1731 - An unknown trapper or trader calling himself Wll. Ketner carved his name above the little cave on the west side of White Rock. His name seems to have been the first ever carved into the Garden rocks.
1807 - A unknown trader named H. Lape left his name while on a trading expedition to Santa Fe. The name can still be seen above Ketner's Cave on the west side of White Rock.
1831 - A.G. Boone, grandson of the legendary Daniel, visited the Garden while trying to cure his ailing son Billy at the nearby soda springs.
1842 - Western adventurer Rufus B. Sage sighted the Garden from thirty miles out on the plains. Closer inspection led him to describe the area in glowing detail. His description was later published in his 1846 book, Rocky Mountain Life, which quickly became a bestseller of its time.
1843 - John C. Fremont caught a fleeting glimpse of the Garden while on his way to drink the cold water of the nearby soda springs.
1848 - Trapper Jacob Spaulding spent the winter in the Garden. While there, he discovered a great cavern inside North Gateway Rock.
1850- Painter and prospector John M. Huiscamp wintered over in the Garden with his Ute Indian friends.
1858 -
...In the early spring Captain Randolph Marcy's military expedition to Utah pastured hundreds of animals near the Garden of the Gods.
...In mid-summer the sixty-member Lawrence Party of gold seekers camped at the edge of the Garden alongside what they called Camp Creek. Some members of the party carved their names into the red rocks; others fashioned pipes and finger rings out of the soft gypsum of White Rock.
1859 -
...On 13 August Rufus Cable and Melancthon Beach, the founders of the nearby town of Colorado City, wandered into the Garden and gave it its permanent name.
...Shortly afterwards a passing gold seeker named Calvin Perry Clark wrote in his diary of finding numerous names cut into White Rock, where he also cut his own.
...In mid-December a Colorado City grocery clerk named William Henry Garvin took up a farming claim of 160 acres surrounding the Gateway Rocks.
1860 - John Coplen, firstborn son of a pioneer family, inscribed his name on North Gateway Rock. His uncle Benjamin stalked mountain sheep on the highest of the Garden rocks. Later this same Benjamin took up a land claim on Camp Creek.
1865 - Three hundred Ute Indians under chiefs Colorow and Ouray spent the winter near Balanced Rock. Facing starvation, they begged for food in nearby Colorado City; twenty bags of flour were provided them.
1867 -
...The Hayden Geological Survey first visited the Garden of the Gods.
...Western traveler Fitz Hugh Ludlow entered Spaulding's Cavern. His travel companion, an artist, chose not to stetch the Garden, thus angering nearby Colorado City residents.
1868 - Walter C. Galloway, a Scot from the old country, constructed a cabin just to the east of the Gateway Rocks. He worked in nearby Colorado City, but did find time to farm his 160-acre homestead along Camp Creek.
1870 - Colorado pioneer Louisa Frost inscribed her name on the walls of Spaulding's Cavern.
1874 - A Pennsylvanian wheat farmer named Robert Chambers bought the Galloway homestead for $1,700. He dug a reservoir for irrigation, planted six acres of asparagus, started an orchard, and built a new rock house for his wife Elsie. Elsie named the house Rock Ledge.
Rock Ledge, 1880's
1878 - Professor James Kerr of Colorado College did an archaelogical dig in the Garden. He found the bones of twenty-one different sea creatures, including a 100 million-year old dinosaur skull, which seemed to belong to a plant-eating creature nearly 30 feet long. Most of the bones were boxed up for Colorado College, but due to lack of space were stored in nearby barns and cellars until they eventually disappeared. The dinosaur skull itself was sent off to a paleontologist named Othniel Charles Marsh, who identified it as a camptosaurus and sent it back east to the Yale Peabody Museum. There it lay in relative obscurity until 1996, when the skull was returned to Colorado, re-studied, and correctly identified as a new genus and species (Theiophytalia kerri). A replica of the skull is now on display at the Garden of the Gods visitor center.
1879 - Railroad man Charles Elliott Perkins bought 240 acres of Garden property, intending to eventually construct a summer home there. Because the home was never built, Perkins directed that the area he owned among the great rocks be kept open and free to the visiting public.
1883 - Entrepreneur Billy Bryan opened a resort and beer hall in the central Garden area. Later he hired Penton Hardwick to carve a series of stone steps to the top of North Gateway Rock.
1884 - Shells mounds were found west of the central Garden area. The Smithsonian Institution sent out a team of investigators, who found among the fossils a few stone tools, some flint projectile points, and traces of pottery.
1886 - Two land developers named Rector and Wells subdivided the property they owned just east of the Gateway Rocks, and there established the paper town of Garden City.
1892 - A Colorado City merchant named Edwin L.(Fatty) Rice purchased four lots in the Garden City development. There he built a beer hall and souvenir shop. The establishment became known as "Fatty Rice's Place."
Fatty Rice's Place
1895 - A group of eastern businessmen organized the Garden and Glen Elecric Road with the intention of building a two-mile streetcar line from Colorado City to the Garden of the Gods. At the Garden terminus they planned a casino, a retaurant, and a magnificent botanical garden to be called the Palm Palace. Prohibitive costs eventually buried the project.
1900 -
...General William Palmer, the founder of Colorado Springs, bought the Chambers farm along Camp Creek for $17,000.
...By the turn of the century Manitou Springs resident Paul Goerke had acquired Mushroom Park at the southwestern entrance to the Garden. There he and his son Curt made a business out of photographing visitors to Balanced Rock. They developed the wet plates at their photography shop attached to nearby Steamboat Rock. When the Kodak camera came into popular use, Curt Goerke built a high board fence around Balanced Rock in order to discourage free picture taking.
1903 - Robert McReynolds of nearby Colorado City proposed that the busts of three assasinated presidents - Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley - be carved into the Gateway Rocks. Area conservationists were horrified, and the proposal was dropped.
1907 - General Palmer built the Orchard House on the old Chambers Ranch for his relatives, the Sclaters.
1909 - Following the death of their father, the Charles Perkins' children transferred title to the 480 acres of his Garden property to the city of Colorado Springs for use as a public park. Among the restricions was that the property be forever known as the Garden of the Gods and always be kept free to the public.
1911-13 - An annual festival called Shan Kive was begun in 1911 and continued until 1913. The festival was centered around the newly-created Garden of the Gods park. Included among the events were wild-west exhibitions, Ute Indian dances, foot races, parades, and a masked ball.
1915 - The Hidden Inn was built in the central Garden area to provide for the sale of refreshments and curios. The first concession was given to Carl Balcomb. The building featured fireplaces of early Indian design and a red plaster that matched the color of the surrounding rocks.
1916 - The Alumni of the Colorado College presented a play in the Garden of the Gods. The morning program was entitled "The Arrow Maker."
1920 - The Reverand Albert Luce, pastor of the West Pikes Peak Christian Church in Colorado Springs, instituted the Easter Sunrise Services in the Garden. The inter-denominational services continued uninterrupted until the beginning of the 21st century.
1923 - A memorial pageant was conducted at Pulpit Rock by members of the National Woman's Party.
1926 - Charles Strausenback, who had begun his career selling gypsum figurines to passing tourists, built his Trading Post just outside the southwestern edge of the Garden.
The Trading Post
1932 - The city of Colorado Springs bought 275 acres, including Mushroom Park and Balanced Rock, from Curt Goerke. The high board fence around Balanced Rock was immediately torn down.
1935 -
...The depression era CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) embarked on a program of reducing erosion, planting trees and building new roads in the Garden.
...The DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) placed a marker in the Garden to indicate the corridor of the old Ute Indian Trail.
1938 - The Colorado Springs Jaycees established a permanent site east of the Gateway Rocks in which to serve visitors their famous Chuckwagon Dinners. Eventually a covered pavillon was built on the site.
1940 - The Orchard House was painted white, and the old Chambers Ranch became known as the White House Ranch.
The Orchard (White) House
1951 - Raymond Davis built a structure called High Point on Ridge Road leading into the Garden. The structure housed the Camera Obscura, which projected images of the Garden onto a ten-foot viewing table.
1953 - The Girl Scouts built Hamp Hut on the southern edge of the Garden.
1965 - The city of Colorado Springs purchased the fifty acres south of Gateway Road and east of Cathedral Rock. Later that same year, the city acquired another 102 acres north of Balanced Rock.
1968 - The city of Colorado Springs purchased a portion of the White House Ranch property along Camp Creek from Egmont Vrooman. Funds were provided by the El Pomar and Bemis-Taylor Foundations.
1972 - The Garden of the Gods was designated a Registered Natural Landmark.
1976 - The first Garden of the Gods Master Plan was approved. The plan called for thoughful development and ecological protection of the Garden.
1977 - The Garden of the Gods Visitor Center was opened in the former Baldwin house. The center featured brochures, exhibits, and information on park activities.
1979 - The White House Ranch was accepted into the National Register of Historic Places. A Living History Association was formed to provide for the continued restoration of the site.
1980 - A plaza was constructed beneath the rock formation known as Three Graces. The site has since become very popular for outdoor weddings.
1993 - A series of public meetings was initiated to approve a new master plan for the Garden of the Gods.
1994 - The new Garden of the Gods Master Plan was approved by the City Council of Colorado Springs. The plan called for extensive revegetation, road realignment, paved parking lots, improved trail systems, and the removal of all man-made structures from the central Garden area.
1995 -
...The Chuckwagon Pavilion was removed and the area revegetated.
...The Hidden Inn concession was ended.
...A new visitor center was opened outside the park boundaries.
1998 - The Hidden Inn was dismantled, leaving the central Garden area completely free of all man-made structures.