Manitou Springs
Founded In 1872 As A Health Resort Built Around Naturally Carbonated Mineral Springs, And A National Historic District. Its Public Spring Fountains Are Free To Drink From, And The Manitou Incline And The Pikes Peak Cog Railway Both Start Here. · Manitou Springs, Colorado
Manitou Springs was built to be drunk. Water rises through limestone under this valley and comes out naturally carbonated and heavily mineralised, and in 1872 General William Jackson Palmer and Dr William Bell laid out a town around it to be the Saratoga of the West - somewhere consumptives and neurasthenics could take the waters at the foot of Pikes Peak. The springs are still flowing and still free: eight or so public fountains around the town, each tasting different, with a self-guided walk between them. What grew around that is stranger and better than a spa town - a National Historic District of arcades and cliff dwellings and a penny arcade full of working antique machines, with the cog railway to the summit of Pikes Peak starting at one end and the Manitou Incline, two thousand seven hundred steps of old funicular railbed, going straight up the hillside at the other. The town that grew between them is stranger than a spa town has any right to be, and it still races coffins down Manitou Avenue every October in memory of a woman whose grave washed off the mountain in 1929.
Manitou Avenue, Manitou Springs, Colorado, 80829, United States
A year-round town at the foot of Pikes Peak. The public mineral spring fountains run free and continuously, though individual fountains are occasionally shut for maintenance. THE MANITOU INCLINE IS FREE BUT REQUIRES A RESERVATION, and the system has changed repeatedly. The Manitou and Pikes Peak Cog Railway operates from its own depot here, rebuilt and reopened in 2021, and is ticketed and heavily booked. Parking in town is paid and tight, with a seasonal shuttle. Most shops keep daytime hours.