The Rocky Mountain News

Denver, Colorado, Friday, June 23, 1871

Villa La Font.

The Fountain Colony of Colorado—A mammoth enterprise—Colorado Springs purchased and a city to be laid out—One of the most enticing spots in Colorado—Full descriptions.

                When Fitz Hugh Ludlow visited Colorado gathering data for his well-known volume “The Heart of the Continent” it was his good fortune to tarry for awhile at the foot of Pikes peak, indulging in the exquisite luxuries of the scenery and gratifying his taste and thirst with the carbonated waters of the springs Fountaine-qui-Bouille. When he had recovered from the intoxication of the scene and had gathered his sober sense to the work at hand, he recorded the following as a slight inkling of his enthusiasm over the section of Colorado immediately to the south of us, which has heretofore been removed from actual contact with the tourist simply by isolation from the iron thoroughfare of the continent. Says Ludlow, reviewing the efficacy of these waters and looking into the future:  “These springs are very highly estimated among settlers of this region for their virtues in the cure of rheumatism, all coetaneous diseases, and the special class for which the practitioners’ sole dependence has hitherto been mercury. When Colorado becomes a state, the springs of the Fountaine will constute its spa. In air and scenery no more glorious summer residence could be imagined. The Coloradan of the future, astonishing the echoes of the Rocky foot-hills by a railroad from Denver to the Colorado springs, and running down on Saturday to stop over Sunday with his family, will have little cause to envy us easterners our Saratoga as he paces up and down the plaza of the Spa hotel mingling his full-flavored Havana with that lovely air quite unbreathed before which is floating down upon him from the snow peaks of the range.

                Mr. Ludlow wrote well, but Colorado will not have become a state when this picture which is drawn above in such vivid colors shall have been finished. The day is drawing near, and is now, in fact, upon us, when the Colorado springs at the foot of Pike’s peak shall be utilized and made to realize all that has been predicted of them. Their richness in mineral prospects has already been known, and yet no correct analysis has ever been made of them. They have been off the ordinary route of tourist and invalids, who, while desiring strongly to visit them, have been deterred from so doing by the tediousness of the old mode of travel by stage. The Denver and Rio Grande railway, however, is the entering wedge which is to throw that southern country with its gorgeousness of natural scenery and richness of natural products open to all, and to place the springs, the peak, and the great rocky gardens close to the threshold of all other portions of the territory. This road is working a wonderful change, and already capital and enterprise are looking southward for advantageous openings. Not alone capital and business interest, but colonists, are tending towards this delightful spot of which we have just made mention.

                We have in these columns heretofore, written in detail of the colonial enterprises which have been prospecting for favorable locations on the Fountaine, the Huerfano and other southern streams, but it has been left up to us this time to call attention to an undertaking that exceeds all the others in design and boldness of execution, one headed by some of the most prominent gentlemen of this territory and the east, and which promises to develop into success in every particular.

                For some time past a number of gentlemen have been negotiating for a large tract of land in the vicinity of the base of Pike’s peak, the same to include the famous Colorado springs. This company have purchased the springs and a large number of acres in the immediate vicinity, comprising some four hundred and eighty villa sites of one acre each, on the Fountaine, and ten thousands acres on Monument creek. They will there lay out the town to be known as Colorado Springs, on the line of the Denver and Rio Grande railway, the springs proper being about five miles from the road. The springs have been christened Villa la Font, and will be provided with a post office and telegraph station, as will also the railroad depot. From the depot to Villa a fine carriage road will be constructed. Villa la Font lies in the celebrated Ute pass, from which El Paso county derives its name. The natural scenery from this point is magnificent. In the background and in the centre of a semicircle, rises the grand dome of Pike’s peak; immediately in front and left and about eight miles away, reaches heavenward Cheyenne mountain, the bold outline that completes the picture; and on the right are the garden of the gods. The company will build a house at Colorado Springs, the railroad depot, (using a temporary building for the present with the intention of erecting one next spring to cost at least $100,000. They will also establish at the springs a bottling business with the best apparatus made for bottling the waters and saving the carbonic gas. This will form one of the industrial objects of the colony.

                Professor Hayden, in his report on Colorado, says of these springs:  ”Perhaps the feature of the greatest general interest in this region is the soda springs, which are located about three miles above Colorado City, in the valley of  Fountaine creek. The scenery around them is grand beyond any I have ever seen in the vicinity of any other medicinal springs. There are four of them. The first one is close to the road within fifty feet of the creek. For a distance of sixty feet or more around the spring there is a deposit or incrustation in thin layers. About one hundred yards above the first spring is the second one, on the right side of the creek. This is much the largest one, and has formed a basin six or eight feet across, from the centre of which boils up a violent current. On the opposite side of the creek, not more than twenty-five from it, and located about ten feet above it, is a third small spring. The water is stronger than that of the others, and is used principally for drinking purposes. The fourth spring is perhaps fifty feet above the second, on the right side of the creek, and within four feet of the waters edge. Its waters are rather chalybeate than otherwise. The basin of the second spring is about four feet deep and is used for bathing. The first three springs are strongly impregnated with carbonic acid gas, and are the true springs.” The temperate of the springs is about 55°.

                The chief spring christened by Professor Hayden “Doctor,” and which is probably the richest mineral spring in the world, containing as it does an ounce of medicated matter to every four gallons of water, will be called the “Doctor,” or “Galen spring.” The chalybeate spring, whose waters resemble those of Pyrmont, in Europe, will hereafter be known as the “Iron Ute.” The “Great spring” will keep its present name. It will be called in plain English the “Boiling Fountain.” Another called by the Indians the “Beast” from the fact that wild beast were wont to drink the water to heal their diseases, will be known as the “Navahoe.”

                The city of Villa la Font will be located about three miles northeast of Colorado city, on the Ute pass, and as we have mentioned above, about eight miles from Cheyenne mountain. In this connection we cannot resist the temptation to quote at this point Mr. Ludlow’s beautiful description of Cheyenne mountain. He says: “Its height is several thousand feet less than Pike’s; but its contour is so noble, and so massive that this disadvantage is overlooked. There is a unity of conception in it unsurpassed by any mountain I have ever seen. It is full of living power. In the declining daylight its vast simple surface becomes the broadest mass of blue and purple shadow that ever lay on the easel of nature.”

If such a spot is not the counterpart of an earthly Eden, where will it be found?

                The colony which has this matter in hand is composed of some of the most reliable parties in the country. Several have been identified with the Greeley colony and have done a great work in developing that organization and bringing it to its present state of perfection and success. The colony is now open to membership. The figures are not yet definitely settled upon, but will resemble in general plan those adopted in the Greeley colony. The stock is fixed at $300,000 of which $200,000 have already been subscribed, at $100 per share, by prominent parties in New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis and Colorado. By the time the Denver and Rio Grande railway is completed to Colorado Springs the hotel will be ready for the reception of colonists, and will be large enough to accommodate all. 

                A brief description of the proposed workings of the colony plan will be pertinent at this point. The organization is to be known as the Fountain colony of Colorado, to have two thirds of the lands purchased at actual cost price and all profits made by the colony in these lands are to be devoted to general improvements. For instance: A piece of land which cost $15 per acre will be divided into eight business lots. Those selling at $100 would leave above the average cost of each lot about $98 to be devoted to improvements. This is upon the plan of Greeley colony. Lots will be sold at $50, minimum; highest price for choice corner lots to members, about $200 each. The person who purchases one lot at the minimum price of $50 will be entitled to all the privileges of low transportation for his family and contract rate for household goods by freight. Each member will be entitled to select in person at the regular drawings, the dates to be fixed upon hereafter, one residence lot and one outside piece of property. He will have four months to make improvements; if he has done nothing in that time, his selection will be vacated, and he will be given the opportunity to make a new selection. If he has done nothing within the first year in the way of improvements, the money is to be refunded by the colony. The only conditions upon the colonist are that they must improve their claims before they can obtain their titles. The title will be given prohibiting the manufacture or sale of intoxicating liquors as a beverage in all places of public resort, as at Greeley. The officers of the colony will assist immigrants from the east in preempting and homesteading lands outside their city claims and privileges, without additional above government fees. They will also assist any colonist, in securing timbered land for the erection of saw mills.

                The leading business of the colony, besides the manufacture of lumber, for which the country of that section is bounteously supplied by heaver timber, and the care of invalids who will flock thither through the enticing influence of a health giving climate and the invigorating springs, will be the raising of early vegetables and small fruits, including peaches, apricots, grapes, etc., for the Denver and northern Colorado markets. The climate of the section south of the Divide is much milder than the other portions of the territory, as it is entirely shielded by the natural rise of land from the north winds. The many orchards on the Arkansas and other streams have heretofore given the most flattering indications of success, and there is no reason to believe but that this enterprise of the Fountaine colony will eventuate profitably to all concerned. The range of mercury during the winter months is about the same as in Arkansas, and nature seems to have designed this for a fruit producing country.

                A wagon road will be made from Villa la Font to near the summit of Pike’s peak, and a trail route, also up the same peak for the benefit of tourist. A hotel, to be called the Tip-Top house, will be erected at the summit of Pike’s peak.

                No person has as yet been selected for president of the colony, although several prominent gentlemen of the United States have been mentioned. General R. A. Cameron of Greeley, formerly vice president and superintendent and general manager of this colony. W. E. Pabor is secretary, and Mr. E. S. Nettleton is chief engineer, both of these gentlemen having formerly held similar positions in Union colony and Mr. William P. Mellen, late of New York, and now of the Denver and Rio Grande railway, is treasurer.

                The city of Colorado Springs has not yet been surveyed, but the engineer corps of the colony will start south next week for the purpose of laying out the town-site and running the main canals for the conveyance of water. Those who may desire to inquire further information than we have been able to give here, owing to the press upon our columns, can secure circulars, etc., by addressing the secretary of the Fountain colony of Colorado, at Colorado Springs, care Colorado City post office. Pamphlets will be issued soon.