Long before any explorer arrived, the Ute people lived in the valleys and mountains of what is now Colorado. They called the giant mountain above the plains Tavá, or “Sun Mountain.” Many people say the name comes from the way the morning sun lights up the top of the mountain first. Later, Spanish travelers gave it a different name: El Capitán.
In November 1806, a young army officer named Zebulon Pike was exploring the southern part of the Louisiana Purchase. From far away on the plains, he saw a blue mountain rising in the west, and he decided to climb it. But Pike didn’t know how far away the mountain really was. His men were wearing summer clothes, and they didn’t have enough food. Soon Pike found himself in deep snow, and the group had to turn back. He wrote in his journal that no human being could ever reach the top.
Pike was wrong. In July 1820, a 22-year-old scientist named Edwin James set out with two other men to climb the mountain. James was a botanist, a scientist who studies plants. During the trip, he described a beautiful blue and white flower, the blue columbine. Today it is Colorado’s state flower. The climb up and back took about three days. James’s leader, Major Stephen Long, named the mountain James Peak, but people kept on calling it Pike’s Peak, and that name stayed.
In 1858, Julia Archibald Holmes climbed to the top and became the first woman to reach the summit. Soon, gold was discovered in Colorado. In 1859, thousands of people headed out west with a famous slogan: “Pikes Peak or Bust!” It meant, “We’ll get there or fail trying.” Most of them never found any gold, and many went back home.
Visiting the top was hard work in those days. Zalman Simmons, the owner of a mattress company, rode a mule all the way up to check some telegraph wires at the summit. He loved the view, but he came down tired and sore, and he wanted an easier way to get up the mountain. So he paid to build a railway. In 1891, the Pikes Peak Cog Railway opened. Its special toothed wheel holds on to a toothed rail, so the train can climb very steep slopes. Today it is the highest cog railway in the world.
Two years later, in 1893, an English teacher from Massachusetts named Katharine Lee Bates came to Colorado Springs to teach a summer class. One day, she rode up the mountain in a carriage. At the top, she looked out over the plains and mountains, and she felt that all the wonder of America was in front of her. She wrote a poem called “Pikes Peak.” Later, that poem became the song “America the Beautiful.”
Today the top of Pikes Peak is a busy place. Since 1916, cooks at the summit have made famous donuts with a secret recipe. The recipe is special because water boils at a lower temperature at 14,115 feet. The workers keep the recipe to themselves, and nobody outside the kitchen knows exactly what is in it. In 2021, a new visitor center opened at the top, and the cog railway reopened after a $100 million rebuild.
People who live in Colorado Springs see the mountain every day, and visitors come from all over the world. You can drive the 19-mile Pikes Peak Highway, ride the cog railway from Manitou Springs, or hike the 13-mile Barr Trail. If you hike the Barr Trail, give yourself a full day. If you go to the top, take a warm jacket. It’s much colder up there, and it can snow even in July. The air is thin, so you’ll feel tired quickly. If you feel dizzy, sit down and breathe slowly.
Many visitors say the trip up Pikes Peak changed their lives. The view that inspired a famous song is still there, and the old stories of Pike, James, and Bates are still alive. If you could stand on top of Pikes Peak tomorrow, what would you write about the view?