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Volunteers reporting on community issues in Monument, Palmer Lake, and the surrounding Tri-Lakes area

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Articles from Vol. 24 No. 5 - May 4, 2024

May Library Events – Call for teen volunteers; CD swap program

By Harriet Halbig

As summer approaches, teens are encouraged to volunteer to help with the Summer Adventure reading program. Activities will include helping children register for the program and tracking their progress, help with special programs, and help with everyday library functions. To apply, go to www.ppld.org/teens/volunteer.

The Monument Library will sponsor a CD swap from 2 to 3 p.m. on Saturday, May 11. Bring new or gently used CDs and trade for music that’s new to you. You will also learn how to access music resources such as Freegal which are available through the library website.

Come to the Palmer Lake Library from 2 to 3 p.m. on Wednesday, May 8 to make a handy farmers market tote bag for your summer purchases. You will be provided with a tote bag and stencils and other tools to decorate to your heart’s content. One tote bag per person and registration is required. Visit www.ppld.org, programs by location.

Please note that all Pikes Peak Library locations will be closed on Monday, May 27, in observance of Memorial Day.

Harriet Halbig may be reached at harriethalbig@ocn.me.

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Palmer Lake Historical Society, April 18 – Trolley cars, past and future

By Marlene Brown

The Palmer Lake Historical Society (PLHS) April meeting hosted John Haney, a founding member of the Pikes Peak Trolley Museum and Restoration Shop. He has co-written three books on the history of streetcars and trolley systems. Haney’s talk centered on the streetcar system in Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs. He is a native of Colorado Springs and his family has been here since the1890s.

Beginning in 1887, streetcars were pulled by horses. Called horsecars, they traveled along Tejon Street and Cascade Avenue, stopping at the restaurants and saloons in the new city of Colorado Springs. They would go to the north end to the 1888 Rock Island Roundhouse in the community of Roswell to turn around. This building is just west of Cascade near Penrose Hospital. The Roundhouse is now being operated by the Pikes Peak Street Railway Foundation for the Trolley Museum and Restoration Shop. For more information, see www.coloradospringstrolleys.com.

By 1900 came the electric trolley cars. The electric trolley line was called the “Colorado Springs Rapid Transit Railway Co.” The trolleys could go 20 miles per hour. On South Tejon, near Las Animas Street and Sierra Madre, there was a building called the Car Barn. Starting 1906, this is where the maintenance and the building of new streetcars were done. There are still remnants of the buildings used, and some of the buildings are occupied today.

Traveling roundtrip to Manitou Springs began at the Santa Fe Train Depot on Pikes Peak Avenue. It traveled west on Colorado Avenue though Old Colorado City to the Loop. The Loop was built to turn around the cars to return on the route. The Loop is located at the intersection of Ruxton and Manitou Avenues where the restaurant, The Loop, is located.

The trolleys ran in the Springs until 1932. By then, most people owned an automobile and then came the beginning of the Great Depression, when people did not have money to ride the trolleys. Many of the streetcars were dismantled during WWII for metal parts. Some the cars were sold and became cottages and shops. Many are still around today.

There has been an interest in bringing trolleys back in the Springs. The intent by the museum foundation and volunteers is to preserve and maintain historic and vintage trolleys and the Roundhouse for future street railway operations. See www.coloradospringstrolleys.com/overview.

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PLHS meetings are usually held on the third Thursday of the month at Palmer Lake Town Hall, 42 Valley Crescent, Palmer Lake. The next meeting will be held May 16, 7-8 p.m. (doors open at 6:30 p.m.). Gail Beaton will be portraying “Gail Murphy: Colorado’s Rosie the Riveter.”

For more information on this and future presentations and membership to PLHS, go to www.palmerdividehistory.org.

Marlene Brown can be reached at marlenebrown@ocn.me.

Above: PLHS volunteers and board members that have worked at the Trolley Museum are, from left, John Cusak, Palmer Lake resident who operates one of the trolleys at the museum; John Haney, founding member of the museum and restoration shop; Michael Walker, volunteer; and Wayne Russert, PLHS board director who has worked many volunteer hours on electrical projects and more. Photo by Marlene Brown.

Other Palmer Lake Historical Society (PLHS) columns

On the Trail (in memory of Tim Watkins) – Cadets build bridge over Monument Creek

By Steve Pate

A crew of senior cadet engineering students from the U.S Air Force Academy (USAFA) have been working during their 2023-24 final year at the academy to design and build a bridge across Monument Creek to connect a newly improved section of the Creekside Trail to the Elephant Rock property area (not the Elephant Rock near Ben Lomand).

During their final semester, the cadets made multiple trips to the site for measurements and design and prepared proposals to the Palmer Lake Parks and Trails commission (PLP&T) who selected the proposal they believed would best meet the needs of the community and satisfy Colorado Parks and Wildlife and the Pikes Peak Regional Building Department.

The bridge links a trail from the Palmer Lake Glen area to and through the Elephant Rock property west of Highway 105 to allow residents and visitors to hike and bike from Palmer Lake through the scenic area.

The senior cadets, led by retired U.S. Army Col. Dr. Brad Wambeke, professor of Engineering at the USAFA, designed the bridge using logs from the Upper Palmer Lake Reservoir left from wildfire mitigation work by the USFS last year. The logs were hauled from the upper reservoir by the Palmer Lake Fire Department and milled, pre-drilled and coated at the USAFA before being used at the construction site.

Only the cost of materials, about $15,000 of a $17,000 budgeted by the PLP&T, was paid for from funds generated by the parking kiosk at the Reservoirs Trailhead. All the design and construction work was done as a learning experience for the senior cadets as their capstone project before graduation and moving on to their initial assignments in the U.S. Air Force.

The project involved a great deal of coordination between volunteers on the PLP&T, including Project Lead Gene Kalesti, Commissioners Kevin Magner and Reid Wiecks and Professor Wambeke.

A cadet team returned to the construction site April 19 to put finishing touches on their work. A dedication ceremony will be held on May 6 at 10 a.m.

The USAFA will build two additional bridges along the trail system to improve access by bikes as well as hikers as an educational project for senior cadet engineering students over the coming year or two.

Steve Pate can be contacted at stevepate@ocn.me.

Above: Cadets building bridge, April 13. Photo by Steve Pate.
Above: Cadet team finishing bridge work, April 19. Photo by Steve Pate.

Other On the Trial columns

High Altitude Nature and Gardening (HANG) – Garden—and lawn—success starts with dandelions!

By Janet Sellers

Before you grab anything that’s toxic, let’s take a look at some handy hints that are easy and don’t harm people or pets.

Chemicals to kill weeds and varmints go down into our groundwater and poison our water.

Every year I share the importance of the dandelions as the first food for both hummingbirds and pollinators. Root to flower, the dandelion supports our gardens in ways we may never have imagined. Dandelions send their roots down anywhere from 2-20 feet to bring up nutrients to the surface. The roots also loosen and aerate the soil and help control erosion. Dandelions enrich our soil and our gardens. Dandelions will not return when the soil is rich and balanced. They are edible roots to flowers. And they actually fertilize the grass. Dandelions are in the same family as lettuce, artichokes, chamomile, and daisies.

So how did dandelions get such a bad rap? Dandelions are indicators of poor soil. Contrary to popular belief, once the soil is restored dandelions stop growing in those areas. I have been able to find a plethora of information on the benefits of dandelions but curiously, the bulk of texts against growing them is from chemical companies that want to sell chemicals. Widespread movie and TV shows of “pretend perfect” but fake lawns added to the ideas of lawns and lawn care: perfect lawn, perfect family. But there’s no perfect family or lawn. That’s fake, too. Dandelions can be mowed after their blooming, which has helped our pollinators and hummingbirds as the first flower of food power in spring. Mowing them is an easy way to control spread if needed.

A kid and pet safe vermin deterrent

The fastest, safest, most effective pocket gopher and varmint deterrent (besides a house cat) I have found is castor oil. Add to a gallon (a 1-pound bag) of clean clay cat litter 6 ounces of Castor oil and shake in the bag thoroughly to coat all the clay particles. Then cast it over the lawn or garden and watch as the voles disappear over the next few days. They stay away. It gives the ground vegetation and odor and taste that disagree with the vermin. It goes safely into the soil and makes the plants taste bad to the varmints so they won’t eat them. Reapply after rain or snow.

Janet Sellers is an avid lazy gardener, letting Mother Nature lead the way in our mountain high desert climate. Contact her at JanetSellers@ocn.me.

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Art Matters – Art multiples: slabs to electronic screens; Art Hop rides again

By Janet Sellers

News flash: Our local Art Hop season begins in May, now 5-8 p.m. on fourth Fridays. Wander around downtown Monument for an evening of fun, art, food, and meeting up with old—and new—friends.

Today’s creative artwork and hand-painted unique apparel are here as expensive yet greatly expressive, artist-designed clothing, shoes, handbags, luggage and more—even body ink. The novel ideas and values of scarcity are coming back from the mass-produced, highly available pieces that were in demand in yesteryear. And yet:

Mass-made art was an innovation

When they started, most printing process outcomes allowed for a cheaper alternative to hand work. All were available largely to the wealthy, as most new technologies are in any age.

The Museum of Modern Art in New York City explains on its website that lithography was invented around 1796 in Germany by an otherwise unknown Bavarian playwright, Alois Senefelder, who accidentally discovered that he could duplicate his scripts by writing them in greasy crayon on slabs of easily available local limestone and then printing them with rolled-on ink. This was an easier, cheaper method compared to the earlier pen works, engravings, or etchings. Multiples via printing processes only much later became of value as art but were first related to mass, mechanical reproduction and not valued as highly as the scarcity of original handmade works.

Replication and production throughout the centuries used various flat printing methods including silk-screening, a fabric stenciling process from the Song dynasty in China that emerged around 960 A.D., then used in 1600s Japan for textiles. Japanese stencils used human hairs, with stiff brushes to apply paint. Later, silk was chosen for the stencil fabric, thus the term “silkscreen.” The Western use, in England, of this process was first patented in 1907. These processes and their artifacts hold value now because of their age and the fact that they lasted this long. They are scarce and respected artifacts of our history and our human past.

Mass production of posters in the 1960s utilized screen printing to “get the word out” in posters, signs, political protest signs, and more. The U.S. garment industry took off starting with screen printing of bowling shirts and T-shirts. Colorful printed art was right behind, thanks to Michael Vasilantone, who invented the rotary multicolored screen printing press.

I truly believe that our copy machines and other mechanical means to share our ideas and creative intent are as valuable and powerful in their time—our time—as the historic processes. We’re not going to cart around an art material that requires a forklift to use it (lithographic stone slab). We do not need to use such old methods to be aesthetically valid. We do need people to be aware of art methods embodying value regardless of how it is made. Multi-million-dollar global art fairs prove this culturally and financially every year. Even blank space is part of the art experience.

We are in the newest screen age, the electronic version, and in-hand, touchable works on paper, wood, fiber, and other surfaces are now the rarities compared to the plethora of things available on an electronic screen.

Our current art wave also embraces and craves the human touch in meaningful things. Paintings are in demand, as are sculptures and other artworks as a means for creative expression for artists to make and people to have in their lives. Reproductions are still popular, with value added via the artist that hand-signs each artwork.

Let’s meet at the Art Hop and catch up!

Janet Sellers is an artist, writer, and speaker who loves to share the beauty and fun of creative thinking in art, nature, and life. Contact her at janetsellers@ocn.me.

Other Art Matters columns