Re: NNG - Colorado Springs

Scott, it was just starting to build up then. There were the raimains of a gravel pit where the (what used to be) Ramada Inn on the south side of GOG Roads is now, and our front pasture is where the Holiday Inn is. The house and barn are both gone, moved to the Calhan area and being put back in use, for which I'm thankful. The house sat just below Elkton Drive in front of Pope's Bluff.

I well remember seeing the last D&RGW steam power going to Pueblo for scrapping. From about 1955 until the end in December 1956, every now and then there would be a steam-hauled train, consisting of five or six more dead steam engines heading south. Sad.

Yes, it was very much in the country then. My friends and I rode horseback all over that area, in fact most of us traveled on horseback even after we got old enough to drive as it was quicker to cut through someone's back pasture than to go around by the county road. In those days, the Flying W Chuckwagon Dinner operation was still part of a working cow outfit at the west end of the valley. I worked at the chuckwagon in the summer and cowboyed on the weekends on the ranch during the school year. While the chuckwagon in still very much in operation, the ranch, like my folks' place, is now all built up.

My November, 1958 picture shows nothing in the way of construction, just the railroad spur, which was put in by the D&RGW as soon as it was announced that I-25 would go through there. A summer 1963 photo I have looking west up the valley shows a half-dozen or more industrial buildings in place. Of course, things went bananas after that. At one time in the 1980's land in that area was worth as much as $10.00 per square FOOT!

Such is progress. I'm glad I have a little place outside of a town of less than 800 souls in west Texas now, and likely won't ever have to put up with C. Springs-like growth. Hope this answers your questions. Contact me by PM if you wish further discussion.

Ed