By Steve Plutt, Special to the Courier

In celebration of Colorado’s 150th birthday and the United States’ 250th, local historian Steve Plutt and the Ute Pass Historical Society have written a series of stories to bring the area’s colorful history to life.

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The life of Julia Holmes was dynamic, full of adventures and daring escapades. And she never backed down from anything, especially when it meant fighting for justice. Her commitment to the Underground Railroad and her staunch support for women’s suffrage were issues she believed were worth standing up for. Julia also served as the secretary of the National Women’s Suffrage Association.

Holmes was born in Nova Scotia on Feb. 15, 1838, the second of eight children in a large abolitionist family. The family’s decision to join the Anti-Slavery movement led them to settle in Lawrence, Kansas in 1854, a city that was a hotbed of anti-slavery sentiment at the time.

During her time in Lawrence, Julia encountered and married James Holmes, a lieutenant of the abolitionist vigilante John Brown, in 1857. The newly married couple, a twenty-year-old bride and her husband, chose to head west in a gold-rush expedition to Colorado, joining the Lawrence Party, which consisted of thirty-seven people. In addition to Julia, there was only one other woman, a mother with her child, making this long and difficult journey.

The Lawrence Party departed from Kansas on May 22, 1858, traveling in a column of 11 wagons. Julia caused quite the stir among the members of her party by wearing the daring Reform dress, also known as a “Bloomer Costume.” She also preferred to walk instead of riding in a wagon, and even going so far as to volunteer for the traditionally male task of guarding cattle after dark.

It’s worth noting that Bloomers were highly contentious during this period. Many individuals of the time viewed the garment as scandalous and intended to draw attention to women’s legs. The dress was actually named after Amelia Bloomer, a prominent activist who had made significant contributions to the temperance movement and women’s suffrage.

Julia wrote in her diary that “I wore a calico dress, reaching a little below the knee, pants of the same. However much it lacked in taste, I found it to be beyond value in comfort and convenience, as it gave me freedom to roam at pleasure in search of flowers and other curiosities.”

The men of the Lawrence Party, with the exception of her husband, strongly disapproved of her “radical clothing,” which they saw as a symbol of women’s rights and its movement. The significance of bloomers was truly massive and was a matter of women asserting their power. Men felt intimidated by them and spoke poorly of women who wore such attire.

The party made it to our area on the Fourth of July and camped near present day Colorado Springs. On July 5, they relocated their campsite several times, enjoying a leisurely tourist experience and exploring the surrounding area, including the Garden of the Gods.

But it was on the 13th of July, 1858 when Julia, her husband and two other men ascended Pikes Peak. In her diary, Julia said “I don’t claim to be a hero and don’t want immortality that way, but I have been told by Kit Carson and several other mountaineers whose names I forget, that I was the first person that ever set foot upon its summit.”

During her time on the summit, she wrote letters to the Lawrence Republican newspaper, sharing her thoughts.

“Two days of very hard climbing has brought me here – if you could only know how hard, you would be surprised that I have been able to accomplish it,” she wrote. “My strength and capacity for enduring fatigue have been very much increased by constant exercise in the open air since leaving home or I never could have succeeded in climbing the rugged sides of this mountain.

“I have accomplished the task which I marked out for myself, and now I feel amply repaid for all my toil and fatigue. Nearly every one tried to discourage me from attempting it, but I believed that I should succeed; and now, here I am, and I feel that I would not have missed this glorious sight for anything at all… How I sigh for the poet’s power of description, so that I might give you some faint idea of the grandeur and beauty of this scene.”

Julia stayed on the summit for two days and nights, sleeping on the ground, writing letters and entries into her diary.

So it was, in the summer of 1858, when Julia Holmes was the first-recorded white woman to climb “America’s Mountain”, the famous Pikes Peak. In 2014, Julia A. Holmes was inducted into the Colorado Women’s Hall of Fame.