FLOOD10115 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

County was characterized by large scale farming and ranching and by farming in the Fountain Creek valley. The agricultural products supplied mining camps in Denver and Colorado city. During the 1950's the Fountain valley area began to develop as a residential suburb. The ranches of the eastern plains began to give way to large scale subdivision development, and Widefield, Security, Stratmoor Valley and Stratmoor Hills have reflected the trend in growth in the Colorado Springs area in recent years. In Manitou Springs the Indians were first to discover the natural springs, and the valley was considered sacred territory by many tribes. Manitou springs conception as a health resort can be attributed to the efforts of Dr. William A. Bell who was involved in many ventures with General Palmer. Dr. Bell, with his wife cara, settled along Fountain Creek in their home, Briarhurst. From this home they conducted the development of Manitou springs in 1872. A building boom in the 1890's was responsible for most of the buildings which form the main street, Manitou Avenue. Green Mountain Falls was site to thousands of people pouring in during the late 1880's for health reasons or for holiday excursions. In 1881 George Hamilton bought a ranch in what is now Green Mountain Falls. W.J. Foster secured title from Hamilton in 1887 and began developing a summer resort. The town boomed. Since then many of the resort houses have been converted to permanent residences (Breckenridge, 1985). Like their neighbor, Chip ita Park and Cascade also started as summer resorts and now house permanent residents. Palmer Lake was the site of several homesteads before the first settlement was established with the coming of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. The community was then named Divide. Dr. William Finley Thompson, a dental surgeon, visited Colorado Springs and was taken by the beauty of Divide. Together with Arthur Baxter he purchased 320 acres of land east of Palmer Lake in 1882. They platted a town which they called Loch Katrine and established it as a health resort and vacation community with further land additions. In the summer of 1883 the community was named Palmer Lake (Breckenridge, 1985). THE CLIMATE Two major weather patterns affect the Pikes Peak region: one from the west out of the Pacific Ocean and the other along the north-south face of the Rocky Mountains. Most storm systems follow one of these patterns, encounter the mountains, and precipitation, temperature and wind are then modified. The two major topographic influences on the area's climate are the Rocky Mountains, which locally includes the Rampart 4