(soft upbeat music) - [Matt] I love the downtown and just walking the streets of downtown, to see the buildings that have survived.

The Mining Exchange Hotel.

- [John] The Pioneers Museum.

- [Leah] The City Auditorium.

- [Tim] Lowell School.

The Cheyenne Building.

- [Matt] The Maytag Aircraft Company Building.

- [Leah] The Colorado Springs Day Nursery.

- [Matt] Historic architecture is really the tangible evidence of who we are as a community.

- [John] The landscape of the built environment tells a story, it tells us about who we are, it tells us about our values.

We need those stories.

- [Tim] Historic preservation is based on the notion that change is inevitable, but with effort you can shape that change.

(soft upbeat music) - [Announcer] This program was made possible by the History Colorado State Historical Fund, - [Presenter] Supporting projects throughout the state to preserve, protect and interpret Colorado's architectural and archeological treasures.

History Colorado State Historical Fund, create the future, honor the past.

- [Announcer] With Additional funding provided in memory of Deanna E. La Camera, by Hassel and Marianne Ledbetter and by members like you, thank you.

With special thanks to the Denver Public Library, History Colorado, the Colorado Office of Film, Television and Media and to these organizations.

(soft upbeat music) - We have to remember that there have always been people here.

We often think of Colorado Springs and the Pikes Peak region as a cultural crossroads, and that recognizes the fact that people have lived in the shadow of Pikes Peak for eons, including the Kiowa, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Cheyenne and the Apache, the Ute Mountain Ute and the Southern Ute.

(instrumental music) - [Leah] As white settlers came on a more permanent basis, the Utes were removed from Colorado, post 1879.

The Cheyenne and Arapaho were first placed on a reservation in 1861 and then later removed to the Oklahoma Territory.

- [Matt] You can see those cultural traditions reflected in place names, Cheyenne Mountain, Uintah Street, Kiowa Street in town.

And that's just one way that we can remember the people that have been here before us and are still here now.

Colorado Springs was founded July 31st, 1871 on a short grass prairie, built on this idea that we were a beautiful place with great scenery, close proximity to the mountains and a wonderful climate.

(gentle music) - Tourism and creating the West as a part of the American icon happened here.

- We relied tourism, that was our greatest industry.

We commodified our beautiful natural scenic environment, our healthy, clean air, our sunshine filled skies.

- [John] And we have used that to market the city from the earliest days, as a sort of original, wealthy getaway tourist resort.

- [Matt] You can see that we were a tourist community through the Alamo Hotel, the Acacia Hotel, through other historic structures that serve tourists who arrived here either by car or by train.

- [Leah] And people came, but it was a pretty sleepy town for the first few decades.

(gentle music) [Matt] The first major change that happened to Colorado Springs is driven largely by the discovery of gold.

- [John] Because of the Cripple Creek gold mine strike in the 1890s, there was a huge injection of wealth into the city.

[Matt] It gives us some of our most important city benefactors, Winfield Scott Stratton, Jimmy Burns, Spencer and Julie Penrose.

- Members of the Gilded Age expected to display their wealth through construction of fine residences, the endowment of schools, hospitals, different institutions.

- [John] A lot of that money went into building some of our most famous buildings, many of which are gone now.

- In the late 1890s, early 20th century, there is literally a mushroom-like growth of important historic buildings.

- [Matt] Largely located in the downtown historic core of the community, the Mining Exchange building, the Independence Building, (gentle music) the Post Office.

(gentle music) - Plans began to build a new City Hall and a new El Paso County Courthouse that were fitting for a community that was so important to the state's economy.

We're actually sitting right now in the bell tower of the historic 1903 El Paso County Courthouse.

This building was meant to represent all the gold that was coming down the hill from Cripple Creek and resulting in a city that was richer than ever before.

(gentle music) New, luxurious homes were built in suburban residential districts like the Old North End, so Wood Avenue was dubbed, "Millionaire's Row."

Architects like Thomas MacLaren were designing homes that you could find in Pasadena, California, or in New York, gorgeous, gorgeous luxury residences.

Thomas MacLaren creates a blend of architecture that's sympathetic to the Colorado climate and the environment.

He builds villa style homes and churches and schools that have red tile roofs, organic lines, curved, soft edges.

And the Broadmoor became a suburb that wealthy people flocked to as well, and then soon enough we have the incomparable Broadmoor Hotel, a place that drew tourists from around the globe.

(intense dramatic music) - [Matt] We have evidence left in the built environment of these millionaires who called Colorado Springs home.

And today we can get a sense of their lives and their lifestyle by visiting the Julie Penrose House, which is on the National Register and located adjacent to the Broadmoor Hotel.

(intense dramatic music) When you look at what properties have been listed either on the State Register or the National Register, a lot of the properties are on Colorado College campus Shove Chapel or Palmer Hall or Lennox House.

- [Leah] The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, designed by John Gaw Meem, is truly one of the most beautiful buildings in Colorado Springs.

John Gaw Meem is famous for his work in Santa Fe.

He helped create the Santa Fe aesthetic.

He was brought here to build a state-of-the-art, temple of culture.

And it is a beautiful adaptation of a Southwest design but using really modern materials.

So it's concrete, but it's Pueblo revival.

They added little, tiny pieces of gold into the concrete mixture, so that that building is truly of this place.

- I have a personal affinity for the Van Briggle Memorial Pottery Building.

It's got a very European flair, the architect, Nicolaas van den Arend, designed several structures in Colorado Springs that have been listed.

Dutch Revival is the design of the structure, it's a brick building that has used a lot Van Briggle tile.

It was designed to honor Artus Van Briggle who created Van Briggle Pottery along with his wife, Anne.

He died of tuberculosis.

To understand this place, you have to understand TB.

TB, at the time Colorado Springs was founded, was one of the leading killers in the country and around the world.

And because we are a high, dry climate with lots of sun, where you can essentially be outdoors 12 months of the year, we actively marketed ourselves as a destination for tuberculosis patients.

- [Leah] So we commodified ourselves as an elite health resort.

- [John] A place to come with curative powers.

- [Matt] Many of the homes in the Old North End of Colorado Springs, were built during that era.

And so, they have sleeping porches built into those structures, which were specifically designed to spend as much time in fresh air as possible.

You can also see, if you know what you're looking for around downtown, TB huts.

And they were specially designed by a physician named Charles Fox Gardiner, as a way to isolate patients, but also to have them get fresh air and to be sheltered and be cared for.

We have one in our collection and on exhibit.

(intense dramatic music) - [Leah] There were upwards of anywhere between 15 to 18 TB facilities at any one time, dotting the landscape surrounding Colorado Springs.

- [Matt] The sanatorium movement leaves significant evidence on our landscape in the form of former hospitals.

Some of them have been repurposed, and it's kind of like an onion, you can just peel away the outside and you can see other evidence of our community's history.

(gentle music) The University of Colorado at Colorado Springs was built on a former TB facility.

Cragmor Sanatorium was renovated by the university, they saved some of the facade, but the building itself was dramatically changed to the extent that it was delisted.

I'm very interested to see what happens as the former Union Printers Home site is developed.

(gentle music) - [Leah] The Union Printers Home was the world's largest tuberculosis care facility for Union members.

For printers who had contracted a type of tuberculosis known as printer's lung.

- It's a great structure that hopefully can find a new and improved and modern use, but retain the historic architecture.

(gentle music) TB really comes to an end, at least that treatment method comes to an end, at the end of World War II, when new chemical treatments are developed.

Sanatariums close.

- Chamber of commerce and local businesses leaders began to look for new economic drivers.

- [Matt] And at that point, the army was looking for a new training base, and we actively went out and recruited the military to come to Colorado Springs, we offered them land south of downtown, we offered other incentives to bring the military here.

- [Leah] And that was Camp Carson, later Fort Carson.

That really began to change the economy of Colorado Springs.

From the 1940s onward, we're looking for military opportunities to bring an infusion of federal dollars here, and that radically alters our landscape.

- We then actively go out and recruit the Academy.

(soft upbeat music) NORAD is built under Cheyenne Mountain.

Peterson Air Force Base becomes home of US Space Command.

Schriever Air Force Base is a significant home for satellite technology.

And so we have these five major defense installations in Colorado Springs, and now there's talk about the Space Force being housed here.

At a time when our economy was changing, could no longer rely on tuberculosis, the military was what we turned to.

And it was that change in our economy that had such an extraordinary impact on who we are as a community.

You can really see the change that happens after World War II.

We have historic images from Nevada Avenue, looking west on Pikes Peak Avenue, one of the most important cross streets in Colorado Springs.

Today that corridor, which for decades had a very similar look and feel, is just strikingly different than it was historically.

And I think it should be a lesson to us as to what value historic preservation can have.

(soft upbeat music) From 1900 to World War II, Colorado Springs kind of hovers in terms of its population, and we range from about 30,000 to about 50,000.

(soft upbeat music) After World War II, all of that changes, our populations begins to increase dramatically, doubling about every decade.

So does our footprint of the city of Colorado Springs boundary.

We begin annexing new properties, new open space for housing developments.

What was this fairly compact little town, up until World War II, begins to sprawl tremendously to today, where we're I think 195 square miles, about a fifth the size of the state of Rhode Island, which is just hard to think about.

(soft upbeat music) - [Leah] Unfortunately what that means is the downtown inner core begins to decay.

- [Matt] In the post-war years from the 1950s to the 1970s, downtowns were having to go through reinvention because of changes in the economy and flight from downtown to suburban areas, the growth of malls, etc.

Urban renewal is a movement that happened across the United States and in Colorado Springs.

In an effort to revitalize urban cores, the urban renewal movement was largely related to taking down historic structures, old businesses, and raising up new, modern buildings to replace them.

There were many historic structures lost to urban renewal.

- The reason stated, and this was typical across the country, was, they were obsolete.

Oftentimes, the standard response is, look, it's cheaper just to rip it down and build a new one, and we did a lot of that in Colorado Springs.

- Our urban renewal effort was called the Colorado Springs Urban Renewal Effort, which got the acronym CURE, which is always an interesting acronym for me because, you don't need a cure unless you have a disease, and the disease that Colorado Springs had was urban blight.

- [Leah] Local governments essentially declare certain sections of downtown to be blighted and bring in federal dollars to rebuild, reimagine, wipe away the past, and build new buildings.

-[Matt] And the way to do that was to take down whole blocks of historic structures.

- [Leah] And those blocks encompassed some important businesses, some legacy businesses.

- When you look at these neighborhoods which were declared blighted, no coincidence, where were they?

African American, Latino, minority neighborhoods, and we see that in Colorado Springs.

In the downtown, which used to be the historical African-American neighborhood where there was a lot of people living, but also a lot of independent businesses, including probably the most famous, the Cotton Club of Fannie Mae Duncan, all those were ripped out.

- Fannie Mae was the catalyst for the peaceful integration of Colorado Springs during the very volatile civil rights movement.

Here in Colorado Springs, Fannie Mae was serving people of every ethnicity who would come in because of their mutual love of the arts and sit side by side to enjoy the evening.

The city decided that the area where she had her club, really was becoming seedy, and they didn't want all the important businessmen and the money coming into the city, getting the wrong impression.

So by 1975, eminent domain was the decision by the city to get rid of the club and tear down the buildings in that area.

- [Lenora] They did a closing of the Cotton Club.

People were crying because, we had no place to go.

I remember Fannie Mae coming through, and she says, "I'm sorry," you know, when she got up and made her announcement, she just said, "I'm sorry, there was nothing I could do."

- I regret that they closed the Cotton Club down because it was my idea to pass it down to the family.

After I'm gone, it would still be there to go down to my family.

- So urban renewal is tinged with partition ideas about what buildings should be preserved and what buildings need to go.

It is a solution to some and it's an assault to others.

(gentle music) - [John] Particularly in the 1960s and 70s, they were ripping down a lot of the urban fabric.

One of my favorite buildings was the Colorado Springs High School, which is now Palmer High School.

It was a great Richardson Romanesque, cut sandstone building with a big tower.

(gentle music) - [Matt] The building that I mourn the most was the second Antlers Hotel, which was torn down in 1964 and 65.

The first Antlers Hotel burned to the ground in the 19th century, (gentle music) was replaced in 1901.

- [Leah] A gorgeous building reflecting an era of Colorado Springs' Golden Age of tourism.

(gentle music) - And unfortunately that beautiful historic structure, which today would be seen as a landmark for our downtown, was seen as too expensive to modernize, and there was a desire at that time in our history that newer is always better, and so that building was lost to urban renewal, and the current Antlers Hotel that we know downtown was the replacement for it.

There were other buildings that were lost in this era that really motivated public interest in historic preservation.

The Burns Opera House, later known as the Chief Theater, was also added to the National Register, but torn down by private property owners in order to make way for what is now essentially a parking lot.

- [Tim] It was a marvelous building, it was beautifully constructed, there were no interior pillars.

- [Leah] It was a building beloved by generations of Colorado Springs residents.

- The tax code favored new construction over rehabilitation and so they demolished it.

(gentle music) If we could have that theater today, it would be a tremendous asset to the city of Colorado Springs.

- [Leah] And when that building was destroyed, when it was torn down, our community was embittered.

- [Tim] Leading the community to advocate in 1983 that there should be a historic preservation ordinance, to protect historically significant properties.

- And so, the historic preservation movement came out of this demolition of historic properties and buildings that had helped to shape the downtown for decades.

(instrumental music) We're proud at the Museum that this building, the 1903 El Paso County Courthouse, was really the first intentional effort in Colorado Springs to save a building for historic preservation purposes.

It was the first structure in Colorado Springs added to the Register in 1972, really just a short time after the passage of the National Historic Preservation Act, which created the National Register.

Because of urban renewal efforts, it was threatened with demolition.

- They were right across the street at the Alamo Hotel, ripping that one down, next one on the block was this very building.

If it weren't for a outrage by local citizen activists, this building would have been ripped down too.

- [Matt] The community rose up and decided that they'd lost enough historic structures in the downtown area, and there was a public will to see that this building would survive.

- [Leah] And to be reimagined as something new, and that something new was as a museum to house the community's history.

- [John] This building itself is one of the best in the city, it's our architectural jewel.

Same thing happened on the west side, Old Colorado City, in the 70s, it was gonna get ripped down, if it weren't for a lot of local neighborhood activists, they preserved it and stopped it.

And now it's a great space, it's a very successful place.

Urban renewal still exists today, and it's very much a part of how urban development is done even in Colorado Springs.

- It's a way to add new properties and new businesses using tax incentives that are available to property owners.

Today though, I would say that urban renewal is done in a much more sensitive approach than what we've had in the past.

An example of that is a new hotel that's being built, situated in between the listed properties of City Hall, the YWCA building and our City Auditorium, and it's being placed in a site that is a good balance of historic preservation with urban renewal.

There is newer interest from private interests that there's business sense in saving historic buildings.

An example of that is the Ivywild School, which went through rehabilitation and took a historic school that was going to be torn down and turned it into a modern gathering place that relies on history to give it its sense of purpose and uniqueness.

The Mining Exchange Hotel, a wonderful preservation activity to save the old Mining Exchange building and turn it into a modern hotel.

That effort also resulted in the preservation of the former Municipal Utilities Building, which is one of our few art deco structures in Colorado Springs.

So today, it's really a shared role between the public sphere and the private sphere in preservation efforts.

(gentle music) In 2019, Colorado Springs approved as part of its overarching, comprehensive plan for the community, a new Historic Preservation Master Plan called HistoricCOS.

What it recommends is that we see the role, the value, the economic purpose of historic preservation for this community, that we do a better job of communicating what historic preservation means to neighborhoods and to private property owners, and that we provide tools to them that can help to encourage historic preservation.

A conversation that's being had in the community is about the bandshell in Acacia Park.

We heard loud and clear through that master planning process that it's valuable, it's important to keep.

So, what we have committed to as the City of Colorado Springs is to figure out how we can save the building itself, but make it still useful as a performing site.

Historic properties are tangible evidence, they're something that you see every day on your drive to work or when you're out for a walk.

- It's really powerful to think that your grandfather or grandmother walked down that same street.

- It provides a wealth of context and character.

- This historic structures are kind of in-your-face reminders that this community has been around a long time, has gone through changes, but we're still here, we're still growing, we're still becoming the community we're going to become.

And having that evidence of the past is critical to creating a sense of place, a sense of community identity.

(gentle music) (soft upbeat music)