Founder of Colorado Springs

Colorado Springs was founded in 1871 as a resort destination for tourists visiting the American West. Founder General William Jackson Palmer was a Civil War hero who also was the engineer-in-charge of building a railroad line for the Kansas Pacific Railroad from Kansas City to Denver (he would later found the narrow-gague Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad, a critically important part of Colorado's history). In 1870, Palmer bought 10,000 acres of land in the vicinity of a wild frontier town named Colorado City (now just a neighborhood named Old Colorado City), and a year later Colorado Springs was born.