Chances are, you have heard about the mysterious Keithley Log Cabin National Historic District in Manitou Springs but you’ve never seen it much less toured its cabins, which date to 1919.
Well now is your chance to see it.
It’s a living history museum. Hand-built log cabins in a hilly valley and on a ridge with spectacular views of the Garden of the Gods.
Everard Keithley in a photocopy of a 1937 newspaper clipping.
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The district was created in 1983 because folks deemed valuable the collection of cabins built by legendary Pike National Forest superintendent Everard Keithley.
After working summer jobs for the Forest Service, Keithley came to Colorado and took a fulltime appointment in Durango in January 1912.
He moved to the Pike in 1913 to oversee planting trees among other duties.
In 1919, he paid $1,700 for 10 acres on the eastern edge of Manitou Springs and started building a cabin.
Eventually he would own 16 acres and by 1956 there were seven cabins on the property.
- Nancy Galles Bower owns 8.6 acres and six cabins that make up the bulk of the Keithley Log Cabin National Historic District in Manitou Springs. They were built by her grandfather, Everard Keithley, over a span of 1919 to 1956. Keithley was supervisor of the Pike National Forest for 20 years who became a legend for his efforts to plant trees, build roads and protect the forest.
He became Pike superintendent in 1925, three years after the Forest Service had moved its headquarters to Colorado Springs.
By the time he retired in 1946, Keithley was credited with overseeing the planting of 30 million trees across the Pike. It was a massive job to reclaim the land, which had been stripped by loggers, miners, homesteaders and wildfires.
In addition, he is credited for building the Rampart Range Road, fighting to open Gold Camp Road to the public and developing tree nurseries used to reforest mountain ranges.
Keithley practiced what he preached. Besides building cabins on his land, he created a tree nursery and planted trees all over his land, which had been a goat pasture.
Each cabin was named for a type of tree, such as Blue Spruce.
In this image from GoogleEarth, the Keithley Log Cabin National Historic District can been seen. On the north end is a tree nursery planted by Everard Keithley, legendary Pike National Forest supervisor. Millions of trees were planted in the forest during his 33 years with Pike National Forest, the last 20 as supervisor. His efforts reclaimed land descimated by logging and wildfire. He also built seven cabins from 1919 to 1956 designated a historic district in 1983.
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Keithley died in 1973 and the homestead passed to his son, Joseph.
However, his son didn’t have the same passion for trees and the property was neglected, says his daughter, Nancy Galles Bower.
Still, in 1983 the property was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Joseph Keithley loved trains and built a small-gauge track around the property. He even built an exact replica of a coal-fired steam engine which he rode around the tracks.
By the time he died in 1999, the nursery was overgrown and most of the fruit trees on the property were gone.
Nancy Galles Bower and her son, Doug Edmundson, stand on the porch of a cabin built by her grandfather, Everard Keithley.
Today, Nancy Galles Bower is matriarch of the property. When Joseph died, she was able to keep 8.6 acres and six cabins.
She and her 44-year-old son, Doug Edmundson, live in cabins on the property and they rent the other four. They also share a passion for restoring the property and preserving the legacy of Everard Keithley.
Nancy Galles Bower looks at the coal-fired steam locomotive and tender her father, Joseph Keithley, designed and built as an exact replica of an actual train. He used to ride it around the family homestead.
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Doug Edmundson stands on the old narrow-gauge railroad tracks built by his grandfather, Joseph Keithley. He hopes to restore the train.
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One of the first cabins built by Everard Keithley, supervisor of the Pike National Forest from 1926-46. He built a group of cabins that were placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
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This is a photo of a plaque erected on a boulder near Balanced Rock in the Garden of the Gods honoring Nancy Galles Bower's grandfather, Everard Keithley.
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The U.S. Forest Service brand is visible in the logs of the cabins.
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