Pioneer Cemetery and Park

            There are times when the tricks are humorous and sometimes not.  Saw a post on facebook while back about and old cemetery in Colorado Springs.  It looked interesting, so I did some looking.  Found it on satellite view and it looked similar to the picture I had seen.  So I said to self, Got to go have a look at this old Cemetery.  So self put it on the list of things to do when visiting Colorado Springs. 

            I took the time one day on a trip to the Springs to go looking for this place.  It was not easy, down dead end streets and around backwards corners but finally arrived.  I drive up an alley like it showed on the earth view and it was a loop.  There was no cemetery to be seen.  Hum, so I drove around, turned down another street and on the other side, still saw no grave markers. 

            I was a pretty little neighborhood park, nice homes and a tremendous view of the mountains over there.  Still nothing that looked like a cemetery.  Over there was a monument and on it was a variety of name and dates.  Well groomed and cleaned inside a small circled stone wall.   Couple of benches and Pikes Peak was the background.  Besides me the park was empty, even the passing car was not passing.  A young couple showed up and spread a blanket out on the unimproved portion of the park for a mid day moment. 

            Well, humbug, said to self.  Wandered around and took a couple of pictures.  Went back to the car and went down the road. 

            Getting home, I did some more looking about the graveyard.  Found an interesting story about the graveyard and I as I read I began to chuckle at myself.  The graves were there all along, in the unimproved section, all the markers had been removed. 

            During the Great Depression, the WPA was doing a project there and removed all of the headstones.  When work was completed, the markers were not replaced.  I would guess that in secret location there is a storage lot full of head stones. 

            The original cemetery was called Mesa Cemetery and was for the people of Old Colorado City. Nearby is a large Masons complex of buildings and apparently some Masons were buried there also.     After the debacle with the WPA workers, the Masons went and exhumed their members and re-interred them in another resting place.    The cemetery was forgotten for a few years until some people started asking some questions.  They went to the park and did some looking and underground survey work and located at least 100 coffins still resting there underground. 

Outside of the park monument, there is no indication that there is a cemetery in Pioneer Park. 

If the head stones are located, how would the markers be matched to the grave sites.  Now that would be a puzzle to solve.  

concrete house

House in The Field

            In my back road travels, I find all types of things, many piqué my curiosity.  Out in the farm flatlands I came across a huge old concrete structure in a state of slow decay.  It was not the usual farm/ranch home because of the way it was built.  There also doors all around, two on the front, one on the side and a backdoor plus a cellar door. 

            The two front doors, next to each other remind me of a hotel, boarding house with a café.  Nice large upstairs windows for the guests to stay in.  A large spacious basement with appliances for the family to live in.  All this in the middle of somewhere, close to not much.

            I got my old maps out, there were no old wagon roads, nor was there any kind of town at this location.  I’ve asked a few people in the area if they knew anything about the building…… got blank stares and quizzical empty eyes.  Oh well, someday I will find the right person. 

            On the eastern Colorado prairie it would’ve been a large luxurious building for the early 1900’s.  The interior was nicely finished, plastered walls, nice wood work.  In the basement a huge cast iron cook stove still resided.  The house had multiple chimneys and a variety of stoves pipe outlets in the walls.  It took a large chunk of money to build this house more then a 100 years ago. 

            On the side of the house was a large well house with storage tank.  The pipes still went from the pump house to the building, now exposed and naked plumbing.  It was a good sized complex.  The other thing that struck that maybe more then one family lived here.  Oh me, I speculate so much about a curious building way over yonder.