City guide
7 buildings worth a detour, each with what to look for. Open them on the map, or walk them with the iPhone app, which collects each one you photograph.
The buildings that define the city's architecture.
Colorado Springs City Hall is a two-story Classical Revival municipal building completed in 1904, designed by Thomas P. Barber and Thomas MacLaren, the city's "premier architect" of the era. Winfield Scott Stratton donated the money to purchase the property, and the building rose as part of the City Beautiful movement, serving as the city's municipal center until 1980.
Photo: David Shankbone , CC BY-SA 3.0
The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College is an Art Deco museum built in 1936, funded with $600,000 from Alice Bemis Taylor along with a $400,000 endowment gift. Constructed during the Great Depression, Taylor conceived it partly as a jobs program for unemployed laborers, and she insisted on free admission so the collection would be accessible to everyone. It stands on the former site of the Broadmoor Art Academy, on land donated by Julie Penrose.
Photo: Jeffrey Beall , CC BY-SA 3.0
The Judson Moss Bemis House, also known as the Hearthstone Inn, is a Queen Anne house built in 1885 for Judson Moss Bemis and his wife Alice Cogswell Bemis, who moved to Colorado Springs in 1881 for her health. Bemis, founder of the J. M. Bemis Company, split his time between the house and business in Boston, while Alice made it their permanent home with their daughter, Alice.
Photo: Jeffrey Beall , CC BY-SA 3.0
St. Mary's Cathedral, seat of the Diocese of Colorado Springs, was designed in the Gothic Revival style by Thomas P. Barber (of Pease and Barber). The property was purchased for $3,100 in 1888, the lower church was completed in 1891 and the upper church in 1898, with the building dedicated on December 19, 1898.
Photo: Jeffrey Beall , CC BY-SA 3.0
Italian Renaissance
The Broadmoor is an Italian Renaissance-style resort hotel that opened in 1918, designed by architect Frederick Junius Sterner. It is a National Historic Landmark and is recognized as the longest continually operating luxury resort in the United States under single ownership, having hosted numerous sitting U.S. presidents over its history.
The United States Post Office and Federal Courthouse-Colorado Springs Main, at 210 East Pikes Peak Avenue, was Colorado Springs' first federal building, constructed between 1908 and 1910 to a design by James Knox Taylor. The land was donated by mining magnate Winfield Scott Stratton, and the granite building was raised in the Renaissance Revival-Beaux-Arts style.
Photo: Jeffrey Beall , CC BY-SA 3.0
Worth a stop when you're nearby.
Landmark
Cutler Hall, built between 1877 and 1880, was the first building on the Colorado College campus, designed by the Boston firm Peabody and Stearns. Major Henry McAlister donated the land, and William Jackson Palmer provided the funding needed to complete construction after lack of funds slowed the project.
Photo: Jeffrey Beall , CC BY-SA 3.0
