This photo, dated August 11, 1890, shows a group of tourists posing at the summit of Pikes Peak. They probably came in a horse-drawn carriage, much like the one seen to the right. The carriage road to the summit, which originated in Cascade, Colorado, was completed in 1889. An ad in the 1899 issue of the (Pueblo) Colorado Daily Chieftain read, “Up above the clouds behind a four-in-hand (i.e., drawn by a team of four horses with one driver), the Highest, Grandest Safest and Best Constructed carriage road in the world…….carriages will leave Cascade daily for Summit of Pike’s Peak.” By the time this ad appeared, however, the carriage business had been eclipsed by the Manitou-based Manitou and Pikes Peak Cog Railway, which successfully reached the summit in 1891. The company organized to build the railway was put together by Zalman Simmons, owner of the Simmons Mattress Company.
After ascending the peak in 1893, poet and Wellesley College professor Katharine Lee Bates was inspired to compose the lines that later became the lyrics to “America the Beautiful.”
REFERENCES:
- “The Broadmoor Pikes Peak Cog Railway” at https://www.cograilway.com/pikes-peak.asp
- Colorado Daily Chieftain, July 26, 1899 ( at www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org )
- Merriam-Webster Dictionary at https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/four-in-hand
- “Pikes Peak,” Colorado Encyclopedia ( https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/pikes-peak )
