One recent afternoon, Todd Marts took the familiar road through the southwest hills of Colorado Springs, descending and bending to a nook where the melodious creek joined birdsong and rustling oak and cottonwoods. 

The former El Paso County parks director was just settling into retirement. Now Marts was back where it all began for him — back at Bear Creek Nature Center, where he worked as an interpreter starting in 1994.

“Thirty-something years later, there’s just a calming effect when I come in,” Marts said. “It just feels like you’re escaping the city, and you’re just in a real natural area. And the nature center itself has just been home for so many.” 

Home for 50 years now. 

This year marks “a momentous part of our story,” Mary Jo Lewis, the nature center’s supervisor, wrote in a recent programming guide. “Fifty years ago, in 1976, the very first nature center in Colorado opened its doors.”

That’s the claim of Bear Creek Nature Center — the first of its kind in a state of nature-loving people. 

It was called the Solar Trails Center upon opening in a previous building topped by solar panels. “That was pretty edgy” at that time, Marts said, noting the energy crisis that made Americans think about alternate sources.

Also at the time, there was an interest in getting people to think more deeply about nature. That would be the purpose of the Solar Trails Center. “It was always about education,” Marts said. 

As it is 50 years later at Bear Creek Nature Center — education and “connecting people more deeply to the natural world through engagement and programming,” Lewis wrote. 

In 2025, the center reported 12,772 participants of field trips, youth camps and various programs and events throughout the year. They were participants of all ages, meeting the nature center’s mission to foster connections.

This March saw lessons on painting snowy landscapes and growing vegetables and other sessions on beekeeping and building a Lego coyote. Scheduled for April: an egg hunt; a birding hike for intermediate enthusiasts and another for kids; and a nature-based afternoon “for families with deaf and hard of hearing children to build connections with other families and meet deaf and hard of hearing adults.” 

The nearby VIP Trail is aimed at people with those disabilities, who follow a rope and read or touch interpretive signs of Braille. People with physical disabilities sign up for Trailability hikes, touring the surrounding hills and meadows on the seat of an ATV-like Terrain Hopper. Bear Creek Nature Center last year took 117 reservations, resulting in some comments about a “life-changing” experience.

Others have left comments over the years, many of them parents. One remarked on her son’s birthday “full of learning, laughter and connection with nature.” Another parent remarked on “VERY cost effective” camps, adding: “We appreciate a program centered around a beautiful community space, we also appreciate our daughter having other stewards of nature being such influential role models in her life.”

Bear Creek Nature Center’s supervisor serves as one of those role models. Lewis started here almost 10 years ago, new to Colorado at the time. She took the road into these hills, bending and descending to this place that indeed seemed far removed from the city. 

“It just felt magical,” she said. And it still does today: “Ten things could go wrong in the morning, and when I walk in the door, I always feel at least a little bit better. And even more so when the doors open to the public.” 

Nearly 18,000 people walked in last year, among them families and kids visiting replicas of a bear, fox, raccoon and array of birds. From other displays, visitors might learn about the rare greenback cutthroat trout swimming in Bear Creek beyond. They might learn about wildlife big and small out there, all vital to the circle of life, down to decomposers such as beetles and worms. Another display regards yucca and its resident moth. And another teaches on how oak grows, from acorns and from cloning like aspen. 

Longtime volunteer Eileen Somers watches and smiles from behind the welcome desk. 

“The thing about the kids, it’s this utter fascination,” she said. 

Somers has seen them come to camp with little interest “beyond their cellphones or computer screens or TV screens,” she said. “By the time they leave, they are changed kids.” 

They often come with a fear of snakes and spiders, Lewis said. “By the end, if they’re not best friends, at least they’re at a point of appreciation and more comfort,” she said. 

Comfort is what some 350 other volunteers find at Bear Creek Nature Center. And Somers has found much more than comfort. 

“This place gave me hope for our future, as I met parents that came here with their children,” she said. “The desire to teach their children about nature and to be in this very positive environment, it just really lifted my spirits.” 

Somers started volunteering after retirement in 2014, but she’d been living nearby and hiking the area since the early Solar Trails Center days. She observed some of the hardest chapters of the 50-year history here. Marts, meanwhile, lived them. 

On May 20, 2000, he arrived at the nature center to a scene he’ll never forget. 

“It was engulfed in flames,” he said. 

He watched crews put out the blaze, but an arsonist’s damage was already done. Looking on from a hillside, Marts struggled to imagine the future. 

The county “didn’t have a large budget,” he said. “So to think about replacing a building was definitely worrisome.” 

He and other staff and volunteers continued hosting field trips and camps in the parking lot. Marts recalled kids raising money through bake sales and school fundraisers. Local businesses chipped in, while county commissioners posed a ballot question asking voters for a major tax retention. Voters approved.

The current Bear Creek Nature Center was built in 2002. Another hard chapter awaited.

During the recession, staff was scaled back along with the center’s hours. The building was dark and locked for more days. 

“I was up in my office, and I came downstairs and saw a family at the glass doors, kids’ faces pressed up against the glass,” Marts said. “I let them in.”

He knew the nature center was meant to be open, as did emboldened volunteers. They raised thousands of dollars to turn the lights back on and open the doors.

How has Bear Creek Nature Center stood for 50 years now? Marts largely credits that continuing spirit of volunteerism and “the passion of people” in leadership, like Lewis. 

What does Marts see for the next 50 years? 

“In my mind, people are gonna be more disconnected from the outdoors,” he said. “This city is gonna grow along with technology and everything we do, and the disconnect is gonna be greater. And that will make this place even more valuable.” 

Yes, technology poses a challenge for today’s supervisor. Lewis faces other challenges between a tight budget and a small staff that manages a packed calendar of events and a long list of partnerships.

Amid the bustle sometimes, “you don’t know how much impact you’re having,” Lewis said. 

But lately she’s been looking at a board that has greeted visitors through the door. “What does Bear Creek Nature Center mean to you?” the board asks. 

People have posted words: “laughter” and “peace” and “joy.” 

And another from a local teen: “Home.”