Cobweb Express

Road to Fountain
by Mel McFarland

(#501) A Different Direction

Lets look at a different road. Perhaps you were in Fountain and you went up to Franceville Mine to get some coal. Coal was used in many houses for heat and you could buy it in quantity from their store on Main Street, but perhaps you just wanted to go out that way. Another reason to go out that way might be to go to Falcon or Payton without going all the way to Colorado Springs first.

Starting on Main Street the road east went out Missouri. I talked a while back about a snow storm east of town and mentioned how different it was seventy years ago. Most of the roads east of Fountain are less than sixty years old, as they sit now. Leaving Fountain going east, after you crossed the railroad tracks the road curved northeast above what is now Metcalf Park and crossed another set of railroad tracks. This was the C&S, and Fountain was as far as they went a hundred years ago. In the 1880ís they went to Pueblo through what is now Country Side. Part of this road and the railroad track bed became C&S road to Jimmy Camp in the 1920ís when the railroad was cut back to Falcon. It was renamed in the 50ís to Marksheffel, who had been a long time county commissioner. Anyway, about three miles out of Fountain the road divided into three trails one went east, one followed Jimmy Camp creek, the other went north and along the railroad. That road is the one toward Franceville Junction on the railroad, but the road actually goes away from the tracks and goes east to Franceville mine, and the dozen or so other mines near there.

What we know as Highway 94 swung southeast from a place called Manitou Junction, which today would be where 94 leaves US 24 northeast of Peterson AFB in the general direction to Franceville, which would be southwest of present day Schnever AFB. After the Franceville mining area died out in the 19 10-1920 time, the road was moved north and straightened, running almost straight east from the abandoned town of Manitou Junction. No direct road went north from Franceville to Falcon or Payton, you had to go east out onto the prairie to get away from the rough country around Jimmy Camp. I told the story of Jimmy Camp some years ago, but by a hundred years ago it was mainly abandoned. Next time a different trip out of town.

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