The following description was built in coordination with the Pikes Peak Historical Street Railway Foundation
A little history... The city of Colorado Springs first trolley system was the Colorado Springs and Manitou Street Railway (CS&MS) which began as horsecar trolley service in 1887 and ran between the Colorado Springs business district and Colorado College. The route was extended north and west with a total of ten horse-drawn trolleys. In 1898, trolleys were running west to Colorado City, east to Knob Hill, to Cheyenne Park, and connected with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Passenger Depot. In 1890 the CS&MS was bought by the Colorado Springs Rapid Transit Railway (CSRTR) and the first electric trolleys being used; by 1900 44 electric trolleys were in use.
Winfield Scott Stratton created the Colorado Springs & Interurban Railway Company (CS&IRC) and bought the CSRTR in 1901 and consolidated it with the Colorado Springs & Suburban Railway Company in September 1902. CS&IRC ridership peaked in 1911 and within three years it began to suffer financially as automobile ownership increased. By 1916 there were separate cars that ran from the Main Post Office to the Printer's Home; the lines extended from Manitou's Iron Springs neighborhood eastward through Garden of the Gods Balanced Rock Station and served Colorado Springs, Old Colorado City, Manitou Springs, Ivywild, and Roswell with over 38 mi (61 km) of track and 56 motor cars and 13 trail cars by 1917. Over the years, service was extended to then suburbs, the Broadmoor, and Stratton Park. A north/south branch line on Spruce and Walnut streets extended from Yampa Street southward to Huerfano Street. Buses began replacing the system's railcars in 1931 with the last electric tram running on April 30, 1932. By the mid-1930s, the Works Progress Administration removed most of the street car rails with the The Colorado Springs & Interurban power house site at the northwest corner of S Sierra Madre and Las Animas Streets becoming an electrical power station for the city.
The Pikes Peak Historical Street Railway Foundation's grounds were originally the roundhouse for the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad (CRI&P RR) and was constructed in 1888, it served as the western most terminus for the CRI&P RR. It originally had 16 stalls and assorted outbuildings, and were designed to service the steam locomotives and the passenger cars for the return trip to Chicago after passengers had been dropped off at the Denver & Rio Grande Western RR depot downtown below the Antlers Hotel. The roundhouse was sold to a private party in the CRI&P RR bankruptcy in the late 1970s and leased to the Streetcar Foundation and later purchased by the City for use as a possible roadway connecting Constitution Ave. to I-25 at Fillmore that never happened.
To claim this virtual cache you must perform the following :
1) Ring the Trolley Bell in the museum part (pohka's have ears everywhere...)
e-mail the following to the cache owner:
2) Properly identify the model of Streetcar No. 22
3) Identify where LARy No. 3101 was last used
4) Post a picture of yourself in your log with Streetcar No. 48
Conradulations to Fearthefish and TextDoc56 on first to find. Hopefully future finders have as much fun as Fearthefish, Herndonrd, and TextDoc56
Virtual Reward - 2017/2018 This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between August 24, 2017 and August 24, 2018. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards on the Geocaching Blog.