Why is Pikes Peak famous?

Why is Pikes Peak famous?

It gave the 1858 gold rush its slogan, "Pike's Peak or Bust", and the view from its summit inspired "America the Beautiful". It is also the easiest fourteener to reach: a highway, a cog railway and a trail all go to the 14,115 ft top.

It rises over 8,000 ft above downtown Colorado Springs and is the easternmost fourteener in the United States, so it was the landmark gold seekers saw as they crossed the plains. That visibility, more than its height (it ranks 30th in Colorado), is what made it famous.

Pikes Peak timeline

1. Before 1806 Tava, the "sun" mountain
   The Tabeguache Ute, the "People of Sun Mountain", called it Tava. Spanish explorers knew it as El Capitán.
2. Nov 1806 Zebulon Pike turns back
   Sent west to explore the Louisiana Purchase, Pike tried to climb the "Highest Peak" and gave up in deep snow, convinced no one could reach the top.
3. Summer 1820 First recorded ascent
   Botanist Edwin James and two others from Stephen Long's expedition reach the summit. For a while the mountain is called James Peak.
4. Aug 5, 1858 Julia Archibald Holmes on top
   The first European-American woman known to climb it.
5. 1858 to 1861 "Pike's Peak or Bust"
   Gold near present-day Denver sets off a rush of an estimated 100,000 people. The peak was their landmark on the plains, so it gave the rush its slogan, though the gold was nowhere near it.
6. 1890 The apostrophe goes
   The US Board on Geographic Names settles on "Pikes Peak".
7. Jun 30, 1891 First train to the summit
   The Manitou and Pikes Peak Railway, begun in 1889, carries a Denver church choir to the top on the first passenger trip.
8. Jul 1893 "America the Beautiful"
   Katharine Lee Bates, teaching a summer course in Colorado Springs, writes a poem after the view from the summit. Its first title was "Pikes Peak"; it was printed on July 4, 1895.
9. Jul 17, 1913 First car to the top
   Racing driver W. W. Brown drives his "Bear Cat" 20 miles to the summit.
10. 1915 The Pikes Peak Highway
    Spencer Penrose turns the carriage road into a highway for cars.
11. Aug 10 to 12, 1916 First Hill Climb
    Penrose stages a race to publicise his road. Rea Lentz wins in 20:55.6.
12. Dec 31, 1922 AdAmAn fireworks
    The AdAmAn Club climbs the Barr Trail and lights New Year fireworks from the summit, as it has every year since.
13. Jun 4, 1925 A grave on the summit
    The ashes of painter Carl Lotave are buried on top. He remains the only person buried there.
14. 1939 to 1984 Skiing on Pikes Peak
    A ski area operates on the mountain for 45 years.
15. Aug 10, 1956 First Pikes Peak Marathon
    A doctor challenges smokers to race him up and down the mountain. None of the smokers finishes; the race is still held every year.
16. 1961 National Historic Landmark
    The summit area above 14,000 ft is declared a National Historic Landmark.
17. Oct 1, 2011 Paved to the top
    The last gravel on the Highway is paved over, after a Sierra Club suit about gravel washing off the road.
18. May 2021 The Cog returns
    After closing in 2017 and a rebuild from the track up, the Cog Railway reopens with Swiss trains.
19. Jun 2021 New Summit Visitor Center
    The new summit building opens, with the high-altitude donuts.
20. Apr 2024 14,115 or 14,107?
    A geodesy study puts the summit at 14,107 ft in the coming national height system. The sign still says 14,115.

Each row is a dated, sourced entry in our fact register; see the history section of the facts page or download the open data (JSON).

Who is buried on Pikes Peak?

The Swedish-born painter Carl Lotave, who lived in Colorado Springs. His ashes were buried on the summit on June 4, 1925, under a plaque on a stone, and he is the only person buried there.

Lotave (1872 to 1924) trained in Stockholm and Paris and painted portraits, Native American subjects for the Smithsonian and murals for the Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe. In 1924 he asked Spencer Penrose, who owned the road to the summit, for a cemetery on top for artists, writers and scientists, with a memorial building near the Summit House. Official permission never came; his urn was ready in January 1925, and the plan shrank to one grave. The Westside Pioneer's history column notes that the plaque on the stone gives no clue that it marks a grave.

The same column calls the story of "Erin O'Keefe", a child supposedly killed by rats on the summit in 1876 and once marked by a headstone up there, a fiction. Zebulon Pike is not buried on the mountain either.

What does "Pikes Peak or Bust" mean?

It was the slogan of the Pike's Peak gold rush of 1858 to 1861: get to the gold country or go broke trying. The peak was the landmark gold seekers steered for across the plains; the gold itself was found near present-day Denver.

In 1860 a private Denver mint, Clark, Gruber and Company, struck gold coins reading "Pike's Peak Gold"; the real gold strike near the mountain came only with Cripple Creek in the 1890s, on its southwest side.

Was "America the Beautiful" written on Pikes Peak?

Katharine Lee Bates began it there. After reaching the summit in July 1893, she wrote the poem down back at her hotel in Colorado Springs; it was first printed on July 4, 1895, and its original title was "Pikes Peak".

"Purple mountain majesties" refers to the colour of Pikes Peak seen from Colorado Springs. A plaque with the words stands on the summit.

Who first climbed Pikes Peak?

The first recorded ascent was by Edwin James and two companions from the Long expedition in the summer of 1820. Zebulon Pike, after whom the mountain is named, tried in November 1806 and turned back.

Julia Archibald Holmes followed on August 5, 1858, the first European-American woman on record to reach the top. Today most visitors arrive by car, by the Cog Railway or on the Barr Trail.