Armed and Ready/ Military has long history in Springs area

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Aug 7, 2001 | by Jeanne Davant

PART 14 OF A 24-PART SERIES introducing the rich heritage of our region. Find stories and additional material online at www.gazette.com/wellsprings.> On the morning of Nov. 9, 1979, the Pikes Peak region was the epicenter of the military universe.

At about 8:50 a.m., a signal transmitted from the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) computer inside Cheyenne Mountain sent four American F-106s and six Canadian F-101s screaming into the air to intercept what they thought were incoming Russian bombers.

The Russian "attack," it turned out, was a simulation designed to test a new computer system being installed at NORAD. A technician had inadvertently placed the test tape on NORAD's "live" computer system. What was supposed to have been a training exercise suddenly became real.

"We were probably within about 12 minutes of a nuclear war," says Rick Sturdevant, deputy director of history at the Air Force Space Command at Peterson Air Force Base.

Within about eight minutes, though, the mistake was discovered. The jets returned to their bases, and the alert was called off.

The incident illustrates the significance of the military presence here. The military's role in the region, however, began long before that.

During the Civil War, Colorado was a territory with Colorado City as its capital. Territorial Gov. William Gilpin knew that Confederate President Jefferson Davis had his eye on the state's gold fields.

Under orders from President Abraham Lincoln to save Colorado for the Union, Gilpin raised the 1st Colorado Volunteer Infantry Regiment in November 1861. Several hundred of the men who enlisted were from Colorado City and the surrounding area.

In late March 1862, Gilpin sent the regiment, encamped in Denver, to stop the advance of a Confederate force of Texans through New Mexico. The troops engaged in a bloody battle at Glorieta Pass at the southern end of the Sangre de Cristo mountains on March 26, 1862. The Confederate force outnumbered the Colorado regiment 2-to- 1, but the tide of the battle turned when Maj. John Chivington and about 200 of his altitude-hardened men rappelled down a cliff and destroyed the wagon train supplying the Confederate force.

"That broke the back of the Confederates, and they had to retreat to Santa Fe," says local historian David Hughes.

Glorieta Pass was a decisive victory that became known as the Little Gettysburg of the West, Hughes says.

The 1st Colorado regiment encamped outside Colorado City in November and December 1862. Its headquarters were in the El Paso House at the corner of what's now 28th Street and Colorado Avenue. Two cannonballs were recovered from the grounds, Hughes says. One of them is on display at the Old Colorado City History Center at 1 S. 24th St.

The 1st Colorado was dissolved in December and replaced by the 1st Colorado Cavalry. Chivington went on to lead another force of volunteers in the infamous 1868 battle that came to be called the Sand Creek Massacre.

THROUGH THE YEARS

1942 A parcel of land south of Colorado Springs is chosen for an Army training base to be called Camp Carson.

1947 President Harry S. Truman signs the National Security Act on July 26, creating the Defense Department and establishing the Air Force as a separate entity.

1954 President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs bill authorizing the Air Force Academy on April 1.

1955 Members of the first class at the Air Force Academy choose the falcon as the academy's mascot.

1959 Eisenhower is made an honorary member of the Air Force Academy's first class and awarded an honorary degree during a visit May 17.

1962 Air Force Academy's Falcon Stadium is dedicated.

1964 Chicago architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill wins Reynolds Memorial award, a top international prize, for design of the Air Force Academy chapel.

1966 NORAD's Combat Operations Center is transferred from Ent Air Force Base to Cheyenne Mountain.

PREVIOUS WEEKS' WELLSPRINGS

MAY 8: The First People: The Utes

MAY 15: Pathfinders and Pioneers

MAY 22: The Fifty-Niners

MAY 29: Colorado Springs: Built on sunshine and gold

JUNE 5: Spa in the Rockies

JUNE 12: Old Westside

JUNE 19: The Broadmoor

JUNE 26: A Mountain Forged

JULY 3: The Northwest - "Chasing the Cure"

JULY 10: Springs' economy

JULY 17: The North End

JULY 24: Roads and rails

JULY 31: Black history and southeast Colorado Springs

SOURCES

Robert Bruegmann, ed., "Modernism at Mid-Century: The Architecture of the United States Air Force Academy" (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, 1994)

Carol Bruce-Fritz and Kathryn David Gardner, "On the Home Front: Colorado Springs in World War II" (Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum, 1994)

George V. Fagan, "The Air Force Academy: An Illustrated History" (George V. Fagan, 1988 )

"The Mountain Post: Fort Carson, Colorado - A Tradition of Victory," manuscript, Fort Carson Office of Historical Programs

NORAD and Peterson Air Force Base, vertical files, Starsmore Center for Local History, Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum

"Pioneer Diary Tells Of Early Settlement," Colorado Prospector, May 1974