His town would be a place of temperance compared to the rowdy Colorado City, which was the first settlement in the Pikes Peak region.Īt one point, Colorado City was the capital of the Colorado Territory, but that only lasted a mere five days. In 1871, General William Jackson Palmer founded the town of Colorado Springs. The population swell was short-lived as “go-backers,” as they were called, returned to their home states. The Pikes Peak Gold Rush of 18 enticed around 100,000 people to the Front Range, all hoping to fill their sacks with the shiny metal. It opened in 1853 in Big Timbers, sixty miles east of Bent’s Old Fort, which is now a National Historic Site. Related: Julia probably stopped at Bent’s Trading Post to stock up on provisions. Julia and her husband had traveled from Emporia, Kansas, following the Santa Fe Trail in an effort to find gold. Julia, who became known as The Bloomer Lady because of her practical fashion sense, defied them all. “Nearly everyone tried to discourage me from attempting it, but I believed that I should succeed,” she wrote to her mother. Thirty-eight years later, Julia Archibald Holmes became the first European American woman to meet the challenge. The cog railway followed the trail he blazed. The first man of European descent to reach the summit of Pikes Peak was naturalist Edwin James in 1820. Rising from the plains to herald the beginning of the Rocky Mountains, what eventually became known as Pikes Peak is in a row of peaks called the Front Range. In his reports, Pike reported the grandeur of what he named Grand Peak. President Jefferson sent the explorer west to find the headwaters of the Arkansas River. The first European American to view Tava-Kaaví was Colonel Zebulon Pike. *Not to be confused with the California mountain, which had been named by members of a California State Militia. Spanish conquistadors named it El Capitan*. The Pawnee, Tûs Pêh, or Where the Heavens Touch the Earth. The Utes called it Tava-Kaaví, which means Sun Mountain. Normal trains rely on balance and friction, but to climb a fourteener, a mountain whose summit exceeds 14,000 feet, you need a bit more. This special rack rail is a row of teeth that grip the cog in the center of the train. What makes a cog railway different from regular railroad tracks is its third rail. At nine miles, it’s also the world’s longest cog railroad. Pikes Peak Cog Railway is not only the highest cog railway train in the world, it’s the highest railroad, period, in the northern hemisphere. The other one, in New Hampshire, takes riders to the top of Washington Mountain, a relatively stout mountain at 6,288.2 feet. It’s one of only two cog railways in the United States. This engineering feat begins in Manitou Springs and climbs to the top of America’s Mountain. That’s one of the many stories you’ll hear when you ride the Broadmoor Manitou Pikes Peak Cog Railway. Locomotive #2 is in downtown Manitou Springs, #4 is at the Grand Canyon Railway, and #5 is at The Broadmoor. TLTip: You can see three of those original six steam locomotives today. Ten thousand tourists would follow their lead that season. Two years later, the first passengers, a church choir from Denver, reached the summit of Pikes Peak via a nine-mile ride on cog rails, carted to the top in cars pushed by steam engines. In 1889, the do-it-yourselfer founded the Manitou and Pikes Peak Railway Company. What mattered was getting to the top without having to ride one of those confounded beasts that left him needing his beauty rest.
It didn’t matter that the tracks would climb an elevation change of over seven thousand feet. It didn’t matter that trains could handle a four percent grade, and he needed a train that could handle steeper grades up to twenty-five percent.
The only way to get there was to hike or to ride a mule.Īfter a two-day trip to reach the summit, he decided that wouldn’t work. Zalmon Simmons needed to check on telegraph insulators, which he also invented in addition to his mattress, at the summit. The founder of the Simmons Beautyrest Mattress Company believed in comfort, and that included getting to the top of Pikes Peak.
In the late nineteenth century, most people would look at a 14,000+ mountain and think getting to the peak required climbing, or riding a pack animal. In a state filled with spectacular scenery, riding the historic railway to the top of America’s Mountain offers incredible views and fantastic tales of daring and ingenuity. The Broadmoor Manitou Pikes Peak Cog Railway is one of Colorado’s top attractions.
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