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Pikes Peak
Pikes Peak is a mountain in the
Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, located about 10 miles west of
Colorado Springs, Colorado and was named after Zebulon Pike, an
explorer who led an expedition to south Colorado in 1806. Standing
tall at 14,115, the peak is one of the state's 54 fourteeners; and
every year, drivers race up the mountain in the famous car race
Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. It also happens to be the site
of the Pikes Peak Marathon and Ascent foot races that are held on
the Barr Trail each year. The upper parts are a National Historic
Landmark. Most of its glory comes from the fact that it is located
on the eastern edge of the Rockies, and is the nation's easternmost
fourteen thousand foot peak and was the first sign that early
frontier travelers were coming to the Rocky Mountains and the
treacherous crossing they would have overcome to get to their
dreamlands beyond. The peak is made of a unique pink granite called
Pikes Peak granite and is due to huge amounts of potassium feldspar
and formed over 1.5 billion years ago. When explorers were coming to
the territory, many referred to the peak as Pike's Peak after
Zebulon, who was the first to document it and tried to ascend its
heights, but had to stop since he was trying during the winter
months, and the snow drifts were chest high according to his
records. Edwin James became the first person to scale the top,
during the summer months and some would try to change the name to
James' Peak, but it went round and round until it was finally
settled by using the original name, already well known. It was
called Pike's Peak until 1891, when a newly formed US Board on
Geographic Names recommended not using apostrophes in names, so the
name stayed the same, only the apostrophe was dropped, and in 1978,
the state's legislature passed a law stating that the name would by
Pikes Peak only. In 1820, a young student that had just
graduated from Middlebury College in Vermont signed on as a relief
botanist for the Long Expedition, after the first one had passed on.
His name was Edwin James, and the expedition was exploring around
the South Platte River up to present day Denver, and turned south
passing by what James said, "Pike's highest peak". He and two others
from the party left the rest of the party camped on the plains and
climbed to the summit in two days, with little problem and on the
way was able to tell about the blue columbine, the state's official
flower. In 1858, gold was found by Denver and the newspapers called
it Pike's Peak, and it became the slogan for the Colorado gold rush.
The peak's visibility made it easier to describe the area, which
didn't have any gold found until 1893, but was what the gold
prospectors saw coming across the plains. The gold found by Pikes
Peak was more southwesterly and would become one of the last gold
rushes in the lower 48 states. In 1860, Clark, Gruber & Company
started minting gold coins in Denver that had the phrase "Pikes Peak
Gold" and an artist's drawing of the peak on the reverse side. The
artist had never even seen the peak, so his perception of it was not
close; but in 1863, the US Treasury bought the minting equipment and
opened the Denver Mint. Katherine Lee Bates was so moved by her trip
to the top of Pikes Peak, that she wrote the words to the famous
song "America the Beautiful" in 1893; although she made it to the
top riding in a carriage. She had come to the state by train, going
through Kansas after leaving Chicago. As she sat in her room,
looking out towards the peak, the words just seemed to flow from her
mind as she sat in that Colorado Springs hotel room.
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