Old Colorado City

Colorado

This place was the capital of the Colorado Territory, and it effectively functioned as one for only five days.

historicalculture

The Colorado Territory once had its capital here, in a log cabin. When the second territorial legislature arrived on the seventh of July, 1862, they found the accommodations so bad that they voted to quit. They adjourned on the eleventh and reconvened in Denver five days later. Add it up and Colorado City effectively served as capital for about five days. The capital went to Golden. The cabin is still standing on Colorado Avenue. The town had started three years earlier at the meeting of Fountain and Camp creeks, the first settlement in the Pikes Peak region. It was briefly called El Dorado, for the gold. Then the founders renamed it for the red sandstone around it, since Colorado in Spanish means blushing, or red. By 1861 more than three hundred cabins stood here. It also held the county seat until the courthouse moved to Colorado Springs in 1873.

This is the first of 2 parts. The rest runs about 2 minutes and is read to you as you drive past. Hear the whole piece.

What this was written from
Colorado City effectively functioned as the capital for only five days.

Written from Wikipedia, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Nearby, on the same roads

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  • Cheyenne Creek 3 mi Two men dammed this creek in the 1880s to make a lake that would help sell a hotel and casino, and then had to sue the city for stealing the water.
  • South Cheyenne Cañon 3.9 mi A poet asked to be buried at the top of the trail above Seven Falls, and for a while she was.
  • University of Colorado Colorado Springs 4.6 mi The university's administration building started life as a tuberculosis sanatorium that sold for one dollar.
  • Modern Woodmen Sanatorium 7 mi Tuberculosis patients here slept one to a tent, in octagonal cottages modeled on Ute tepees and left open at the top.
  • Cheyenne Mountain Complex 7.2 mi A single bad computer chip inside Cheyenne Mountain once issued false warnings that a missile attack had begun.