The park features demonstration gardens of the Horticultural Art Society, sports facilities, picnic areas, and the 4.3-mile Monument Creek Trail for walkers, runners, and cyclists, and the 1-mile Monument Valley Fitness Trail
Time Line for this park
Thanks given to Discover Colorado for the following information:
1871 —
Gen. William Jackson Palmer founds Colorado Springs as a resort and base for his new Denver & Rio Grande Railroad.
1880 —
Mineral spring discovered along Monument Creek.
1903 —
Palmer announces plans to buy land along two miles of Monument Creek from his Antlers Hotel downtown to north of Colorado College, and develop “an open and verdurous space removed from the dust and noise of the streets and roads.”
1904 —
Work begins, including construction of bridges, foot paths and the “geologic column” using stone from Queen’s Canyon Quarry above Palmer’s home in Glen Eyrie.
1905 —
A spring flood wipes out much of the completed work.
1906 —
Palmer falls from his horse and is paralyzed.
1907 —
March 29, Palmer gives the city the deed to the park. It opens with four lakes, fed by the El Paso Canal, a greenhouse, the geologic column and waterfall, formal gardens, a playground and a mineral spring. Automobiles and horses are banned.
1909 —
Palmer dies on March 13, and his obituary declares Monument Valley Park one of his greatest gifts to the city.
1916 —
Broadmoor founder Spencer Penrose donates a pool and bathhouse to the park. It is the first public swimming pool in the city.
1917 —
The baseball stadium is added.
1923 —
Tennis courts are built.
1926 —
A Spanish-style pavilion is erected over Tahama Spring.
1935 —
Memorial Day flood causes extensive damage to the park. Reconstruction includes deepening, widening and straightening of the creek channel. New rock walls constructed.
1940 —
Park Commission opens the pool to blacks every Wednesday on an experimental basis.
1955 —
Construction of the Monument Valley Freeway — now known as Interstate 25 — cuts off most access points on the west side of the park.
1956 —
The El Paso Canal is closed, ending irrigation and shutting off the waterfall that cascaded over the geologic column.
1965 —
Flood on June 17 takes out some of the 30-year-old stonework and damages the pavilion at Tahama Spring.
1974 —
A judge blocks the city’s proposed sale of the park’s north end to developers.
2007 —
On Jan. 25, the U.S. secretary of the Interior adds the park to the National Register of Historic Places.