TELLER COUNTY GUIDE: Florissant: Then & Now
Traveling west along U.S. 24 about 8 miles past Divide, you will find yourself in the small community of Florissant.
This seemingly quiet and nondescript town on the western edge of Teller County was once prosperous and bustling and is steeped in rich history.
34 million years ago, the area of and around Florissant was under water with a completely different ecosystem and animal life.
By the mid-16th century, the Spanish had claimed most of Colorado but bands of the Ute Indians, Nuche (The People) had made the Rocky Mountains home for nearly two centuries. These bands or family groups camped, hunted and traveled for many years through the mountains. Other tribes were in the area from time to time, infringing on the Ute hunting grounds. To keep an eye on their enemies, the Utes built small stone fortifications on hillsides overlooking well-known routes through the mountains. One such structure, referred to as Fortification Hill, was located at what is now the northern edge of Florissant.
The first Europeans to venture into the area were trappers and mountain men in search of the beaver to sell their pelts in the East. For the most part, they got along with the Utes and some even took some of the Native American women as wives.
A gold discovery in 1858 in the vicinity of present day Denver sparked the Pikes Peak Gold Rush. After rich discoveries were made in early 1859 in the mountains, the miners moved in. In 1890, Bob Womack discovered a large gold mine in Cripple Creek, but a second discovery in Florissant in 1891 by John Hensley, where the cemetery is now located, caused a flourish of activity until the discovery was found to be copper, not gold.
The settlement was known as Twin Creeks, and the first noted building was a cabin built around 1840 and could have possibly been built by famed frontiersman Kit Carson, who was known to frequent the area. In 1865, Thomas Burnham came to the area and purchased the cabin from a mountain man named Frederick Smith. Burnham built another larger cabin and later a large Victorian home and the other house became a barn. This ranch is still active today and has maintained the older buildings.
In 1870, Judge James Castello, a native of Florissant, Mo., who first lived in Fairplay, moved to Twin Creeks where he established a trade business with trappers, Native Americans and miners.
By 1876, the town of Florissant, Colorado, named for Castello’s hometown, had a population of about 70 as well as a school, a blacksmith and three sawmills.
The Homestead Act of 1862 encouraged more settlers including one tenacious single mother, Adeline Hornbek, who started a ranch in the Florissant area and lived in the house for 27 years. She filed the area’s first homestead application in 1878 and built a log house, raised cows, horses, pigs and poultry, planted hay and potatoes and had a vegetable garden. She became an active and successful member of the community — working in the general store, serving on the school board and hosting social events at her house. She died in 1905. The original homestead is still standing and part of the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument.
Another woman, Charlotte Hill, made her mark after discovering fossils on her property in 1870. Scientists then began to visit the area to find and document evidence of the past. As time marched on, the area was privately owned and sold several times and went through a variety of names until land developers decided to bulldoze the area. Local residents, scientists and others hired attorneys and petitioned legislators to help protect this valuable asset to the scientific community and the world.
Vim Wright, an activist from Denver, organized a group of people willing to stand in front of the bulldozers but justice prevailed, a delay was granted and the bill was signed — making the Florissant Fossil Beds a national monument in 1969.
The Colorado Midland Railway incorporated in 1883 and was the first standard gauge railroad built over the Continental Divide in Colorado. Tracks were laid to Florissant by the spring of 1887 and by that June, it went all the way to Buena Vista. A year later, Florissant had a passenger and freight depot and a roundhouse. The first train arrived July 13, 1887, and soon Florissant had several general stores and other businesses to take care of the needs of the railway workers, farmers, ranchers and others who called Florissant home.
They built a new schoolhouse, which is still present and maintained by the Grange. The old post office was moved next door to be used as a residence for the teacher. In 1961, the building was moved to Woodland Park and was returned in 1988. Pikes Peak Historical Society rehabilitated both buildings and maintains the teacherage as part of their museum.
On April 3, 1888, James Castello’s son Frank and John Wilson applied to El Paso County to form the Florissant Cemetery Association. In November 1900, Frank Castello applied to have himself named Trustee. In 1899, Florissant became part of Teller County after the division of El Paso County. The cemetery later fell into disrepair. The Florissant Heritage Foundation (renamed Pikes Peak Historical Society in 2001) began voluntary maintenance in 1988. In March 1992, the District Court in Teller County named the Foundation as Trustee of the Cemetery.
In the 1900s, the Midland Railroad had Wildflower Excursions that brought passengers up to the area to gather the abundant array of wildflowers and fossils. The railroad also facilitated the business of people being able to purchase mineral specimens of smoky quartz and amazonite from Crystal Peak. A series of events caused a decline in the railroad and in 1918 the Colorado Midland Railroad ceased operations and was finally scrapped in the 1920s.
From 1920 to 1933, the nation was under prohibition and the area became known for gambling and bootlegging, with several stills operating in the area. With the end of prohibition, things quieted down and the older buildings became other businesses. Val’s was one of the notorious gambling establishments, but by the 1960s, it was a restaurant called Fisherman’s Inn and in 1975, the Fossil Inn and became a well-known restaurant in the area until closing in 2007.
Today, Florissant has four eating establishments, a convenience store, gas station, liquor store, ATV business, feed store, realty office, hardware store, resident doctor, post office, volunteer fire department and the Pikes Peak Historical Society’s museum, where history and more information of the area is housed.
The central part of Florissant has a population of less than 200, but the entire population, which includes several subdivisions boasts around 6,500. Florissant today may seem quiet and ordinary but as they say: If walls, trees or the rocks could talk, what stories they could tell.
The Grange No. 420 in Florissant thrives with activity from social events, meetings of various kinds, classes for arts and crafts and (in non-pandemic times) a weekly potluck with music by local bands. The building was once Florissant’s schoolhouse.
An audience assembled at the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument amphitheater for the celebration of the park’s 50th anniversary Aug. 17, 2019.
The “Big Stump” is the largest petrified Redwood stump found in Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. It measures 12 feet tall and 38 feet around.
Crystal Peak, left, can be seen in contrast to Pikes Peak from a home in Florissant in November 2018.
Pikes Peak Historical Society Museum, 18033 Teller County Road 1, Florissant.
A smoky quartz and amazonite specimen sits on display in the Pikes Peak Historical Society Museum in Florissant in November 2018.