SPAULDING'S CAVERN

or "What Cave in the Garden of the Gods?"

The City of Colorado Springs is not above peddling Revisionist History, as it long did pretending it had to deal with dangerous Indian tribes around here (which it never had to), was founded by Pioneers - as in its City Museum's name (which it never was), and claiming the 'Garden of the Gods' for its own (which was named by the founders of Colorado City 12 years before Colorado Springs - where there are no springs) - was even founded.

And finally the City in the 1930s trying to pretend that there never was a Cave inside the red sandstone monoliths of the Garden of the Gods! Where there is - but has been long covered up and hidden by the City, and never mentioned or marked - as it should be, by them.

Well, let me tell you a real tale of the earliest white man's (and woman's) pioneer history around these parts, and open your eyes to what you can't see - unless our Old Colorado City Historical Society does something about it before I get too old and kick the bucket. For real local history is worth saving, marking, and celebrating. Which we of Old Colorado City do routinely.

The interesting part of the story starts with the arrival in the Pikes Peak region of the Lawrence Party which left from Lawrence, Kansas Territory, in May, 1858.

That party was the first organized white man's expedition responding to the 'Pikes Peak or Bust' gold rush cry started by the rumors and discovery of gold in these parts. That was a full year before Colorado City was founded - as all you Hub readers have learned from me - August 12th, 1859.

Among their members trekking across those 600 milesof plains to that symbol of the promises of gold and riches - "Pikes Peak" - was our dear pioneer friend Anthony Bott. He stayed when all the others went back in the fall, failing to find gold around these parts. He helped found Colorado City a year later. And two Colorado City men gave the name "Garden of the Gods" to those red rocks.

But back to the Lawrence Party and the summer of 1858.

Where do you suppose they camped when they got here? Well, on 'Camp Creek' no less! That stream that comes right down today in the shallow valley in front of the Gateway rocks, through today's Pleasant Valley housing area on the Westside, and dumps into Fountain Creek right about 29th street. That is why that pretty little creek (at least when they get done getting rid of the ugly concrete on both sides) is still named "Camp Creek."

Now we don't know precisely where on Camp Creek the Lawrence Party camped, but it stands to reason they would have been close to the entryway between the giant red rocks to the west.

In any case, the party and its campsite suffered the same fate that tenderfeet still do, today. They camped right on a pretty little Colorado stream that became a raging torrent after a summer cloudburst. So they retreated to higher ground between those red rocks and discovered, a CAVE!

Its right on the western face of the northern tall red sandstone rock, which we call Kissing Camel Rock today.Just about 150 feet north from the entryway path, flat against the vertical wall of rock.A real honest to goodness cave, with a small opening at ground level, but opening up to a very high roof inside at least 100 feet high, and two hundred feet long, 10 to 15 feet wide in place with lots of debris on the floor, including animal bones, water dripping down into a rivulet outside after rain, but ALSO with markings on the Cave wall by persons known and unknown who came before them!

The Lawrence Party had rediscovered 'Spaulding's Cavern' after a Trapper named Jacob Spaulding who, in 1848 found it, camped inside it, and described it later.

Well the sensible pioneers saw they could use the Cave as shelter, and so camped out in it during the month they were around.

And that Party included Julia Holmes, the Bloomer Girl, an 1800s feminist who became the first white woman to climb Pikes Peak that 1858 summer. She climbed with other party members - including August Voorhees - whose name is STILL visible, carved into the cave's inside sandstone walls, along with many other later names, along with smoke from camp fires built inside. And August kept a diary. So we know the Lawrence Party was in that cave, which another later explorer, George Anderson, described as "...a cave large enough to accommodate a very large congregation of people."

Wow! That cave is STILL there, but what happened to it? And why don't you Colorado Springs locals know about it, even when you visit the place which the pioneer founders of Colorado City named a year later 'Garden of the Gods?' Where is the Interpretive Signs, or mention in Brochures? And who teaches the local schoolchildren, including young girls who could learn about how brave and bold was Julia Holmes who walked 600 miles across the plains, camped in a Cave, and climbed Pike's Peak 150 years ago?

Well there was good news and bad news about that cave. Revisionist City of Colorado Springs listened only to the bad news.

After the Charles Perkins family gave his 480 acres of private land which contained the Garden of the Gods to the City of Colorado Springs in 1909 the family stipulated that the area remain always a public place and free. The City made it part of City Parks, and under its control, and set out to make it a natural park and Tourist Attraction. It put a road through the Gateway Rocks which bent northward on the westside next to the north -the Kissing Camels Rock - perhaps 100 feet fromthe cave entrance but NOT marked in any way. Then the Hidden Inn, as a franchise, was built nearby as a tourist stop. (That was closed down in the 1990s and a Visitor Center was opened outside the park)

Still no public information was divulged about the amazing great Cave in the Garden of the Gods, although locals - kids and adults, largely from the original Colorado City and the Westside who knew it was there, explored inside it, and left their names in the stone. What a kid's hideout! All who got in there exclaimed at the sound echo properties of the cave, where whispers and shouts echo back. What a place for a rock concert!

In 1935, at the height of the Depression, the City looking around for a public works project for the laborers of the CCC - Civilian Conservation Corps - decided to open up the Cave to the public. The men shoveled, grateful for work, and scraped out 75 truck loads of debris through the enlarged opening.

But THEN came the bad news. The cave is actually a wedge shaped cavity formed by the tall monolith towering above it. No light penetrates the cave. All of it is soft sandstone, which deteriorates and crumbles over the millennia. Natural erosion at work. And there is, periodically, water running down some walls inside during wet seasons, further eroding the sides of the very tall walls.

One day a large chunk of sandstone fell inside, nearly braining a CCC worker.

The City realized that cave was physically dangerous.It shut down the project and plan entirely. The City didn't want to have a law suit on their hands by the relatives of a dead tourist who claimed he was "Killed by a Cave!" Well, I understand that. BUT they not only sealed up the opening with cement, they did NOTHING to mark that Historic Site which had sheltered the famed Lawrence Party and others, and refused to even answer tourist's questions about its existence. Revisionist history!

They didn't want kids with sledge hammers getting into that wonderful kid's hangout again. So, as far as the City of Colorado Springs is concerned today, Spaulding's Cave does not exist.!

The Soviets who could make non-persons couldn't have done it better.

Then, after erosion over several decades of time exposed the cave entrance again, in 1963 the City panicked and closed it up again! This time you can see PCP- that metal that was used in WWII on combat airstrips -sticking out in the cement. And again they hushed up its existence.

Ok, but as a Board member of the Old Colorado City Historical Society, I'll be danged if I will let the city hide history, especially any which relates to Old Colorado City and the Westside!

Now I agree that the cave should not be just open, willy nilly for anyone to crawl around in and get brained - it probably needs to be sealed from such incursions.

BUT there is no reason why the City should not OPEN the cave temporarily, invite selected local archeologists, geologists, sound engineers, historians, environmentalists and high-tech cameramen to enter it and DOCUMENT what is in there - any artifacts found on the floor,photograph ALL the human made markings and inscriptions on the walls, maybe some that predates the white man, make 3D narrated video clips of its visible reaches, examine any animal remains, sample and test its water pools, and make recordings of the echo properties of the Cave. And then after sealing it up again, put an Historical Interpretive Sign right on the pathway people walk past it into the Garden, telling about Spaulding's Cave, the Lawrence Party, Julia Holmes and how and why it became so important so long ago!

Heck, if the City was really progressive, it would have a Wi-Fi antenna coming off the sign, perhaps an outdoor kiosk touch screen, connected web site back to the Visitors Center, which could tell visitors walking in the park and carrying their Ipods or Iphones all about it - beyond what could be printed on the sign! And at least one booklet, video tape, or DVD should be available in the Visitor's Center.

Cost to do the work? Wanna bet I could get the State Historical Fund, with a match from the Old Colorado City Historical Society to fund the costs of this important historical endeavor?

How about it Westsiders? Isn't it time to un-revise our history and share Spaulding's Cave with all?