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Skyline Drive
Since 1906, Skyline Drive, rising eight hundred feet above Cañon City, has offered thousands of visitors a breathtaking view of the city that only early settlers, prospectors and Native Americans had known.
The true origin of the idea for building Skyline Drive is not known. One story holds that D. E. Gibson hitched a team of horses to a handmade plow and attempted (unsuccessfully) to cut such a road himself. Another story that circulated for years promoted the thought that Colonel Frederick E. Greydene-Smith first suggested the road. Still other reports hold that the idea was first dreamed up by various citizens as early as the 1860s. Despite the general lack of clear history in this regard, what is accepted is that the project was started in 1905 at the Fifth Street entrance. Senator Moses A. Lewis of Florence is credited with clearing the way for the road's construction by getting the Colorado Senate to pass his Convict Labor Road Law, which provided free inmate labor for public roads projects.
In October of 1905, sixty inmates from the Territorial Prison was given the option of having ten days deducted from their sentences in exchange for every month they worked on the road. Local citizens raised more than $2,000 for tools and blasting powder, and by February of 1906, the road was nearly completed. The Cañon City Record reported on February 12, 1906, that the scenic drive had achieved instant success: "Skyline Drive is about the most popular thing that ever happened. Sunday more than 200 vehicles and probably more than 1,000 people viewed the beauties of this rich valley."
The ridge that carries Skyline Drive has always locally been referred to as the Hogbacks. A geological term, it means an up-tilted rock layer. As the road was being built on the town-side of the ridge, a citizens' committee was formed to consider a formal name for this "pleasure driveway," as it was being called. No one was enamored with the suggested names of Hogback Highway or Hogback Heaven. Other names suggested were Columbia Heights, Alta Vista Boulevard, Grey Cliff Road, Long View Road, and Cliff Drive. But before a final vote could be taken on an agreeable name, S. A. VanBuskirk ended the speculation by writing the name "Skyline Boulevard" incorporated in the deed for the land. However, before the end of 1907, locals began substituting the word "Drive" for the word "Boulevard," and it has remained thus ever since.
For a brief period after the road's completion, the hogback was informally called Mount Cleghorn, in honor of Warden John Cleghorn, who provided the inmate labor. And at VanBuskirk's insistence, there was even a fancy stone marker that read, "Cleghorn Scenic Drive - 1906" placed at the entrance. Neither name stuck, and before long the city embraced the name of Skyline Drive.
It was not long after Skyline Drive opened in the spring of 1906 that conflicts arose between riders of horseless carriages and those who used horse-and-buggies. The automobiles - known back then as "buzz wagons" - would often spook horses on this narrow stretch, causing many a tense moment. The city council resolved the issue - temporarily - by banning automobiles from the hogback. Fines of up to fifty dollars and/or ten days in jail were imposed for violators. By 1907, automobiles were allowed back on the hogbacks, but only on Tuesday mornings and Friday afternoons. In time, as the automobile overtook the horse-and-buggy in popularity, the ordinance was eliminated altogether.
Cañon City's entrepreneurial spirit was also very much alive as several businesses were set up to serve the needs of visitors to Skyline Drive. Bill Garton operated the Tally Ho Tour Company, using fourteen teams of horses to haul tourists up and down the scenic highway for 25 cents. Allen Bowen leased a snack shop in a little stone pavilion at the top of Skyline Drive with the city providing the electricity. But perhaps the most ambitious undertaking was the city's construction of a fourteen-hundred seat amphitheater between the hogbacks and the smaller "pigbacks" on the town-side of the ridge in 1934. On land donated by the Jewett Fire Brick Company, and again using inmate labor, workers using picks and shovels dug out a two-hundred foot area that was named Skyline Bowl. The amphitheater was dedicated on June 12, 1934, with a performance by opera singer Karl Jorn. There were over seven hundred people in attendance, but, sadly, the Skyline Bowl was washed away in a violent storm just a few years later, never to be rebuilt.
One structure that has withstood the test of time is the Skyline Drive Archway, located at the west entrance just off Highway 50. Financed by the city, but coordinated by the Chamber of Commerce, this impressive archway was built in 1932 using a native stone from each of the 48 states in the union. Keep in mind that both Alaska and Hawaii did not gain statehood until 1959, so unfortunately they are not represented on the archway. It was initially proposed that the archway be built of logs, but the city council desired a more permanent structure. The final design was determined by a committee comprised of service clubs, the city council, and the Chamber of Commerce.
Please be sure to view the vintage photographs in the image gallery showcasing this city wonder throughout the early years.
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