The Templeton families

Last week the question was how Templeton Gap was named. We discovered some history but it showed what appeared to be two different families. Sure enough, Old Colorado City history buffs Dave Hughes and Curt Neeley along with reader Paul Kleinschmidt knew all about the Templetons.

Hughes said indeed there were two Templetons, A.J. and Henry, unrelated, and “who pursued totally different lives in early El Paso County. A.J’s name was affixed to Templeton Gap because he ranched out there, and there was a kind of gap which was the best road to the Pinery – or Black Forest – which provided timber for the growing county. It was where also later, larger herds of sheep were raised in the 1880s.

“A.J. indeed was one of the 18 men from Colorado City who volunteered to serve in the 3d Colorado Cavalry to  march to Sand Creek in 1864 to ‘punish the Cheyenne and Arapahoe.’ He later became a second lieutenant.

“Henry Templeton, no relation to A.J., arrived in Colorado City with his family, just as the Civil War was heating up. Henry tried several things in Colorado City. He briefly operated the ‘Anway Hotel’ – called the ‘Fort’ on today’s west Pikes Peak Avenue, which was fortified as refuge for the women and children against Indian threats and attacks. Then he tried operating a flour mill, which failed.

And he purchased land. “When an eastern industrialist with tuberculosis, J. J. Hagerman, came to Colorado Springs in the early 1880s, he had to buy the lots that Henry Templeton owned. Henry then had enough money that he – for $15,000 –  first built the ‘Templeton Block,’ today’s classic three-story brick building at 2502 W. Colorado Ave. Henry then also built the Victorian house for his wife that is on the corner of Pikes Peak and 25th Street across the alley from the Templeton Block building. That house did not pass out of the Templeton family until the 1980s, when it became a restaurant.”

Thanks, everyone.