Cheyenne Mountain Highway

The Cheyenne Mountain Highway, also called Cheyenne Mountain Zoo Road,^{[1]: 1, 7:1} is a road in Colorado Springs, Colorado^[2] that begins at the intersection of Penrose Boulevard, Old Stage Road, and West Cheyenne Mountain Boulevard.^[3][a] It is a paved road to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and the Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun. Thereafter, it is an unpaved private road to one of the peaks of the mountain, known as The Horns.

Cheyenne Mountain Highway
Map of the Cheyenne Mountain Highway in red
Route information
Maintained by CDOT
Length	7.5 mi[1] (12.1 km)
Location
Country	United States
State	Colorado
Highway system
Colorado State Highway System Interstate US State Scenic

View of Colorado Springs from Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun on Cheyenne Mountain Highway

Main article: Cheyenne Mountain

Geography

Cheyenne Mountain has three peaks. The southern peak is Cheyenne Mountain's summit at 9,200 feet (2,800 m) in elevation, the antenna farm sits on the middle peak, and the northern peak is called The Horns.^[5][b] Cheyenne Mountain Highway ends at The Horns.^{[7]: 18, 19}

Description

The road is paved to the Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun, thereafter it is a four-mile-long (6.4 km) unpaved road to The Horns, where The Broadmoor's Cloud Camp is located. This was formerly the site of the Cheyenne Mountain Lodge. There are gates that control the access to the road: two after the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and a third after the Will Rogers Shrine. The Broadmoor has maintained the road for the transport of guests to Cloud Camp.^[7] A portion of the road is named Cheyenne Mountain Zoo Road.^[8] The Cheyenne Mountain Highway was originally built for transportation to properties built by Spencer Penrose, which came to include the zoo, the shrine, and the top of the mountain.^[9]: 222

History

Road to Broadmoor properties

After building The Broadmoor, Spencer Penrose began to develop Cheyenne Mountain property that he purchased on the northern peak in 1915. He built the 7.5 miles (12.1 km) Cheyenne Mountain Highway in 1925.^[1][5][c] Initially called the Broadmoor-Cheyenne Mountain Highway, it began one mile (1.6 km) south of The Broadmoor at the Old Stage Road and ascended to the summit with 32 switchback turns up the mountain, gaining almost 3,000 feet (910 m) in altitude with a maximum 10% grade. It afforded views of Colorado Springs and Pikes Peak.^[11]

Penrose hired Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) workers to build the unpaved decomposed gravel toll road. In the depressed economy, this provided work for individuals in need of jobs and helped him to manage construction costs. The cost of the construction was $350,000 (equivalent to $6,275,427 in 2024). ^{[1]: 8:7 [12]} In 1926, the Cheyenne Mountain Lodge opened at the top of Cheyenne Mountain.^[13][d] Visitors could make the trip up the highway to the lodge on the backs of elephants,^[5][e] such as an elephant given to Penrose by an Indian rajah.^[14]

The toll gate was situated on the highway just before the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo (1926)^[14][15],^[16]: 88 and the Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun (1937) was built on the northern promontory of the mountain.^{[15][17]: 1} The Broadmoor also operated a ski area from 1959-1991 on Cheyenne Mountain,^[18] near the Broadmoor Shooting Range.^[19] The highway was rebuilt and widened, received several scenic turnouts, and paved with asphaltic concrete following a flood that washed out the road in July 1965. It reopened in April 1966.^[20]

Cog railroad

Penrose opened the original Broadmoor-Cheyenne Mountain Zoo Cog Railroad in June 1938, and Shirley Temple was a passenger on its first run. The train was a replica of the steam trains operated by the Manitou and Pike's Peak Railway^[21][22][f] In 1950, a "new streamlined" cog train called the Broadmoor Mountaineer was dedicated by Charles L. Tutt, Jr., The Broadmoor's president, and J. F. Gordon, the president of Cadillac Motor Company, who operated the train on its inaugural ride.^[21]

Cheyenne Mountain Cog Railroad offered service on a narrow gauge road from The Broadmoor to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo from 1961 until 1974.^[24][25] The railway engine called The Mountaineer was a small edition of the narrow gauge cog trains used to climb Pikes Peak. Two Plexiglas-topped cars, each carrying up to 20 people, took passengers for a two-mile (3.2 km) ride through four tunnels. The ride began at a boarding station by the lake at The Broadmoor and stopped at the zoo's entrance, the Thundergod House.^[26][27]

See also

• Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station (NORAD), for NORAD Road

Notes

1. A road from inside the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo to the Will Rogers Shrine is called the Russell Tutt Scenic Highway.^[4]
2. An old Native American legend is that the mountain is the remains of a dragon that drank water from a flood, could not move from the weight, and died, leaving his image captured in the mountain's profile.^[5] Legends of the lizard dragon with the great thirst were relayed to Spanish priests, recorded in manuscripts, and delivered to and stored in New Spain's capital and Madrid, Spain's archives. Another legend tells of a devil who lost a fight over land to the god Manitou, who took his dead body to a Cheyenne Mountain canyon, and the devil's horns are the only visible feature.^[6]
3. The road was 7.5 miles (12.1 km) when it went from Cheyenne Lake at The Broadmoor resort to The Horns. The highway is now 6.7 miles (10.8 km), since the beginning portion of the highway was made into El Pomar Street and Penrose Boulevard.^[10]
4. It had a restaurant, a suite for Penrose on the third floor, four guest rooms, and living quarters for servants.^[13]
5. The lodge, which closed in 1961, is now the site of The Broadmoor's Cloud Camp lodge and cabins.^[13]
6. The Gazette's 1950 article, "Cadillac president to pilot inaugural run of cog train, Broadmoor Mountaineer, to zoo", reported that the railroad opened in 1937,^[21] but it did not open until June 1938.^[22][23]