A Pikes Peak Partnership: The Penroses and the Tutts

by Thomas J. Noel, Tom J. Noel, Cathleen Norman

Spencer Pen rose, the maverick son of a wealthy Philadelphia clan, was the most prominent playboy in the Pikes Peak region. A partnership with his old Philadelphia chum, Charles L. Tutt, and marriage to a Detroit grande dame, Julie Villiers, ultimately converted this playboy into Colorado's premier philanthropist.In A Pikes Peak Partnership, historians Tom Noel and Cathleen Norman tell the incredible tale of the two families who transformed Colorado Springs and its environs into a tourist haven. By building the Broadmoor Hotel, the Pikes Peak highway, the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, and establishing or operating local tourist railroads and cog railways, Penrose, who once proclaimed that "any man who works after lunch is a fool", made the Pikes Peak region a pleasure seeker's paradise.With the use of previously unavailable family papers and more than 200 rare illustrations, this colorful saga follows the lives of Penrose and Tutt and their families as they transformed tiny and staid Colorado Springs from a colony of tuberculars into Colorado's second largest city.

Genres: History

264 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

There was a lot of information in here that I didn't get growing up in the Pikes Peak region so I definitely enjoyed learning a bit more about the history of the city and some of its movers and shakers. It is a little frustrating to realize just how deeply entrenched "old money" is in even the cities of the West but such is history.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this bit of local history. Recommended for anyone interested in the history of the Pike's Peak region.