Garden of the Gods with a black and white sepia mono tone view. In 1859, gold was discovered in the South Park area of Colorado, and "Pikes Peak or Bust" became a popular slogan as vast numbers of fortune seekers headed west. Boom towns were created overnight; over 100,000 people arrived in the region in just one year! The Pikes Peak area became a funnel of humanity since it sat at the foot of Ute Pass, the only accessible route to South Park. The Pass funneled gold seekers from three major routes across the plains.

It was August of 1859, when two surveyors started out from Denver City to start formal action in locating a townsite, soon to be called Colorado City. While exploring nearby locations, they came upon a beautiful area of sandstone formations. M. S. Beach, who related this incident, suggested that it would be a "capital place for a beer garden" when the country grew up. His companion, Rufus Cable, a "young and poetic man" exclaimed, "Beer Garden? Why this is a fit place for the Gods to assemble. We will call it the Garden of the Gods." It has been so called ever since.


By the 1870's, the railroads had forged their way west. In 1871, General William Jackson Palmer founded Colorado Springs while extending the lines of his Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. In 1879, General Palmer repeatedly urged his friend, Charles Elliott Perkins, the head of the Burlington Railroad, to establish a home in the Garden of the Gods and to build his railroad from Chicago to Colorado Springs. Although the Burlington never reached Colorado Springs directly, Perkins did purchase two-hundred and forty acres in the Garden of the Gods for a summer home in 1879. He later added to the property but never built on it, preferring to leave his wonderland in its natural state for the enjoyment of the public. Perkins died in 1907 before he made arrangements for the land to become a public park, although it had been open to the public for years. In 1909, Perkins' children, knowing their f