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This is the tale of two convenience stores. One story is complete and the other has not played out quite yet. But I was intrigued by the parallels.

A year ago, a hundred or so angry Springs Ranch residents packed a public meeting to try to stop a convenience store from being built in the neighborhood.

They felt betrayed because they believed a YMCA was planned for the vacant 5.6-acre lot. Instead, the YMCA planned to use proceeds from the land sale to finance a new facility elsewhere.

Residents listed fears of increased traffic, crime, loitering, fumes and the proximity to Sand Creek High School in opposing a Kum & Go convenience store and gas station at North Carefree Circle and Peterson Road.

“It was all very dramatic,” said neighbor Lou Morales, who said the Springs Ranch Community Association and its 18 sub-homeowners associations met and strategized and argued on behalf of residents. Some vowed to appeal if they lost. Some actually moved away.

But the effort ultimately failed and Iowa-based Kum & Go won approval in November. I wondered why neighbors calmed down so.

“Kum & Go listened and cooperated with the neighborhood,” Morales said. “They made changes.

“In the end, everybody was resigned that Kum & Go was coming in. Nothing would stop it.”

A few months behind the Kum & Go in the planning pipeline came plans for a 7-Eleven convenience store and gas station on a 15.3-acre lot at Roller Coaster Road and North Gate Boulevard.

Instead of “Oh, thank heaven!” the neighbors in Flying Horse gulped and exclaimed “Oh good Gawd!” and sprang into action.

Leading the opposition is Mark Henkel who said neighbors feel betrayed because they expected boutiques and high-end shops.

“We don’t want a place that has height markers on the inside of the door,” Henkel said, referring to common door markings used by police to determine the height of robbery suspects exiting a store.

Like the folks in Springs Ranch, they organized, raised awareness and turned out en masse for public hearings.

They insisted they were not opposed to commercial development on the lot. Just a convenience store.

“A convenience store is a magnet for crime,” Henkel said, arguing that Colorado Springs is being saturated by convenience stores.

(Personally, I’m amazed how many rental lockers are available in the area. And payday loan places and pawn shops. But that’s just me.)

Other neighbors told the Colorado Springs Planning Commission they were promised a “Broadmoor of the North” type commercial development on the site. Not a 24-hour gas station and Slurpee stop.

Of course, I figured Flying Horse would have about as much luck as Springs Ranch.

Imagine my surprise, shock actually, when the project failed to win planning commission approval. It failed on a 4-4 vote with Commissioner Robert Shonkwiler excused, according to minutes of the November meeting.

It was no surprise when developer Classic Co. appealed to the City Council.

Henkel and the neighbors were prepared to defend their victory. But they were puzzled when the council didn’t even bother to hear the appeal. Instead, the issue was immediately kicked back to planning commission for reconsideration.

“It didn’t seem right that they didn’t even hear the appeal,” Henkel said, noting that council members did not seem informed about the project.

I expect an interesting debate before the Planning Commission on Feb. 21. No doubt many in Flying Horse will be watching.

And, I expect, there will be some interested folks in Springs Ranch, too.

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CONVENIENCE STORES TRIGGER CONTROVERSY IN NEIGHBORHOODS is a post from: Side Streets

"A City Beautiful Dream - The 1912 Vision for Colorado Springs" is the latest in a series of regional history books published by the Pikes Peak Library District

As Colorado Springs studies loosening the reins on developers by expediting the process for getting their plans approved, I thought I’d look at how the planning process evolved.

Funny thing. The planning department overhaul comes  on the 100th anniversary of the City Council’s adoption of its first formal plan for the future development.

In fact, the Pikes Peak Library District has published a book: “A City Beautiful Dream – The 1912 Vision for Colorado Springs.”

It’s the 10th book in the library’s fascinating regional history series. (It’s $14.95 and available at the library, the Pioneers Museum and ClausenBooks.com.)

The project started — doesn’t every government effort — with a consultant hired by the City Council in late 1911 for $2,000 to evaluate the city’s design.

Charles Mulford Robinson, photo courtesy Pikes Peak Library District

At the time, Charles Mulford Robinson had established a reputation for designing modern cities. So he got the job.

Tim Scanlon, a former Springs city planner who now consults with Shooks Run Research, described  Robinson as being ahead of his peers in envisioning how cities might be built.

“Robinson advanced the practice of comprehensive planning . . . that continues today,” Scanlon wrote in an introduction to the book.

Though Robinson plan never was fully implemented, several of his recommendations are evident today, said Tim Blevins, the library’s special collections manager who coordinated publication of the book.

This 1904 map of Colorado Springs shows the downtown grid consultant Charles Mulford Robinson detested as well as the railroad lines he blamed for polluting the air and inhibiting movement due to their poor location and at-grade street crossings.

“We use the plan quite a bit in special collections to answer reference questions,” Blevins said.

Robinson observed the strengths and weaknesses of Colorado Springs, based on research he conducted 1905-1911 for two separate reports that were the basis of his 1912 report: “A General Plan for the Improvement of Colorado Springs.”

Issued three years after the death of founder Gen. William Jackson Palmer, Robinson’s plan was critical of some of Palmer’s key design features: the wide streets and downtown grid.

Robinson said the Springs should design its streets to enhance its railroad stations, hotels and parks as its three obvious “focal points in the life and activity of the community.”

But he said Palmer’s “tiresome” grid did nothing to enhance community, calling it “as commonplace as Philadelphia’s or Chicago’s.”

He advocated disrupting the unimaginative grid by varying the widths of streets.

Wide roads would be thoroughfares while more narrow roads would discourage horses and buggies and become quiet residential streets.

His plan forcefully advocated building parks and playground and ridding the city of air pollution by imagining electric trains instead of smoky steam engines.

Consultant Charles Mulford Robinson urged the City Council to rid Monument Creek of those "wretched shacks" as seen in this photo looking south from the Bijou Street bridge. Photo courtesy the Pikes Peak Library District.

He advocated a height limit on buildings downtown and ridding the city of at-grade railroad crossings.

Wonder what he’d think of the city today and efforts to muzzle city planners? Hmm.

Eliminating the Sante Fe Station, top, on East Pikes Peak Avenue, was one of consultant Charles Mulford Robinson's recommendations. It took a route through the east side of Colorado Springs, spreading smoke and causing too many transportation delays with its numerous at-grade street crossings. Robinson urged turning the Denver & Rio Grande station, bottom, into a "union station" and consolidating all train travel in it.

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EVEN IN 1912 CITY PLANNING WAS IMPORTANT is a post from: Side Streets

Steve Wenzel, left, and Ruth Pedrie dance "The Twist" Wednesday, June 23, 2010 during the Street Breakfast on Pikes Peak Avenue in downtown Colorado Springs. Photo by Mark Reis, The Gazette

Until 2008, neighborhood block parties were such a priority in Colorado Springs that the parks department had a program and coordinator to facilitate two dozen or so requests received each year.

It was based on the idea that neighborhoods function better — they are safer and problems get solved at a one-on-one level more easily — if folks get to know each other.

Make friends over a burger and a beer, maybe even dance in the street,  and you are more likely to watch out of suspicious activity across the street.

And you are less likely to call cops when the music is too loud. (You’ll probably walk over and ask them to turn it down. Or you will be at the party and enjoy the music!)

Today, that concept is known as a “community building.”

Anyway, the city valued and encouraged you to make friends with your neighbors. And your life was enriched.

It fell smack under the city’s motto: “We Create Community.”

But in 2008 the budget ax fell and the parks department staff was slashed.  It could no longer afford a block party program and coordinator to process permit applications, collect the $25 fee, underwrite the insurance for street parties, alert emergency agencies of closures, schedule delivery and removal of barricades and subsidize the cost of these activities.

Those duties have fallen to the police department. The process is no longer a simple one.

Neighborhoods are complaining about demands for a dozen pages of information, names and phone numbers, traffic studies, insurance policies and unreasonable advance notice.

So many have stopped asking permission and started holding rogue parties.

They put out trash cans and lawn chairs to block their streets and eat, drink and dance. No permits. No fees. No ridiculous red tape.

But no coordination with emergency services, either.

The police recognize this is a problem and recently asked the City Council to adopt a new ordinance defining how parties should be handled.

The ensuing discussion offered an interesting glimpse of our new council.

Bernie Herpin, Jan Martin, Brandy Williams and Lisa Czelatdko want to encourage block parties.

“To me, it’s a matter of informing the city that we would like to have a block party,” Herpin said. “Here’s the time, date and location. I’d rather see this an an informal thing, not asking permission. I think it got blown out of proportion.”

How Colorado Springs City Councilwoman Angela Dougan would handle street partiers

Then there’s Councilwoman Angela Dougan, who says city streets are for cars only.

“I’d rather see an ordinance that we do not allow blocking off our streets,” she said. “If you do, we treat it like blocking a fire hydrant, we might just put a hose right through your car because it wasn’t supposed to be there.”

And call out the Gestapo?

Anyway, the council told police to rethink its ordinance and, more importantly, meet with the Council of Neighbors & Organizations to get input for the folks actually trying to build community. What a concept!

Just maybe, before the summer block-party-season is over, neighborhoods will finally know whether they can legally eat, drink and dance in the streets.

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PARTY TIME IN THE NEIGHBORHOODS! MAYBE is a post from: Side Streets

Josie Trujillo at the window of her house in Cragmor. The swimming pool, once filled with mud, cattails, weeds and trees, now only holds a little dirty water from the winter.

Josie Trujillo is no slumlord who accumulates properties for rent and neglects them. 

She is not like some who simply are content to let her property sit and rot and the neighbors be damned. 

Josie is someone whose life spun out of control and her house in Cragmor suffered. Along with her neighbors. 

But now, 12 years later, the house is improving even if Josie is still struggling. 

Here’s how it appeared in the July 18, 2002, edition of The Gazette when it was featured in the first Side Streets and came to symbolize blight in Colorado Springs. 

Here’s how the house looks today. 

Neighbors are much happier to see a freshly painted house with new windows and neat landscaping. 

Josie Trujillo's house as it appeared April 27, 2011.

I’m glad to be able to report the progress Josie has made on the house. 

But her story is so sad and she has a long way to go before she’s able to live in the place again. 

Her first goal is to complete the exterior. 

The eaves along the back and over a small rear deck still must be repaired. 

Then she can pull permits from the city and start concentrating on the interior. 

It will be a huge chore. 

The inside is bare studs and plywood. She has insulation in about half the house. But the amount of work needed is staggering. 

Electrical wiring. Plumbing. A furnace. Water heater. 

Her needs are great. 

But she’s determined to get it done, even if it takes many more years. 

The repairs Josie Trujillo has made on her house can be seen. She is working her way around the place. Only a small deck on the rear, remains to be fixed before the exterior is finished.

Here's a closer look at the deck. A new sliding glass door has been installed. Next, the eaves, ceiling and siding will be replaced.

xxx 

Josie Trujillo walks through the remains of her living room.

Her house was featured in the first Side Streets on July 18, 2002, along with the Joseph O’Brien house on the west side, which has been condemned since 1973.

Neighbor frustration with similarly blighted houses led the Colorado Springs Code Enforcement office to campaign for an ordinance to combat blight.

The O’Brien house became “exhibit A” for neglect when the City Council adopted a blight ordinance in 2006. Josie’s neighbors also testified on behalf of the ordinance.

Here’s a look at that very first Side Streets on July 18, 2002:

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JOSIE TRUJILLO’S HOUSE NO LONGER SYMBOLIZES BLIGHT is a post from: Side Streets

Colorado Springs City Council District Map/courtesy Colorado Springs

For years, the Colorado Springs City Council has included four representatives elected from specific districts and four members elected at-large or on a citywide basis.

Voters on Tuesday decided add two new districts to the map. When the change takes effect in 2013, the nine-member council will feature six district representatives and just three at-large representatives.

Experts say the change is a victory for neighborhoods. By anchoring councilmembers to specific districts, it ensures accountability.

And be creating more districts, each representative has fewer constituents. That gives folks greater access to their individual council representative.

Some warn the change could lead to more parochial fights on the Council. Representatives of older, established neighborhoods, for example, might find themselves pitted against newer, faster growing suburan neighborhoods with different infrastructure needs.

Some are especially excited because the change creates the potential for the city’s first “majority minority” district — a place where Hispanics, blacks and other minority residents outnumber whites.

Prior to the 2013 vote, the map above will be redrawn to carve out the new districts. The racially diverse south and southeast areas of the city could find themselves with their own seat on council.

“Symbolically, it would be quite significant,” said Josh Dunn, a political science professor at the University of Colorado’s campus here. “It would be a positive development if it creates a sense the council really is more representative of all peoples’ interests.”

Here’s a story the Gazette’s excellent political reporter Daniel Chacon wrote prior to the election.

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VOTERS WANT A VOICE; WILL MINORITIES GET THEIRS FINALLY? is a post from: Side Streets

This concrete trash bin at the Colorado Department of Transportation maintenance yard on Commercial Boulevard near I-25 and South Circle Drive holds dozens of campaign signs found illegally planted along state highways.

Campaign signs, large and small, along with assorted business signs fill a concrete bin at the Colorado Department of Transportation maintenance yard.

Ever wonder where political campaign signs go to die?  

If they get placed illegally along state highways in the Colorado Springs region, the concrete trash bin in the maintenance yard of the Colorado Department of Transportation is their final resting place.  

Lots of signs — large and small – find their way in to the bin.  

Actually, it’s kind of a relief to know it is not political dirty tricksters taking hundreds of signs reported lost by various candidates for mayor and City Council.  

The folks at CDOT say they hold the signs for 30 days to give the owners a chance to reclaim them. The signs could be stored at any of six maintenance facilities scattered around El Paso and Teller counties.  

The process of reclaiming signs starts by calling CDOT at 227-3246 and leaving a message. CDOT will track down your signs and tell you where to find them.  

I found a big pile at the maintenance yard near I-25 and South Circle Drive at 2025 Commercial Boulevard.  

This maintenance yard on Commercial Boulevard is one of six the Colorado Department of Transportation maintains in El Paso and Teller counties.

Buddy Gilmore, candidate for mayor of Colorado Springs, caught a Brickman Group landscaper taking down campaign signs of his rivals in the race.

But CDOT isn’t the only group taking signs. Some are taken illegally, as mayoral candidate Buddy Gilmore discovered. 

He kept noticing signs of his opponents and City Council candidates disappearing along Briargate Parkway and surrounding streets.

So he was keeping an eye out the window of his office near the corner of Briargate and Explorer Drive. On Wednesday, a sign for Sean Paige vanished.

Mayoral candidate Buddy Gilmore snapped this photo of a Brickman Group landscaper carrying away a Sean Paige city council campaign sign.

Buddy jumped in his car and started hunting for the thief.

Soon, he came upon a landscaper from the Brickman Group carrying freshly plucked Paige signs.

Gilmore confronted the man, who said he was ordered to remove the signs, which were legally placed on city right-of-way.

Turns out the landscaper was carrying out orders of the Briargate Business Campus Owners Association, Gilmore said.

Somebody, perhaps the management company, doesn’t like signs and ordered them removed. Or stolen, in other words.

It’s not a petty crime. Gilmore said he’s lost 800 signs this campaign, at $1.50 apiece!. There were nine mayoral candidates and about 1,000 candidates for City Council. They’ve all complained of lost signs and that adds up to some real money.  

I also discovered there are sign vigilantes out there. Some folks don’t like signs of any kind cluttering the roadways. They go around and steal them, said Ken Lewis, the city code enforcement administrator. At least one vigilante has been charged with theft.

I had no idea.

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WHERE CAMPAIGN SIGNS GO TO DIE is a post from: Side Streets

 At the corner of Briargate Parkway and Union Boulevard sits 108 acres of rolling prairie meadow . It’s mostly grasses and a few trees. The south fork of Pine Creek meanders through it.

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For 20 years, it has been envisioned as a community park with pavilions, sports fields, courts and other amenities.

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It was billed as a place where people from the region would gather, as compared to neighborhood parks designed to serve a limited area.

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But for now, and the forseeable future, it will remain a field — a place for joggers, for watching birds and other wildlife, for dogs to run.

Cathy Post, librarian at the Academy International Elementary School, is flanked by the undeveloped 108-acre Venezia Park. Post has worked since 1991 to get the park developed.

And it will remain a huge  disappointment to people like Cathy Post, a librarian at Academy International Elementary School, who moved to the surrounding neighborhood 12 years ago thinking her family would enjoy the huge park.

She even got her students involved in the planning process. They wrote letters, drew pictures and even attended a City Council meeting to urge approval of the park. When it finally given the go-ahead, she raced back to school and made an announcement over the PA system to celebrate. Her students, she said, were so happy.

The park was so close to becoming a reality it started showing up on maps as “John Venezia Park” — named for the developer of the area. But it’s just a field.

Plans are impressive. They call for 30 acres to be developed and the remaining 78 or so to be left as open space to protect habitat for the endangered Preble’s meadow jumping mouse. Here’s a look at the blueprints.

The city was poised to begin construction in 2008. It’s first plan was to use $1.7 million to launch work on the infrastructure – electrical, plumbing, curbs and gutter.

 The money was a combination of $700,000 from the Trails, Open Space and Parks tax and $1 million from a fund created by fees developers pay in lieu of building neighborhood parks, says Sarah Bryarly of the cityparks department.

Rather than build it in phases, the city decided to use a funding mechanism called “Certificates of Participation.” They are sold to investors and paid off over several years, like bonds.

But before the COPs could be sold, the nation’s economy crashed and financing evaporated.

Now, no money exists for new parks. The city’s sales tax revenues have collapsed, forcing City Council to slash the parks department budget, along with others.

But not everyone is ready to give up. Cathy is determined to keep hope alive for Venezia Park. 

She is attending meeting and lobbying for officials to find money, somewhere, to get the park built.

Prospects for the park are not good.

Bryarly said construction could start immediately if money was available.

But Kurt Schroeder, a parks department official, said even if the city could find $9.5 million to build it, there’s no money for ongoing maintenance.

His agency’s budget has been slashed by 80 percent and it’s not likely to be restored anytime soon. Absent a windfall, Venezia will remain on the shelf.

“It doesn’t make a lot of sense to add facilities if we don’t have maintenance money,” Schroeder said.

Here’s a link to the city’s community parks web site for more information.

And here’s a Feb. 26, 2007 column I wrote on the park.

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NEIGHBORS TRYING TO KEEP HOPE ALIVE FOR VENEZIA PARK is a post from: Side Streets

Folks in Colorado Springs have been mad lately at the U.S. Olympic Committee.

Their anger stems from a feeling of rejection after the USOC talked about leaving due to crowded and antiquated facilities.

The U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.

Many also are upset that Springs Mayor Lionel Rivera and the City Council gave the USOC a package of incentives worth $42.3 million to convince the organization to keeps its national headquarters here another 30 years.

The U.S. Olympic Training Center is located on the former Ent Air Force Base. The first athletes moved into the 34-acre campus east of downtown in 1977.

The U.S. Olympic Committee moved its headquarters, Olympic House, to the complex on Aug. 1, 1978 after leaving New York City.

The new headquarters of the U.S. Olympic Committee in downtown Colorado Springs

The USOC is trying to mend fences with its neighbors in the community.

It started by giving the city a $250,000 grant to fund youth sports programs at struggling community centers.

On Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., the USOC is throwing  a party at the training center, on Boulder Street at Union Boulevard. It’s called the Community Appreciation Day Celebration.

There will be autograph sessions with Olympic athletes. Resident Olympic and Paralymic athletes will demonstrate 11 sports including BMX, freestyle skiing aerialists, gymnastics and volleyball.

There will be food, music, prizes and other fun.

Here’s a video the Gazette’s Brian Gomez shot at the new headquarters building on May 2, 2010, at the ribbon-cutting ceremony:

Here’s a brief story about the move to the new building in April.

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USOC TRYING TO BE GOOD NEIGHBOR, MEND FENCES is a post from: Side Streets

Mary Lou Makepeace knows a little bit about governing and earning the trust of voters.

She spent 18 years on the Colorado Springs City Council after her appointment in 1985.

In 1997, she became the city’s first female mayor, re-elected in 1999.

Her re-election coincided with voter approval of an $88 million bond issue to pay for a variety of civic projects from police and fire protection to street and bridge repair to drainage to parks and community recreation centers.

Stop laughing. This is no joke.

Springs voters just 11 years ago actually agreed to spend millions on parks and recreation centers.

 In fact, the $88 million bond issue, called the Springs Community Improvement Program, or SCIP, included $11.1 million to build the 21-acre America the Beautiful Park as well as $12 million for pools and rec centers!

Is this a time warp or a space continuums?

Makepeace, 70, is saddened by the dismantling of the city’s parks department, the closing of pools and the threat to its community centers and services.

She calls it “tragic” and worries it will be hard for elected officials to rebuild the trust of the people.

In my chat with Makepeace, she had this to say:

“I think SCIP was very successful and the reason is so many citizens stepped forward took advantage of chance to give their input in community. Hundreds of citizens were serving on committees.

“It’s going to take a better economy and a deliberate rebuilding effort to regain that trust. A big part of it is engaging people in government. Government has to get a lot closer to the people. And not just listen to the few who comes before them at council.

“If people feel ownership, they’d be more interested in participating. The ultimate goal is people feeling good about their community.

“People have to participate. The council has to communicate. If they don’t, the form of government — manager or strong mayor – won’t matter.

“We do have a great community. Come on folks, let’s figure this  out. We can’t just depend on nine people on City Council. We have a lot of brains in the community. We need citizen input.”

Makepeace had a clear vision for Colorado Springs. She wanted to create a vibrant downtown with a centerpiece park, convention center and major hotel. She envisioned a downtown were people could find a variety of restaurants, shops and entertainment options. An urban soul for the growing city.

Although the convention center never materialized, most of her vision did and America the Beautiful Park is her crowning achievement.

Here’s a link to the history of  the park.

 At its heart is The Continuum – the Julie Penrose Fountain. It is a four-story tall sculpture of steel and weighs 24 tons. It is equipped with 366 jets that spray a curtain of water as the entire structure rotates, taking 15 minutes to make one revolution.

LISTENING IS THE KEY TO REBUILDING TRUST, FORMER MAYOR SAYS is a post from: Side Streets

Meet Florence “Bobsie” Pachak, the unofficial queen of Bonnyville.

I am crowning her queen of the little neighborhood of about 325 homes north of downtown Colorado Springs. Who else? She’s one of the original residents of the neighborhood.

Bobsie and her husband, Walter, bought their home in July 1948. She has lived there ever since! That’s 61 years watching Colorado Springs grow from a small resort and military town into a city that ranks about 50th in size in U.S.

Heck, I think we ought to start calling it “Bobsieville.”

Bonnyville has an interesting history. Pachak lived it all, but she was busy raising six children and didn’t recall much of it. So, as  a gift for Pachak on her 90th birthday on Nov. 12,  neighbor Joyce Dearing put together a history book for her, to remind her of all she had witnessed.

Bonnyville was developed by John Bonforte, who had a fiery relationship with the Colorado Springs City Council and Planning Commission. Below is how it looked from the air in an old newspaper clipping.

The view is to the southwest. The Santa Fe Railroad tracks are visible running at a diaganol from upper left to lower right. In the foreground is the Templeton Gap and the Rock Island Railroad lines:

The Bon Shopping Center was built soon after the houses.

The Bon Shopping Center is considered the area’s first suburban shopping center when it opened in 1953 at the north end of Wahsatch Avenue.  

A story in The Gazette Telegraph marveled at the “ultra-modern” look of the city’s first strip mall.

It still boasts the original sign, which reflects the “ultra modern” design of the center.

The shopping center has always been an integral part of the neighborhood.

Originally, a Safeway store stood on the far north end of the center in a space now occupied by an Ent Federal Credit Union office.

Over the years, Safeway moved to the south end of the center and expanded. It was that expansion that led Pachak to become a neighborhood activist.

She said Safeway wanted to buy four houses, including her house, and tear them down to allow a larger building. She and other homeowners resisted. Eventually, two homeowners sold out.

The Pachak worked to limit Safeway’s expansion because she feared truck traffic would endanger neighbors. In fact, her car has been struck seven times parked outside her home.

But, ironically, the expansion came to benefit her family. First, Walter, a carpenter, was hired to build the project. And now, decades later, she likes having the store so close.

Bonnyville has mostly been a quiet neighborhood of modest homes. But it has had its share of excitement and been home to a few folks who would go onto to become famous.

For example, Bonnyville found itself in the newspaper headlines in November  1948 when a B-29 Superfortress crashed and burned just north of the Patty Jewett Golf Course.

 It had just taken off from Peterson Field – now Peterson Air Force Base —  headed for Smoky Hill Air Base in Salina, Kan., according to the Nov. 5, 1948, Gazette Telegraph report.

The story said the No. 4 engine went out, and the No. 3 engine caught fire.

The newspaper reported: “Eyewitnesses to the crash said the burning ship was headed directly for the Bonnyville subdivision at a very low altitude.”

Unable to turn the plane around, the pilot, Capt. E.J. Cook, instead guided the plane away from Bonnyville to open fields near Patty Jewett Golf Course for an emergency landing.

The burning airplane first struck the ground just east of the golf club, where leaking gasoline started a brush fire. Then it “cut a path 300 yards long, ripping down barbed wire fences and bouncing over several gullies before coming to a stop without nosing over.”

 The late Leon Young, left, longtime Coloardo Springs City Council member who, for three months in 1997 served as the city’s first black mayor, had this recollection of Bonnyville in a 1993 interview:
“I came back from the Navy, and in 1947 I wanted to buy a house. The first veterans housing project, Bonnyville, had a big sign saying `GIs $250 down.’ I went up to the trailer there and the man asked me what I wanted. I said, `I’m a veteran. I want to buy a house.’ He said, `We’re building houses for veterans, but not for you.’ I was turned down for two FHA loans and by that time I had saved $3,000 down.”

While Bonnyville lost the chance to host Young, it was the home for several years of Harry Hoth, a co-ounder of the Bonnyville Improvement Association, who became owner of Pikes Peak Broadcasting Co. and its KRDO TV and radio stations.

Hoth, left, used the neighborhood association as a springboard to the City Planning Commission, on which he served in1951-62; then to the City Council in 1959-67 and finally served as mayor of Colorado Springs in 1963-67.

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And Bonnyville was the inspiration for perhaps the most popular comic strip in history.

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In 1951, cartoonist Charles Schulz spent a year living in Bonnyville while his comic strip, “Peanuts” featuring  Charlie Brown, left, made short-lived debuts in seven newspapers. Two decade later it was featured in 2,200 newspapers reaching 200 million readers in 68 countries.

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BONNYVILLE ought to be Bobsieville! is a post from: Side Streets