PHOTO: Ute people camped in Cheyenne Canyon for the re-enactment of the Ute Indian Trail Ride from Cascade to Manitou Springs in August 1912.

UTE PASS

Ute Pass is located in central Colorado along U.S. Highway 24 west of Colorado Springs.  The Pass includes the towns of Cascade, Chipeta Park, Green Mountain Falls, Crystola, Woodland Park, and Divide. It skirts the north side of Pikes Peak through the Fountain Creek canyon, and climbs 3,000 feet to its summit in Divide at 9,165 feet. It is one of a only a handful of access points into the Rocky Mountains along Colorado's front range.

Ute Pass was first used as a trail between the prairies and the mountains by the Ute people who depended on the resources of both areas to support their nomadic lifestyle. In the 1860's, the Ute trail became a wagon road connecting Colorado City to the mining camp of Leadville. Travelers through the pass brought prosperity to the region.  The Colorado Midland Railway ran tracks through Ute Pass in 1888, to the mines at Leadville, Aspen, and later Cripple Creek. With the coming of the railroad, tourism flourished. Hotels, cabins, and small lakes were built to serve the crowds of summer guests, and expanded the local economy that had previously been based on ranching and lumber mills. As mining in the mountains to the west declined over the years and the railroad stopped running, tourism still continued in the mountain towns. Today, the railroad tracks are gone and the old wagon road is a 4-lane U.S. highway.

Resources:

McConnell, Virginia, Ute Pass, Route of the Blue Sky People, Sage Books, Denver, Colorado, 1963

Petit, Jan, A Quick History of Ute Pass, Little London Press, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 1979