A brief history of Colorado Springs

A short history of Colorado Springs for newcomers: its founding as a Gilded Age resort, the Broadmoor and Pikes Peak tourism era, the Cold War military build-up, Olympic City USA, and its growth into a modern Front Range city.

A resort town, by design

Colorado Springs was founded in 1871 by General William Jackson Palmer, a Civil War veteran and railroad man, as a planned city along his new Denver & Rio Grande Railway. From the start it was marketed as a genteel resort and health destination, drawing visitors for the dry climate and mountain scenery — a reputation that earned it the old nickname “Little London” for its early wave of well-heeled English and East Coast visitors.

The tourism icons take shape

Many of the attractions that still define the city trace back to this early era. Garden of the Gods, the striking red-rock park, was donated to the city on the condition it remain free and open to the public — which it still is (the outdoors). The Broadmoor, the grand resort hotel, was developed by mining and business magnate Spencer Penrose in the early 20th century and remains one of the city's most famous names (things to do). Pikes Peak itself had already drawn climbers, and later drivers and racers, for generations, cementing the mountain as the city's defining symbol.

The military build-up

The city's character shifted dramatically in the mid-20th century as the military established a major presence in the region. The US Air Force Academy was built on a dramatic site north of the city and opened in the 1950s, becoming both a service academy and an architectural landmark. Around the same period, the Cheyenne Mountain Complex was carved into the mountain south of the city as a hardened Cold War-era command center, home to NORAD's mission of monitoring North American airspace — a piece of Cold War history that still shapes the city's identity and its association with space and defense (jobs & economy, military & PCS).

Olympic City USA

Building on this institutional base, Colorado Springs became a national training hub for Olympic and Paralympic sport, and the US Olympic & Paralympic Committee has long been headquartered here — the origin of the city's “Olympic City USA” branding and the downtown US Olympic & Paralympic Museum (things to do).

A modern Front Range city

In recent decades the resort-town-turned-military-city has grown into a genuinely modern Front Range metro, with the same military and space-industry base now anchoring a broader aerospace, technology and cybersecurity economy, and rapid growth pushing the city's footprint and housing costs in new directions (why move here, cost of living). The through-line from Gilded Age resort to Cold War command post to modern Space City is unusual among American cities, and it's part of what gives Colorado Springs its distinct sense of place.