Staying Power

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Jun 13, 2005 | by JIM BAINBRIDGE THE GAZETTE

There are lots of ways to measure success in business -- growth, innovation, service to community, profits -- and none of them may be as tough to manage as simple longevity.

Irving Berlin got it right in just 15 words -- "the toughest thing about success is that you've got to keep on being a success."

To stay in business for parts of three centuries, as a dozen El Paso County forprofit companies have done, takes something akin to magic, outlasting all your competition with sleight of hand and an instinct for survival.

It is a list that defies easy classification, including newspapers, tourist attractions, a dairy, hotel, hospital, real estate agency, cog railroad, printing house and meat-packing house.

True to the spirit of Colorado Springs' founder William Jackson Palmer, seven of El Paso County's 25 oldest continuously-operated, for-profit businesses have some connection to tourism, to the natural attractions that drew him to build the town here in the first place.

Cave of the Winds, a private enterprise that has been charging for tours of the caverns since 1881, is third on the list, just ahead of Palmer's own Antlers Hotel (1883) and Seven Falls, where James Hull put up a toll gate and started charging 25 cents a head in 1885.

There are 19 different kinds of businesses represented on the list.

To qualify, a business had to have kept its identity within the community.

That's why the city's earliest banks do not appear, First National (1874) having long ago disappeared into Chase's Bank One and Exchange National (1887) into Minneapolis-based U.S. Bank.

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0126 or bainbird@gazette.com

CRITERIA

To qualify as one of El Paso County's oldest continuous businesses it was necessary to be:

A for-profit business

Locally based (goodbye, JC Penney) or locally originated (hello, Swan Law)

In the same sort of business as its founding

Called by the same name (or a variation) with the same identity within the community through the years.

COUNTY'S OLDEST BUSINESSES

1. The Gazette 1872

2. Sinton Dairy 1880

3. Cave of the Winds 1881

4. Antler's Hilton hotel 1883

5. Seven Falls 1885

6. Penrose-St. Francis Hospital 1887

7. Bennett-Shellenberger Real Estate 1890

8. Pikes Peak Cog Railroad 1891

9. Gowdy Printcraft Press 1893

10. The Daily Transcript 1894

11. G&C Packing 1895

12. Van Briggle Pottery 1899

13. Memorial Hospital 1903

14. Couture's Fabric Care 1904

15. Pikes Peak Floral 1906

Golden Cycle Corp. 1906

Manitou Cliff Dwellings 1906

18. Stewart's Photographers 1912

19. Whitney Electric 1913

Swan Law Funeral Directors 1913

21. Summit House 1916

22. Olson Plumbing & Heating 1917

23. The Broadmoor 1918

Blunt Mortuary 1918

25. Berwick Electric 1921

Platte Floral 1921

Ross Auction 1921

SOURCES: Gazette research with assistance from Jody Jones, Pikes Peak Library District; Dianna Ayles, El Paso County Assessor's Office; Dave Hughes, Old Colorado City Historical Society; and independent researcher Dwight Haverkorn.