There are no springs in Colorado Springs. No hot springs. No mineral springs. It was called Colorado Springs even though no springs exist within the city limits—they’re all over in Manitou Springs, to the west. But this was the train stop to get there, so the name made sense to someone!
And though it’s a distinctly Western city, Colorado Springs never was a “Wild West” kind of town. From its earliest days, it was more refined—or tried to be. There were no famous outlaws living here, no shoot’em-up showdowns downtown outside some saloon. In fact, there were no saloons.
When Gen. William Jackson Palmer established the city in 1871, the founding father established it as a “dry” town. No saloons. (No brothels, either.) Instead, there were opera houses, tea shops, and fine hotels. Easterners getting off the railroad to visit the place discovered a city that reminded them of home—with mountains. In fact, its early nickname was “Little London.”
Ladies could stroll the boardwalk with their parasols, shopping. Business was the order of the day for men, with banks and, somewhat later, mining exchange buildings growing up in the downtown to support the mining industry in the nearby goldfields of Cripple Creek and Victor.
There were parades of flower-bedecked wagons in an annual celebration called Shan Kive, a historical pageant meant to entice tourists, but that mostly entertained locals. The event culminated in an amateur rodeo at Garden of the Gods. All this was the precursor to today’s Pikes Peak or Bust Rodeo and annual pre-rodeo parade.
The resort city has always drawn tourists because of its spectacular setting and many attractions, some crafted by nature and much older than the city itself. Tourism still is one of its economic mainstays.