Saturday, November 14, 2020

North Downtown walking tour 11-14-20

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The Colchester Flats Apartments are another example of apartments built in the early 1900s, being built in 1905. Most of its balconies have since been turned into interior space, but this one still shows the essence of what it once was.

The First Congregational Church was built in 1888 and inside is the oldest continuous use Hastings pipe organ in Colorado Springs. The church had strong associations with The Colorado College.







The Hazelhurst Residence was built in 1888 for a doctor with mining interests who tended the National Guard troops stationed in Cripple Creek during its mining strikes in the 1890s. It is of the Shingle style and today has long been apartments.



Grace Episcopal/ St. Stephens Church has thee parts. The center with the gothic tower was built in the late 1920s, the north St. Stephens was built in 1895, and the south wing was built in 1949.









The Bernard Sill residence was built in 1899 and at $40,000 was one of the most expensive homes of the era. The first owner was a livery stable owner and the second was a prominent member of the Colorado Springs Mining Exchange. The wrought iron fence was manufactured by the Hassell Iron Works (established 1895) of Colorado Springs. It became apartments in the 40s and is now offices for the church next door.





In 1909/10 these smaller Craftsman residences started to be built facing east/west instead of the large imposing north/south facing mansions. These were middle-class accessible with some of the first residents having such occupations as watchmaker, railway employee, and retailers at the Wilber Suit Company.

The house associated with this was built in 1888, but this child's playhouse on its lot was built in 1874 by Joseph Dozier and the garage behind it was a barn built at the same time.

Lots of apartments were purposefully built in downtown Colorado Springs at the turn of the century such as the Murray apartments built in 1902.

All Souls Unitarian Church was built in 1892-93. It may be the first Unitarian church west of the Mississippi. The congregation began locally in the 1870s and included notables such as James Hagerman (owner of the mansion shown earlier), Jerome Wheeler (who built the Aspen Opera House), Irving Howbert (prominent local politician, and William Jackson, husband of famed local author Helen Hunt Jackson.




I thought the style of this 1885 house on Dale to be rather odd. This house was moved down one lot after its original construction for the building of the Birdsall resident.

One of the buildings on the tour still had coal chutes on its side.


The Fine Arts Center was built in 1936 in a modern style designed to reflect native american Puebloan architecture. It is built on land donated by Julie Penrose.

The Gwynne-Love House was built in 1886. Interesting the original owner, Edmiston Gwynne, had this huge home built for himself at about the age of 24 while he was single. Unfortunately he died at age 25.




This is one of my favorites on the tour. This is a 1901 Queen Anne, notable as the only remaining Cripple Creek mining boom era mansion still in single-family use in the area. It was built for the Pastorius family. Mr. Pastorius founded the Colorado Springs Garden Club. After he did, Mrs. Pastorius remarried Victor Hungerford, who served for many years on City Council and as mayor in the 20s. One of the coolest things about the house is the tables of stucco embedded with stones and glass.







The 1940 Woman's Club building wasn't too interesting to me but the huge stone wall around it is pretty cool.


The house was built in 1906 for the Wrays, prominent citizens associated with the Palmers. It has a great overlook of Monument Valley park and is a Rustic style.





Next door is the 1939 Russ Amer Armes building also associated with Mr. Lefkowsky and also intended as apartments. The architect also designed the City Auditorium.


The Hagerman mansion is a cool looking building built for a millionaire industrialist who moved here chasing the cure for TB. He finances a lot of the railroad construction in his area. In the 20s a Russian emigre Benjamin Lefkowsky turned it into apartments as it is today and also developed several other buildings in the area.



McAllister House, built 1873, one of 3 remaining from Addition #1 of the city after its founding in 1871. McAllister managed William Jackson Palmer's Colorado Springs Company.

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