The City of Colorado Springs is a home-rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous city of El Paso County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 478,961 at the 2020 United States Census, a 15.02% increase since the 2010 United States Census. 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, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area 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.
El Paso County is one of the 64 counties of the U.S. state of Colorado. The 2020 Census recorded its population as 730,395. The Census Bureau's 2020 result indicates it is the most populous county in Colorado, again 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.
The Cheyenne Mountain Complex is a Space Force installation and defensive bunker located in unincorporated El Paso County, Colorado, next to the city of Colorado Springs, at the Cheyenne Mountain Space Force Station, which hosts the activities of several tenant units. Also located in Colorado Springs is Peterson Space Force Base, where the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) headquarters are now located.
Ent Air Force Base was an Air Force base located in the Knob Hill neighborhood of Colorado Springs, Colorado. A tent city, established in 1943 to build the base, was initially commanded by Major General Uzal Girard Ent (1900-1948) for whom the base is named. The base was opened in 1951. From 1957 to 1963, the base was the site of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), which moved to the Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station. The base became the Ent Annex to the Cheyenne Mountain facility in 1975. The base was closed in 1976. The site later became the location of the United States Olympic Training Center, which was completed July 1978.
The University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS) is a public research university in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It is one of four campuses that make up the University of Colorado system. As of Fall 2017, UCCS had over 12,400 undergraduate and 1,822 graduate students, with 32% ethnic minority students. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity".
Peterson Space Force Base, previously Peterson Air Force Base, Peterson Field, and Army Air Base, Colorado Springs, is a U.S. Space Force Base that shares an airfield with the adjacent Colorado Springs Municipal Airport and is home to the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the Space Force's 21st Space Wing, elements of the Space Force's Space and Missile Systems Center, and United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) headquarters. Developed as a World War II air support base for Camp Carson, the facility conducted Army Air Forces training and supported Cold War air defense centers at the nearby Ent Air Force Base, Chidlaw Building, and Cheyenne Mountain Complex. The base was the location of the Air Force Space Command headquarters from 1987 to 20 December 2019 and has had NORAD/NORTHCOM command center operations since the 2006 Cheyenne Mountain Realignment placed the nearby Cheyenne Mountain Complex centers on standby. On 26 July 2021, the installation was renamed Peterson Space Force Base to reflect its prominent role in the new space service.
A sanatorium is a medical facility for long-term illness, most typically associated with the treatment of tuberculosis (TB) in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century before the discovery of antibiotics. A distinction is sometimes made between "sanitarium" or the east-European "sanatorium" and "sanatorium".
Lowry Air Force Base is a former United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) training base during World War II and a United States Air Force (USAF) training base during the Cold War, serving as the initial 1955-1958 site of the U.S. Air Force Academy. It is a U.S. Formerly Used Defense Site (B08CO0505).
Before it was founded, the site of modern-day Colorado Springs, Colorado, was part of the American frontier. Old Colorado City, built in 1858 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.
Ent Credit Union is a community credit union serving a 14 county area in Northern, Central and Southern Colorado with more than $7 billion in assets and more than 400,000 members.
Uzal Girard Ent was an American Army Air Forces officer who served as the commander of the Second Air Force during World War II.
The Chidlaw Building is a former United States Air Force facility located in the Knob Hill neighborhood of Colorado Springs, Colorado. The building was close to, but not within, the Ent Air Force Base complex, and was leased by the military for several decades, housing headquarters for several military commands, starting with the Air Defense Command (ADC) and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). When Chidlaw was completed, personnel from multiple locations, including the Ent Air Force Base, were consolidated into the new building.
Penrose Hospital is a hospital located in Colorado Springs, Colorado and owned by Penrose-Saint Francis Health Services.
The Federal Building, originally the Burroughs Building, was a Cold War military computer systems building on the Ent Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. It was built in 1962 to be used by Burroughs Corporation for its project to build an automated facility to take input, like satellite and radar information, and instantaneously assess its degree of combat importance. The program was designed in conjunction with Air Force 425L System Project engineers and was an important component in North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD)'s command and control system. It was an Ent Air Force Base building until 1975 when the base was inactivated. It then became an off-base installation to the Peterson Air Force Base. Over the next several decades there were varying uses for the building by the federal government. After 2007, the building was vacated and in 2009 it was sold.
The town of Colorado Springs, Colorado played an important role in the history of tuberculosis in the era before antituberculosis drugs and vaccines. Tuberculosis management before this era was difficult and often of limited effect. In the 19th century, a movement for tuberculosis treatment in hospital-like facilities called sanatoriums became prominent, especially in Europe and North America. Thus people sought tuberculosis treatment in Colorado Springs because of its dry climate and fresh mountain air. Some people stayed in boarding houses, while others sought the hospital-like facilities of sanatoriums. In the 1880s and 1890s, it is estimated that one-third of the people living in Colorado Springs had tuberculosis. The number of sanatoriums and hospitals increased into the twentieth century. During World War II, medicines were developed that successfully treated tuberculosis and by the late 1940s specialized tuberculosis treatment facilities were no longer needed.
Construction of the Cheyenne Mountain Complex began with the excavation of Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs, Colorado on May 18, 1961. It was made fully operational on February 6, 1967. It is a military installation and hardened nuclear bunker from which the North American Aerospace Defense Command was headquartered at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex. The United States Air Force has had a presence at the complex since the beginning, the facility is now the Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station, which hosts other military units, including NORAD.
Cragmor, first known as Cragmoor, is an area in northeastern Colorado Springs, Colorado, between Templeton Gap and Austin Bluffs. The site of coal mines in the 19th century, after the turn of the century it became known as the Cragmor area for the Cragmor Sanitorium. By the 1950s, the mines were abandoned and the land was developed for housing. Cragmor was annexed to the City of Colorado Springs in the early 1960s. The Cragmor Sanatorium became the main hall for the University of Colorado Colorado Springs campus.
Old North End Historic District of Colorado Springs, Colorado is located north of Colorado College between Monument Valley Park, an alley between Weber and Nevada Streets, and Uintah and Lilac Streets. It was called North End Historic District until September 2015 when the district boundaries were expanded and the neighborhood was renamed.
Memorial Hospital Central, also called UCHealth Memorial Hospital Central, is an acute hospital in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in El Paso County. Originally established in 1904, the hospital has 485 beds and is a Level I trauma center, the only Level I trauma center in southern Colorado.
