 1889 it was enlarged at a cost of several thousand dollars. Grace Episcopal Church has been enlarged and improved by a much needed addition costing $3,000.

The Southern Methodist Church congregation have occupied two buildings since their organization in 1874; the first was a small wooden structure with a seating capacity of about 100, costing $1,500. They afterward in 1885 built a brick church of about twice the size of the first, which cost $5,000.

The Roman Catholics built a church in 1882, worth $5,000. The African Methodist body owns a church building on South Weber street.

Colorado College. -- When Colorado Springs was platted in 1871 the colony selected a tract of twenty acres for college reservation. In course of time this grant was generously increased so that Colorado College now possesses nearly one hundred acres of land. In 1886 much of this property was sold to settle outstanding claims, so that at the present time the college owns about fifty-six acres surrounding the buildings.

In 1S74 the enterprise took shape and eighteen trustees inaugurated the establishment of a college under New England Congregational auspices. Among the trustees were General W. J. Palmer, Dr. William A. Bell, W. S. Jackson, General R. A. Cameron, Major Henry McAllister and Professor T. N. Haskell, who as financial agent secured subscriptions for the institution to the amount of several thousand dollars, andwas extremely active in advancing the cause. The preparatory department was opened in May, and the Rev. Jonathan Edwards, a graduate of Yale, was appointed principal. Sessions were first held in rooms rented in the Wanless block, and later in a three room wooden building erected for the purpose on North Tejon street, which was occupied until 1880. In 1877 building of the college proper began on North Cascade avenue -- a fine structure of pink volcanic limestone, whose Gothic windows and pointed arches are edged with white. It is surmounted with a cupola, and is flanked by two wings, one extending north and the other southward. When completed it had cost $60,000.

The college for several years was financially embarrassed, but this now is happily but a thing of the past. During the days of test and trial the faculty and friends of the college guarded its interests zealously, and to their efforts at home and abroad may be ascribed the future of wide usefulness which seems to open before it.

In 1875 Rev. James G. Dougherty was elected president of the college, but in the reorganization which took place in 1876, he resigned, and the Rev. E. P. Tenney became president and remained with the college until 1885.

For some years Colorado College was without a president, but in the autumn of 1888 this office was accepted by the Rev. W. F. Slocum of Boston, an Amherst graduate. Under his fostering administration the revival of its fortunes is secure.  During 1889, a dormitory, Hagerman Hall, was erected, costing $20,000, and half the amount necessary to build a Girls' Hall has been secured. All the indebtedness of the college has been liquidated and an endowment fund of $150,000 has already been subscribed.

The property of the institution is now valued at over $400,000. This consists of the two stone buildings already mentioned, the president's residence also of stone, a geological collection, scientific apparatus and collections, complete outfit for assaying and metallurgical work. It possesses a library of 8,000 volumes -- embracing the complete Strittill collection of modern French authors, and a special department of works upon the late civil war. The courses of instruction are divided into four departments, i. e., preparatory schooling either classical or scientific; and the college courses proper, consisting of four years of regular academic study leading to the degree either of Bachelor of Arts or of Philosophy. In addition there are special instructions given in chemistry and assaying.

In the present year, "Colorado College Studies" -- its first annual publication -- appeared, containing several papers of individual research written by various members of the faculty, and which had been read before the college scientific society.

Measures are now on foot which it is intended shall institute a historical department in connection with the college library with the special purpose in view of collecting all statistics and biographical sketches possible which bear upon local events and Colorado's history in general. And it is hoped that a collection of manuscript may be obtained which will become invaluable to future students of pioneer history in the State.

Colorado College rendered important services in the observation of the transit of Mercury, and later in the total eclipse of the sun in July, 1878. During the same year the college was made a voluntary station of the United States Signal Service, with Prof. Loud in charge. The moulding influence of Colorado College upon the plastic material of the new West, will be a potent power in the Republic in years to come. The work will be in part of a missionary character amid the Mexicans and Indians who stand at its gates. To the lawlessness, the laxity of morals and manners which prevail in a new land where waifs from all sorts of civilization are cast up, Colorado College will oppose its power to educate and elevate. It is a beacon light amid the uncertain mists which shroud the future of the countries near us.

Deaf Mute Institute. -- In 1874 the Territorial legislature of Colorado provided by statute for an institute to be established in Colorado Springs for the instruction of the deaf and dumb, largely by the influence of Dr. R. G. Buckingham of Denver, who by virtue of his constant devotion to it, is fairly entitled to the honor of being its founder and father. An appropriation of $5,000 was made, and a permanent fund constituted by assessment of a Territorial tax of one-fifth of a mill. The institution was opened in a temporary edifice, and the Colony Company donated ten acres of land east of town, for a permanent site. Two subsequent appropriations were made by the legislature of $7,000 and of $20,000, and the functions of the institute were extended to include the blind in 1883. With increased population, more extended accommodations were needed, arid the legislature of 1S89 appropriated $80,000 for this purpose. By this aid two hundred pupils may be accommodated. A new building one hundred and ninety nine and a half feet long, three stories high and basement, containing fourteen class rooms, art room, assembly hall and apartments for the industrial departments, has just been completed. The material used is white Castle Rock, lava stone. The old structure will be used for living purposes. Two other buildings of pressed brick, two stories high, for dining, kitchen and heating plant and laundry, have also been erected within the past two years. The Deaf Mute Institute is free to Coloradoans between the ages of four and twenty-two. Those from other States who would receive its benefits, must pay $250 per annum.

Instruction is given in the ordinary departments of education and in the specialties of carpentry, printing, dressmaking and housework -- and for the blind, lessons in brush, broom, mattress making and chair-seating. For the deaf mutes three methods of instruction are in vogue -- the sign system, training in articulation and aural development. It will be interesting in the future to remember that the carpentry on the new building has been largely done by the deaf mute pupils. Mr. John E. Ray is the present superintendent. The institute property is now valued at $155,000.

Schools. -- To the credit of the new West, be it spoken, that the schoolmaster is abroad at a very early date in history. "School District No. II," was organized in 1872. Each ward now has a schoolhouse. There are three fine brick buildings, the Garfield, Liller, Lincoln Schools, which cost in the aggregate $140,000, and several frame structures. The High School, built of stone, the former pride of the place, and a conspicuous landmark, was burned January 13th, 1S90. The land on which it stood has been sold for $24,500.

The one teacher of the first year with forty-two pupils is succeeded by a corps of thirty-five, giving instruction to more than sixteen hundred children. The first teacher was Mrs. General Palmer. Miss Allen, now Mrs. Weitbrec, Mrs. Liller, Mrs. Asahel Sutton will be remembered as early engaged in the work of teaching. At Christmas, 1S71, Colorado Springs' first Christmas tree was decorated for the school children in a building at the corner of Cascade avenue and Bijou street, where the first school sessions were held. This was a free school, though prior to the organization of the school district. Prof. P. K. Pattison is the present superintendent of schools. A graded course of study was entered upon in 1874. The high school proffers a four years' course preparatory to college. The classics, modern languages, special courses in literature and science are offered in its curriculum. The school had a physical laboratory valued at $2,000, destroyed in the recent fire. The enrollment for 1889-90 was 1,700.

Transportation. -- On September 20th, 18S1, Colorado Springs was supplied by Messrs. Stevens & Rouse with a system of Herdic coaches, which ran for about three years, and were followed by the Colorado Springs and Manitou street railroad which went into operation in 1887 and ran its cars north and south on Tejon street, north Nevada avenue, and east and west from Pike's Peak avenue to Colorado City. In 1889 the El Paso Rapid Transit Company was formed and Mr. F. L. Martin was chosen president; A. L. Lawton secretary and treasurer; A. A. McGovney, auditor. The gentlemen named, with vice-president Mr. E. J. Eaton, Mr. M. A. Leddy of Manitou, became the principal stockholders in the new company.

The company's name was afterward changed to the Colorado Springs Rapid Transit Railway Company, which having bought the stock, equipment and franchises of the street railroad and having obtained franchises through the principal streets and on certain county roads, proceeded to enmesh the city and vicinity with some twenty two miles of track. At the present time (1890) the cars run without the city limits to Austin's Bluffs and Roswell on the north, to Cheyenne Canons on the south, and to Colorado City on the east. In the fall of the year they will reach Manitou, and will also bring into quick communication with the business center, all the outlying additions. The Sprague system of electric cars is used, operated by an overhead cable. Two 175 horse power Corliss engines, and four 80horse power Edison dynamos are used in generating the electricity. Two Murphy smoke consuming furnaces are employed to do away with the smoke nuisance. The cars are made by the P. P. Car Company.

Light. -- Colorado Springs and Colorado City are supplied with arc and incandescent electric lights by the El Paso Electric Light Company (organized in 18S6) which has its plant in the former city; $128,000 has been expanded in perfecting its system. The company uses seven Westinghouse engines, and has a boiler capacity of eight hundred horse power.

The Colorado Springs Gas and Coke Company which has supplied the city with gas since 1879, and owns seven miles of mains, was bought during the past year by the Lowe Gas and Electric Company. Gas is now produced by the Lowe water system.

Water Supply. -- The original waterworks system was built in 187S, when the population was little more than three thousand. Pure drinking water had been before this time a crying public want, and it was all the more necessary now that the city had become a health resort. The present system has cost about $400,000 to develop, but the city is to be congratulated that she owns the works, thereby deriving a benefit of revenues, above interest on bonds and operating expenses, amounting to about $8,000 per annum. In 1S78 the supply head was located seven miles from the city, and above Manitou in Ruxton Creek, a clear mountain stream whose source is in the snows of Pike's Peak. The water passed first into a settler, twelve hundred feet higher than the city, and then was conveyed to reservoirs situated upon a mesa, west, and two hundred feet above Colorado Springs. One of these reservoirs was made in 1878, holding 2,000,000 gallons; the second, constructed in 1886, has a capacity of 15,000,000 gallons.  The pipe line from Ruxton Creek, ten and eight inches in diameter froze, and burst in 1S80-1881. The council, therefore, voted $25,000 in bonds and a new eight inch main was put four feet below the surface to prevent the recurrence of such a calamity.  In 1883 the head of the system was extended more than half a mile further up the Ruxton and at this time the water question was thought solved for years to come; yet, only four years later, the rapidly increasing population made it necessary for the community to vote $35,000 more bonds to run mains from a new storage reservoir built in 1886 at an additional cost of $10,000.  In 1889 this new main did not suffice, and the city issued bonds in the sum of $85,000, laying a sixteen inch main. Bonds to the amount of $80,000 were also issued, to acquire additional water rights, and an attempt was made to bring water from Bear Creek. Mains were run to irrigation reservoirs which receive, thereby, the overflow of the city water system, and a dam and pipe have been put in Lake Moraine which drain its waters into Ruxton Creek.

The council also proceeded directly to utilize the supply of this lake of glacial formation, which lies about three miles east of Pike's Peak, and at an altitude of 11,000 feet. Steps were taken to secure from government, grants for the perpetual use of Lake Moraine's waters, and for an adjoining reservoir site, which were granted the city in 1889-1890.

Lake Moraine has a surface area of ten acres and a depth of thirty feet, with a capacity of 36,000,000 gallons. It is fed by lively springs -- rains and snows; its waters are cold and limpid. Immediately south of the lake is a natural reservoir of 170,000,000 gallons' capacity. It is framed by the granite mountains, and through it Ruxton flows. It is now proposed to build a dam at the valley opening of the reservoir, some 385 feet in width, and to drain the lake into the reservoir. The dam at the base will be 195 feet thick, and at the top twenty feet, while its height will be thirty-five feet. The plan is not unlike that of the celebrated Sweetwater engineering near San Diego, California. The material of the dam is to be a mixture of clay and sand, well packed, with wide trenches of cement and stone sunk fourteen feet below the base from the top, the inner slope to be well riprapped with stone. A twenty inch steel discharge pipe is to be laid in the reservoir's natural bank. When the reservoir is filled to a depth of twenty-eight feet. Lake Moraine itself will be wholly submerged but the top of the dam will yet be seven feet above the surface water. At this high mark water will not escape through the dam but by a natural "spillway" to the north. City engineer Reid, who has advocated the Moraine plan for years, estimates that the cost of the dam will be $15,000, and at the present writing this work is under construction. State engineer Maxwell also reports the plan practicable and safe. Water is distributed by means of nearly forty-five miles of pipe varying from sixteen to three inches in diameter. The city possesses seventy-five fire plugs and four public drinking fountains; two more fountains are to be erected during the present year.

During 1889 there were some 2,000 consumers of water paying water rents to the city, amounting to $26,000 annually. Provided no unfavorable accident or litigation occurs, it will be seen therefore, that Colorado Springs has planned a water system, commensurate with her future wants, unsurpassed in quality, and from which she derives substantial revenue.

Sewerage. -- For many years the peculiar and fortunate character and configuration of the soil in Colorado Springs rendered any system of drainage, beyond the cesspool,  unnecessary.  In 1888, as demanded by an increasing population, a system of sewerage was constructed, costing $50,000. This is technically known as the Separate System, and is composed of seven lines of tile pipe running north and south through the city at a grade of eleven inches every hundred feet. There are 140 manholes for cleansing the sewers by rodding and flushing. The flushing is done twice every twenty-four hours from six tanks at the upper end of the system. The outlet is in the Fountain Creek, and the refuse matter is disposed of by "sewer farming." Two hundred and fifty private drains are connected with the sewer system. The city council in 1890 devoted $25,000 in bonds to be expended in the extension of the sewage system.

Post Office. -- At the close of 1889 the Colorado Springs office had larger gross receipts than any office in the great States of Mississippi, North or South Carolina, North or South Dakota. There are thirty-six of the four hundred and one free delivery offices in the country, that are self-supporting, that is where the receipts from local postage are in excess of the cost of the carrier service. Colorado Springs is one of these. There are two postal deliveries per diem. A new post office building is greatly needed.

Banks. -- Previous to 1872 there were no banks in El Paso. The banking facilities of Denver were too far removed for the new city's needs, and in 1872 a bank was established in Colorado Springs by W. H. Young with an alleged capital of $25,000. Young failed through the insolvency of Henry Clews & Co., of New York, and in 1873 he was bought out by Wm. S. Jackson, C. H. White and J. S. Wolfe, who founded the El Paso Bank which has continued its business to the present day almost without change of officers or directors, save that J. H. Harlow soon after the bank's organization became identified with it.

W. H. Young in 1874 had settled his debts, brought about by the bank failure, and organized the First National Bank of Colorado Springs, associated with Eastern capitalists. A little later this bank was strengthened and reorganized by B. F. Crowell, G. H. Stewart, F. L. Martin and others, and at present its stockholders are among the best known and wealthiest men of the city, J. J Hagerman, Irving Howbert, B. F. Crowell, Louis R. Ehrich, A. A. McGovney, E. J. Eaton, Charles Thurlow and J. A. Hayes, Jr.

In 1876 J. H. B. McFerran organized the People's Bank, and after eleven years' business, settled all accounts and retired.

The Exchange National Bank was established in 1S88. Its directors were, F. E. Dow, George De La Vergne, D. M. Holden, George H. Case, D. B. Fairley, W. S. Nichols, J. A. Himebaugh, K. H. Field, D. H. Heron, John J. LaMar and A. L. Lawton. The capital of the bank is $100,000. Mr. D. M. Holden is president; I). H. Heron is cashier, and Colonel De La Vergne, vice-president.

In 1889 Jerome B. Wheeler, of New York, founded banks at Colorado City and at Manitou. Each bank has a separate organization, and capital of $25,000.

Mercantile Interests. -- Although the wholesale trade is limited, and but one exclusively wholesale house is in the county, the volume of retail trade is notable.

Although no official statistics are obtainable, conservative merchants estimate the aggregate of merchandise sales, for 1889, in Colorado Springs alone, at $6,000,000, and the capital here invested in trade at about $1,500,000.

Politics. -- In national and State elections El Paso County has always been strongly Republican. The present Republican majority varies from five to seven hundred. Colorado Springs' mayors of late years have been elected through personal popularity rather than by party means. Mayor Stillman, now in office, is a Democrat, as was his predecessor.

City Organization. -- The city is governed by a mayor and board of aldermen. The first town officers were nominated by a convention of all the people, exclusive of party considerations. These officers were as follows:

Trustees. -- Matt France, president; W. H. Macomber, A. H. Weir, C. T. Barton, Jas. F. Wilson.

Clerk and Treasurer. -- A. H. Barrett.

Constable. -- C. P. Downing.

Street Commissioner. -- R. C. Lyon.

The police department is directed by a marshal, with a corps of officers. The fire department is volunteer, the chiefs and first assistants alone drawing salaries. The first hose companies, organized in 187S, are known as the Matt France Hose, No.1, and Jackson Hose Company, No. 2. Other companies are: B. F. Crowell, Hose No. 3; College Hose, No. 4, and C. B. Ferrin Hose No. 5. There is also a Hook and Ladder Company which was organized prior to the hose companies.

In 1889 the Gamewell Electric Fire Alarm System was adopted at a cost of about $3,000, and nine alarm boxes were distributed through the city. The central alarm system is sounded in the City Hall where all but two of the volunteer hose companies make their headquarters. W. H. D. Merrill is at present chief of the Fire Department. The City Hall cost $11,000, a commodious building when erected in 1883, but now hardly commensurate with the municipal needs. The jail is small, inconvenient, and a disgrace to the city.

The Board of Trade was founded in 18S2. The directors for the first year were: D. J. Martin, E. E. Hooker, A. Sagendorf, C. H. White and Asahel Sutton. The board shared in that period of depression, but revived in 1886, and has since been prominent in advertising this region in the East and abroad. The president is Mr. Louis R. Ehrich.

The secret and benevolent organizations are as follows: El Paso Lodge No. 13, A. F. and A. M; Colorado Springs Royal Arch Chapter; Pikes Peak Commandery Knights Templar, No. 6; Catholic Knights of America, branch 433; Pike's Peak Lodge No. 38, I. O. O. F.; Phoenix Encampment No. 21, I. O. O. F.; Colfax Canton No. 2, L O. O. F.; Washington Camp, No. 35; Tejon Lodge, 2765, Knights of Honor; Badito Lodge, No. 24; Badito Lodge Legion 16, Select Knights A. O. U. W. ; Myrtle Lodge No. 34, K. of P.; Colored Masonic Lodge; Colorado Springs Post No. 22, G. A. R. ; Colorado Springs Typographical Union, No. 32; Colorado Springs Lodge L O. G. T. ; El Paso Lodge No. 2771, L O. W.; Woman's Aid Society; Colorado Springs W. C. T. U.

Colorado Springs boasts in her militia, the oldest permanent organization in the State, and the second company formed in the National Guard. Her company is known as "A, troop," and was formed in July, 1876, by Captain T. H. Burnham. During the Ute war of 1887, this company assisted in driving the Indians out of the State.  Troop A occupies an armory built for the company, and Captain Wm. Saxton has been in command for the past six years.

The Social Union rooms, on Nevada, just north of Pike's Peak avenue, are supported by the different church organizations as a free reading room and library. The Union receives over thirty papers weekly, and seven monthly magazines. In 1889 25,550 people visited these rooms, an average of seventy per diem.

Grace Episcopal Church reading room contains a library of 500 volumes, and newspapers and serials are supplied. In connection with the library is a parlor furnished with piano, games, etc.

A Woman's Exchange was established in 1887. A well-selected circulating library has been established by Mrs. M. A. Garstin.

Clubs, Lodges, Militia, Etc. -- The El Paso Club was formed October 23d, 1877, the objects of which were "to furnish billiard, card and reading rooms, for the purpose of social enjoyment among its members," the original membership of which was limited to thirty. Its original officers were Major William Wagner, president; Dr. Jacob Reed, vice-president; C. E. Wellesley, secretary and treasurer, and Messrs. E. P. Stephenson and Charles Clark, committeemen. Rooms were rented over the "Gazette" office.

1'he club was reorganized September 30th, 1878, fifty-nine new members were admitted, and it was decided to accept a proposition made by Charles Walker to erect a club house, which was occupied from 1S79 to 1882, when a larger building was especially erected by Mr. A. F. Carpenter, which, during the past eight years, El Paso Club has occupied, prospering beyond expectation. In September, 1890, the club bought the Kerr property (northwest corner of Tejon street and Platte avenue) for $25,000, upon which it proposes to remodel the present large brick edifice and make additions costing several thousand dollars. Its present officers are:  president, S. E. Solly; vice president, George Rex Buckman; treasurer, C. H. White.

The Colorado Springs Club, similar in purpose, was founded in 1888, with A. D. Craigue as president, and occupies the main portion of the second floor in the Opera House Block. Dr. B. P. Anderson was elected president in 1890, and the club's membership now includes some eighty names.

Other clubs are the University Club, and the Colorado Springs, organized in 1888, tennis and polo organizations. The Colorado Springs Athletic Club, organized in 1888, has nearly one hundred members, a large g3'mnasium, and directs semiannual sports and games for which it offers prizes and medals. John Scott is its president.

Dairy Ranches. -- At the north and at the south of the city are situated two dairy ranches, from which the city largely is supplied. That longer established is the Broad moor Dairy and Live Stock Company, lying two and one-half miles south. This company owns two thousand six hundred acres of land on the Fountain and has five hundred and twenty-five acres under cultivation, also possesses valuable water rights. Large crops of alfalfa are harvested. Broadmoor owns a herd of three hundred cows and a large and complete equipment for cheese and butter making.

At the foot of Austin's Bluff, where was the " Merriam Ranch " in early days, has been established by Messrs. L. R. Ehrich and Frank White, the Colorado Springs Garden Ranch, comprising three thousand acres of fertile land. The fine stock consists of Holsteins and Jerseys of purest breeds, and some two hundred fine graded cows. Their Lady Baker (Holstem-Friesian) has a record of thirty-four pounds six ounces of butter made in seven days, from five hundred and twenty-four pounds thirteen ounces of milk. In addition to its stock interests Garden Ranch will devote large tracts of land to cultivation of vegetables and small fruits.

Colorado Springs' Resorts. -- Seven short miles south lies Cheyenne Mountain. This was named after the tribe of Indians, the Cheyennes (in the original form Chiennes.) The French title was early bestowed by some horrified spectators of their Baked Dog Festival. The mountain's name early found its way into print as Chiann, Shyann, Chiaun, etc., but the spelling at present accepted is Cheyenne. Over this mountain is built a toll road, and from it are to be obtained some of the most sublime views in El Paso. Helen Hunt Jackson has described these in that most charming of her Colorado sketches-- "Our New Road." In Pine Hill Forest, on Cheyenne's northeastern slope she lies buried. The mountain is seamed by two canons, North and South Cheyenne. The latter cleaves the mountain to its base with a narrow ravine cut down thirteen hundred feet in the solid red rock, by the mighty hand of the centuries. The canyon is thickly wooded, and terminates in an amphitheater of rocks, down which leaps Cheyenne Creek in a succession of seven falls, from a height of seven hundred feet. North Cheyenne's rock walls are more widely severed; its stream is broader and more sunny, and the awe melts with which one has glanced up at the lofty buttresses of South Cheyenne. This canon, too, has pillars, towers and pyramids, but they alternate with grassed slopes. It imprisons falls in its darker cloisters, broken and foaming as they dash over boulders and crags. Beyond, the Cheyenne widens out of the limits of an orthodox canon, and falls in with its neighbor of Bear Creek.

On the southern slopes of Cheyenne is a pine clad, purple spur christened by Helen Hunt Jackson " My Garden." Here is to be found the " Procession of Colorado Flowers."

To the south of Cheyenne Mountain is situated " Dead Men's Canyon," the scene of Fitz Mac's thrilling story of the phantom man, horse and dog of Dead Man's Canyon.

Mount Washington, a rounded knoll lying east of Colorado Springs, over which a horse may gallop with ease, is the same height above sea level as Mount Washington in the White Mountains.