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Colorado Springs-at the foot of Pike's Peak (and at an altitude of 6,035 feet)- is a thriving community with tourism, high technology, manufacturing, sports and the military ranking as the key industries within our economy. Our county population recently surpassed the 500,000 mark, ranking us as the 80th largest city in the US and the 18th fastest growing.

Colorado Springs has a rich and interesting history. Native Americans hunted in the area and visited the mineral springs in the foothills of Pikes Peak. As early as 1806, Army Lieutenant Zebulon Pike identified the mountain bearing his name during an expedition. In 1859, gold seekers swarmed to the community which is now part of Colorado Spring's west side. In 1871, General William Jackson Palmer, considered the founder of Colorado Springs, established the area as a resort, similar to Saratoga and Newport back east.

During the next twenty years, Colorado Springs became popular as a spa with well known celebrities such as Jefferson Davis, Oscar Wilde and John D. Rockefeller vacationing here. Also a favorite with English visitors, the town became known as Little London, a quiet community until 1891 when gold was discovered in Cripple Creek. In ten years, the population tripled to 35,000, with 50 of those residents amassing fortunes and building mansions just north of the current downtown. After Cripple Creek dried up, Colorado Springs returned to a sleepy town, catering to tourists and to tuberculosis patients from the east seeking dry, thin air to improve their health.

World War Il got the town going again. Ft. Carson and Peterson Air Force Base were established with NORAD and the US Air Force Academy in place by the 1950s. This military presence continued to grow, making Colorado Springs the nation's military space capital in the 1980s and 1990s.

Today, high tech manufacturers, software companies, non-profit organizations and a multitude of other businesses have flocked to the area and dot the mountainous skyline of "The Springs," which has attracted tens of thousands of highly educated and technically skilled newcomers seeking the quality of life and recreational opportunities available to residents.

The history of the Pikes Peak region is everywhere – making the Colorado Springs of yesterday a vivid landscape for the Colorado Springs of today.

Source: www.coloradospringschamber.org, The Greater Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce