The treasures of Colorado Springs

Sunset, Sept, 1998 by Lora J. Finnegan

Its setting couldn't be more dramatic: Colorado Springs is perched at 6,035 feet in the cool of the Rockies foothills with majestic Pikes Peak rising just behind it. Within its limits lie the spectacular red rock formations of the celebrated Garden of the Gods. You'd think this town might cop a little attitude, enjoy a wee bit of conceit. But not here, not a chance.

Mike Hatfield, a longtime cowboy and rancher, puts it in the context of country music. "Colorado Springs is still friendly and relaxed, like a small town," he drawls. "Big old Denver's more like Waylon Jennings or Willie Nelson - all full of itself.

"But Colorado Springs is plain old George Strait."

The freeway exit signs off Interstate 25 tell you a lot. They'll lead you to the Christian group Focus on the Family, the Air Force Academy, and the ProRodeo Hall of Fame. Drive into town and, sure enough, you'll find a no-nonsense, all-American kind of town where Pat Boone could be happy. A town that gave birth to "America the Beautiful," shredded wheat, and bicycle training wheels.

Visit its traditional downtown, studded with historic Victorian homes; tour the United States Air Force Academy and the United States Olympic Complex; explore the spectacular Garden of the Gods; and scale Pikes Peak. You'll find yourself ready to shout the praises of Colorado Springs. Just don't go making a scene while you're in town, all right?

RELIVE THE BOOM DAYS

The town was not sited in this incredible location by chance. Colorado Springs was created with an eye toward beauty, specifically to lure the rich resort-goers of the 1800s.

Its long history uncoils slowly in the grand and stately Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum downtown. The 1903 former courthouse, with a four-story clock tower and Platte Canyon granite facade, houses murals and exhibits that trace the town's roots to 1871, when Civil War general William Jackson Palmer founded it as a sort of "Newport in the Rockies." Palmer gave free land to any church seeking to establish a parish - hoping to keep the town tame and appeal to snobbish Easterners and English tourists.

"Its climate made it a center for both resorts and tuberculosis sanitariums," says historian Dave Ryan. "And Cripple Creek gold and other mining meant that by the 1890s Colorado Springs had more millionaires per capita than any city on earth."

The legacy of those boom days is a flat, very walkable downtown that has almost no skyscrapers; broad boulevards, designed to accommodate the carriages of wealthy travelers, which give the city's center a spacious feel; and a clutch of handsome historic buildings.

Thousands have recently discovered the appeal of "the Springs" and El Paso County. By 1997, county population reached 480,000 (83,000 having arrived just since 1990), enough to raise the specter of big-city traffic and crime. But Colorado Springs remains quiet, well mannered, and, yes, conservative. On Sundays many shops - and all liquor stores - are shut down tight.

Several military installations headquarter here, and by some estimates a third of the citizens are active or retired military. To check out soldiers in training, visit the Air Force Academy northwest of downtown. Touring the installation, which sprawls over nearly 29 square miles, easily fills an afternoon. The academy's soaring chapel (with a silver cross reminiscent of a propeller), designed by Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, is a highlight. But the real show begins, as it does every. weekday during the academic year, at precisely 11:45 - all 4,000 cadets gather in the parade ground below the chapel and march into the mess hall; a band plays, flags wave, and the cadets snap to.

Another can't-miss tour is of the U.S. Olympic Complex just blocks from downtown. A hall of fame lauds past U.S. Olympians, and you'll get a chance to see future champions forged.

To balance all of this discipline, head southwest of town to one of the Rockies' finest resorts. The famed Broadmoor resort is tucked up against the foothills of Pikes Peak. Built in 1918 by Spencer Penrose, its offerings include nine restaurants, seven lounges, three championship golf courses, a lake, and a fitness center and spa. A favorite hangout of both locals and visitors is the Golden Bee, an authentic 19th-century English pub shipped from London for the hotel.

But even the splendid Italian Renaissance-style detailing of the Broadmoor or the dramatic chapel at the Academy can't match nature's handiwork at Colorado Springs's back doors - Garden of the Gods and Pikes Peak.

GARDEN OF THE GODS

The glowing red rock formations of Lyons sandstone that make up the 1,370-acre Garden of the Gods park stretch across the sage- and juniper-covered foothills just to the west of downtown. Ramona author and former Springs resident Helen Hunt Jackson described "colossal monstrosities looking like elephants, like gargoyles, like giants ... all motionless and silent." Numerous paths and hiking trails invite exploration.

Take a guided ride into the rocks on horseback and you will get a more personal perspective. Horses and riders plod slowly through pinon pines, juniper trees laden with blue berries, and rocks turned tawny in the slanting light.