Deep Dives
Articles
Longform stories and essays exploring Colorado Springs's history, culture, and untold stories.
The City Built on Dying Lungs
Colorado Springs wasn't built on gold or railroads. It was built on tuberculosis. By 1900, one-third of the city's residents were infected. Sanitariums lined the foothills. "Lungers" filled the boarding houses. The city marketed itself as a place to die slowly and comfortably — and it worked. Then antibiotics cured TB, the sanitariums closed, and Colorado Springs had to find a new reason to exist. The military-evangelical city you know today rose from the ruins of a tuberculosis resort.
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The Night of the Axeman
They called it the worst crime in Colorado Springs history. On a September night in 1911, someone entered two homes and killed six people with the blunt end of an axe — a man, his wife, their toddler, and a woman with her two children. Every victim's face was covered with a sheet. Every mirror in the houses was draped. The killer vanished and was never found. A century later, researchers believe the murders were the work of a serial killer who rode the railroads across America, leaving a trail of axe murders from Colorado to Iowa.
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When Tesla Blacked Out Colorado Springs
In 1899, Nikola Tesla chose Colorado Springs for the ultimate mad scientist experiment: generating artificial lightning. His 80-foot tower produced 135-foot electrical discharges — so powerful they fried the local power company's generator and plunged the city into darkness. The site of his laboratory is now a parking lot with a small plaque.
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Pikes Peak or Bust
General William Jackson Palmer founded Colorado Springs in 1871 as a resort town for wealthy tuberculosis patients, a place where the dry mountain air and sunshine might cure what medicine could not....
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