Old North End Historic District (Colorado Springs, Colorado)

Colorado

A college president bought this land as an investment, named it New Massachusetts, and was fired when it lost money.

historicalpeople

Edward Payson Tenney ran Colorado College, and he thought the grassland north of campus would make the school rich. The college bought the land. Tenney named the venture New Massachusetts, after the New England he came from. Then the city stopped growing. Lots sat unsold, the investment went nowhere, and the college finally sold out at a loss and fired him. By 1888 the whole area was still mostly grass with a few houses scattered across it. Tenney had built things there. His first was a house for the female students of Colorado College, a three-story Victorian with a covered porch, big dormer windows and a steeple, four blocks north of campus. It was called the Columbian Club. On the first day of January in 1884, while everyone was away for the Christmas holiday, it burned to the ground.

This is the first of 3 parts. The rest runs about 3 minutes and is read to you as you drive past. Hear the whole piece.

What this was written from
The college sold its interest in the endeavor at a loss and fired Tenney.

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

Nearby, on the same roads

  • Old Colorado City 2.2 mi This place was the capital of the Colorado Territory, and it effectively functioned as one for only five days.
  • University of Colorado Colorado Springs 2.7 mi The university's administration building started life as a tuberculosis sanatorium that sold for one dollar.
  • Cheyenne Creek 2.9 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 5.2 mi A poet asked to be buried at the top of the trail above Seven Falls, and for a while she was.
  • Modern Woodmen Sanatorium 6.8 mi Tuberculosis patients here slept one to a tent, in octagonal cottages modeled on Ute tepees and left open at the top.
  • Peterson Space Force Base 7.3 mi The base is named for a lieutenant who died on takeoff there, four months before the field got his name.