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THE SAGA OF PIONEER PARK

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Contributed by: Dave Hughes on 7/17/2008

THE SAGA OF PIONEER PARK

Few Colorado Springs residents know about Pioneer Park, which is nestled inside the housing area of Pleasant Valley on the city's west side.

Fewer know its very long history, dating back to the earliest days of Colorado City, or the excitement it caused in 1976 during Colorado's Centennial.

For Pioneer Park was actually the 3rd Cemetery of Colorado City. Its origins are a tale in itself.

Colorado City's first burial ground was on the high narrow hogback ridge that rises southward from US24 or the Midland Expressway just west of 31st street. That ridge is now part of Red Rock Canyon.

The settlers chose that high ground so that they could hold a burial without being jumped by the Indians. The ridge gives a clear view from both sides. In fact Indians used it as a lookout point themselves. Remnants of low stone enclosures still are visible which our Society member Don Ellis has documented.

But the ground was too hard! In fact the only person we know who was buried there, before Colorado City abandoned it, was Pat Devlin - who was killed in a famous shootout with Jim Laughlin right where 28th and West Colorado Avenue intersect today.

So the enterprising Colorado City folks abandoned its 'first' cemetery, and started what can only be described as a 'Boot Hill' cemetery on the hill north of today's Pikes Peak Avenue in the 2600 block west. It was off Colorado Avenue in the middle of Colorado City. Its Boot Hill was on the bluff North of today's Ice Cream Store.

It was an informal cemetery in that it was not a platted and boundaried cemetery under the town's control. Bodies were buried willy nilly. From strangers shot dead in saloon fights, to children of settlers who died from disease.

But in late 1861, no less a newcomer came down Ute Pass from Buckskin Joe (close to today's Fairplay) than the Reverend William Howbert, Methodist Minister, and his family. As the November 29, 1861 Colorado City Journal claimed - to 'make their permanent abode in our romantic young city.' His 'family' included young Irving Howbert who grew to be a civic titan in both Colorado City and later Colorado Springs.

Reverend William Howbert acquired some farming land up on the Mesa east above Camp Creek - which runs through Pleasant Valley today. So he, being civic minded and a minister decided a better cemetery was needed. So he donated the land that is now known as Pioneer Park to Colorado City. It was known as the Mesa Cemetery. He also sold a piece of adjoining land to the Masons, which is today the Masonic Temple on today's Panorama Drive. The long suffering pioneers, if they wanted their kin to be buried in the more proper cemetery than the Boot Hill, had to disinter and move them themselves. No grave digger companies or Funeral Homes around then!

The Mesa Cemetery was better than the Boot Hill, with some pine trees, but there was no water there. So no grass. And many a family who buried their kin there, could only afford a wooden gravestone or a crossed stake.

That was the situation through the 1860s and 1880s until more people were being buried and their families wanted an even nicer cemetery. Mesa was bone dry. So town founder Anthony Bott, who had homesteaded and enlarged his land called the "Bott Addition" across Fountain Creek, in 1896 donated 30 acres to Colorado City for a newer cemetery. Because he held some of the earliest water rights in El Paso County, he was able to sell water to the town to provide grass. So burials stopped on the mesa.

In 1917 when Colorado City gave up the ghost as a separate town, and was annexed into Colorado Springs, Bott's Cemetery was called Fairview. It was the 4th Cemetery inside Colorado City. The old Mesa location was just in El Paso County, and not inside the city. It was marked with a big X on County Maps as an "abandoned" cemetery.

Once again pioneer descendents of kin buried in Mesa, had to be moved - or abandoned in place. Many were not moved. Over time, cows got through the barbed wire fence to graze and kicked over wooden markers, which deteriorated and crumbled from weathering.

By the 1950s Colorado Springs had annexed the Pleasant Valley housing subdivision. With it the city acquired the old mesa cemetery site.

So Colorado Springs turned the 'abandoned cemetery' into a park - Pioneer Park - which is today off "Frontier Blvd" and "Pioneer Lane" off Panorama Drive. It is mostly a walking around park, and a ball diamond entirely surrounded by private homes and their yards that simply run into the grass of the park. No fences. Oh yes there was some sort of a marker that had been put up in the trees. But most people just ignored that.

Fast forward to Colorado's Centennial Celebrations while I was the Chairman of the Pikes Peak by '76 Committee that led the celebrations for the City and County. So I witnessed this.

One day in 1976 an old woman called the newspapers and went up to 'Pioneer Park', held a little press conference and said "My Aunt is buried under 2nd Base!" Immediately it was a scandal. You mean people are STILL buried under Pioneer Park, where there are NO markers? Yep. Seems like the last of the broken stones and wooden rubble had been cleared off as a public works project, and the debris dumped as fill into parts of Fountain Creek at the foot of 26th street.

The City Council scrambled. It really wasn't their fault - didn't the County Maps show it was an 'Abandoned Cemetery?' Which land simply was annexed to Colorado Springs later?

First thing they did was hire a Funeral Director to do Forensic research, on whatever records still existed. And he got Mel McFarland and the Metal Detector club to scan the ground and map where graves were and where not. Sure enough the metal detector detected handles on the caskets, and the brooches on the burial dresses of ladies buried there back in the 1860s to 1890s. And they spotted metal buttons on uniforms of at least 6 long dead Colorado City Civil War veterans.

A decision was made NOT to try and relocate all the buried Colorado City bodies, since few could be positively identified. A few whose identity could be determined and families still existed were disinterred and reburied in both Fairview and Evergreen Cemeteries.

The City promptly removed the responsibility for operating the Cemeteries from the Park Department, formed a Cemetery Board, and created a separate City Department, with a Cemetery Manager, Will Debor.

In the late '70s, some of our Old Colorado City Historical Society members on Memorial Day held a little military service over the buried Civil War Veterans still under Pioneer Park. Too bad nobody else remembers to do that now.

The tall granite monument is still standing there in the Park surrounded by a low stone sitting wall. It has 45 names still readable on it, from 'Baby Fooshe" and youngsters Charles Everhart, George and Frank Robbins, all killed by the Indians near Colorado City, to the many members of the Watson Family. The El Paso County Pioneers Association, the oldest historic organization in the Pikes Peak region erected that monument there long ago. Colorado City remembered, even if nobody else did.

The names on the Monument are only a very partial list of who was buried there, and still remain, lost to history. There is a story that one woman was buried there in Mesa Cemetery in a cast iron casket. They didn't find that one even with the metal detectors. They concluded that the monument was erected over her casket site!

Today children skip to school across Pioneer Park, and play there. Adults walk their dogs. It is a clean, very pleasant neighborhood park, rich with green grass and pine trees around its edges. The Colorado City dead will remain there in unmarked graves, peacefully, forever.

And oh yes. The Park Department moved second base.

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Dave Hughes

Colorado Springs , CO

Dave Hughes has posted 98 stories and 91 comments since joining on 3/1/2007. Dave Hughes 's average story rating is 4.91.

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