Edgerton is an extinct town at the confluence of Monument Creek and West Monument Creek eight miles (12.9 km) north of present-day Colorado Springs in El Paso County, Colorado, United States. [2] [3] It was across from Black Forest. [4] [5] The Edgerton post office operated from June 16, 1870, until August 28, 1902. [6]
In the 1860s, Edgerton Hotel was established as the first stage station north of Old Colorado City on the route to Denver. The stage coach horses were swapped for fresh horses at the station. The station and two-story Edgerton Hotel, along old Camp Creek Road, were run by Leafy Teachout and her son, Harlow. [4] [5] The site of the hotel, stables, and stone barn are in a meadow along the Santa Fe Regional Trail. There are some ruins of the stone foundations. [7]
Of the Native Americans who were in the area, the Ute people were friendly. They sold beads to settlers and would sometimes get a free meal of biscuits. The Cheyenne and Arapaho were hostile to the settlers, who make their houses to be like fortresses–make of stone and wooden walls as much as three-feet-(0.9-meter)-thick. Some had narrow slots just wide enough to use to shoot a rifle from inside the house. Families would huddle together during uprisings. [7] In 1868, there were raids by Native Americans, who stole 150 horses from Harlow Teachout, and two young boys were killed in another raid. [4]
The Denver and Rio Grande Railroad was constructed east of Monument Creek [5] and a railroad post office was opened in 1870 at Edgerton. [3] [8] In 1872, David Edgerton homesteaded 160 acres and established a ranch. The village grew around his ranch and was called Edgerton after him. In 1881, a post office and the VC Lewis Hotel were established. [9]
Residents were engaged in the lumber industry. [3] Academy School District 20 was organized in 1886 by residents of Douglass, Pine, and Woodmen Valleys over a 36-square-mile (93.2 km2) area in 1874. [2] (Pine and Douglass Valleys are immediately northwest of the Edgerton town site. [10] Students from Woodmen Valley rode horses to school. [9] ) Classes were held in houses until 1886 when the Edgerton School opened near the railroad stop for Edgerton. Located on a mesa above the mouth of West Monument Creek, it was the first schoolhouse for the district. It generally taught grades one through six, but sometimes up to grade eight. [2] [11] Two lakes, one of which was called Ice Lake, were built by five pioneers in the mid-1880s. Their business was the Cascade Ice Company. During the winter, they harvested blocks of ice from the lakes and sold the ice to keep food cool, [10] before there was refrigeration. The ice was loaded onto insulated railroad cars to be transported for sale elsewhere. There are ruins of the dams used to create the lakes, but there is no evidence of the original "ice lakes". [9] The town also had a general store. [4] [5]
The town's residents were upset after the Kearney Ranch murders of Mrs. Kearney and her six-year-old grandson, James Hand, in 1886. Their bodies were found after they had been brutally murdered and signs that a meal that was about to be served. There were three place settings, but the identity of the additional person was not known, but believed to be the murderer and someone known to the family. [1] [4]
There were 50 residents of the settlement in 1890 and 350 people living there by 1902. Many of the residents suffered from tuberculosis, and they came to the area seeking treatment. [9]
The hotel closed when the new and faster means of transportation meant few customers. It became a farm and ranch house, and then the property was leased as pasture land, and the building burned down in 1941. [5] The railroad post office closed in 1902 and it was moved to Pikeview. [3] [8] The Edgerton School closed in 1915 with the opening of the Woodmen Valley School, which was the only school in the district until 1957. [2] When the highway, now Interstate 25, was built in the 1920s, there were even fewer visitors and it eventually ceased to exist as a village. [9]
The school site is now part of the Air Force Academy near the South Gate. [9] [11] [10] It is along the Santa Fe Regional Trail [9] that connects to the Pikes Peak Greenway at the Ice Lake trailhead. [12] [7]
Colorado Springs is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Colorado, United States. It is the most populous city in El Paso County, with a population of 478,961 at the 2020 census, a 15.02% increase since 2010. Colorado Springs is the second-most populous city and the most extensive city in the state of Colorado, and the 40th-most-populous city in the United States. It is the principal city of the Colorado Springs metropolitan area, which had 755,105 residents in 2020, and the second-most prominent city of the Front Range Urban Corridor. It is located in east-central Colorado on Fountain Creek, 70 miles (113 km) south of Denver.
Kiowa County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,446, making it the fifth-least populous county in Colorado. The county seat is Eads. The county was named for the Kiowa Nation of Native Americans.
El Paso County is the most populous county located in the American state of Colorado. As of the 2020 Census, the population was 730,395, surpassing the City and County of Denver. The county seat is Colorado Springs, the second most populous city in Colorado. El Paso County is included in the Colorado Springs, Colorado, Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Cheyenne County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. The county population was 1,748 at 2020 census. The county seat is Cheyenne Wells.
Scouting in Colorado has a long history, from the 1910s to the present day.
Palmer Lake is a Statutory Town in El Paso County, Colorado, United States. The population was 2,636 at the 2020 census. Palmer Lake was founded by General William Jackson Palmer in 1871 and was incorporated in 1889.
Woodland Park is a home rule municipality in Teller County, Colorado, United States. Woodland Park is part of the Colorado Springs, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area. Many residents in this bedroom community commute to Colorado Springs. Woodland Park is surrounded by the 1,000,000-acre (400,000 ha) Pike National Forest. The population was 7,920 as of the 2020 Census.
Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve is an American national park that conserves an area of large sand dunes on the eastern edge of the San Luis Valley, and an adjacent national preserve in the Sangre de Cristo Range, in south-central Colorado, United States. The park was originally designated Great Sand Dunes National Monument on March 17, 1932, by President Herbert Hoover. The original boundaries protected an area of 35,528 acres. A boundary change and redesignation as a national park and preserve was authorized on November 22, 2000, and then established on September 24, 2004. The park encompasses 107,342 acres while the preserve protects an additional 41,686 acres for a total of 149,028 acres. The recreational visitor total was 527,546 in 2019.
Falcon is an unincorporated community exurb in El Paso County, Colorado, United States. It lies along US 24 about 14 miles northeast of Colorado Springs. A railroad hub in the early 20th century, the town spent several decades as a quiet ranching community until it experienced rapid residential growth throughout the 1990s which has continued increasingly through today. The population of Falcon as of 2009 was estimated to be 10,514. The U.S. Post Office in Peyton, Colorado serves Falcon postal addresses.
Lake George is an unincorporated community and a U.S. Post Office in Park County, Colorado, United States. The Lake George Post Office has the ZIP Code 80827. It lies along U.S. Highway 24 northwest of Colorado Springs, and several miles north of Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument.
Falcon School District 49 (D49) is a public school district located on 133 square miles in the shadow of Pikes Peak. It spans from eastern Colorado Springs and several unincorporated areas of El Paso County.
Before it was founded, the site of modern-day Colorado Springs, Colorado, was part of the American frontier. Old Colorado City, built in 1859 during the Pike's Peak Gold Rush was the Colorado Territory capital. The town of Colorado Springs was founded by General William Jackson Palmer as a resort town. Old Colorado City was annexed into Colorado Springs. Railroads brought tourists and visitors to the area from other parts of the United States and abroad. The city was noted for junctions for seven railways: Denver and Rio Grande (1870), Denver and New Orleans Manitou Branch (1882), Colorado Midland (1886–1918), Colorado Springs and Interurban, Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe (1889), Rock Island (1889), and Colorado Springs and Cripple Creek Railways. It was also known for mining exchanges and brokers for the Cripple Creek Gold Rush.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the U.S. state of Colorado:
The Overland Trail was a stagecoach and wagon trail in the American West during the 19th century. While portions of the route had been used by explorers and trappers since the 1820s, the Overland Trail was most heavily used in the 1860s as a route alternative to the Oregon, California, and Mormon trails through central Wyoming. The Overland Trail was famously used by the Overland Stage Company owned by Ben Holladay to run mail and passengers to Salt Lake City, Utah, via stagecoaches in the early 1860s. Starting from Atchison, Kansas, the trail descended into Colorado before looping back up to southern Wyoming and rejoining the Oregon Trail at Fort Bridger. The stage line operated until 1869 when the completion of the First transcontinental railroad eliminated the need for mail service via stagecoach.
Monument Valley Park is a historic, recreational park in Colorado Springs, Colorado through which Monument Creek flows. It is a National Register of Historic Places listing and is on the Colorado State Register of Historic Properties.
Seven Lakes is an abandoned, historically populated place in Teller County, Colorado, on the Pikes Peak mountain. It was once the site of the Seven Lakes Hotel along a carriage road to the summit of Pikes Peak. Its waters flow from Beaver Creek to the Lake Moraine reservoir, a supplier of water to Colorado Springs.
Cheyenne Mountain is a triple-peaked mountain in El Paso County, Colorado, southwest of downtown Colorado Springs. The mountain serves as a host for military, communications, recreational, and residential functions. The underground operations center for the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) was built during the Cold War to monitor North American airspace for missile launches and Soviet military aircraft. Built deep within granite, it was designed to withstand the impact and fallout from a nuclear bomb. Its function broadened with the end of the Cold War, and then many of its functions were transferred to Peterson Air Force Base in 2006.
Jimmy's Camp was a trading post established in 1833. The site is east of present-day Colorado Springs, Colorado on the southeast side of U.S. Route 24 and east of the junction with State Highway 94. Located along Trapper's Trail / Cherokee Trail, it was a rest stop for travelers and was known for its spring. Jimmy Camp was a ranch by 1870 and then a railway station on a spur of the Colorado and Southern Railway. After the ranch was owned by several individuals, it became part of the Banning Lewis Ranch. Now the land is an undeveloped park in Colorado Springs.
Gwillimsville was a settlement at the head of Cherry Creek and six miles east of Monument in northern El Paso County, Colorado. Its settlers were engaged in dairy, ranching, and timber businesses. The Gwillimsville post office operated from April 18, 1878, until September 25, 1890.
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Travel information from WikivoyageMunicipalities and communities of El Paso County, Colorado, United States | ||
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| Footnotes | ‡This populated place also has portions in an adjacent county or counties | |