The Ute, Arapaho, and Cheyenne peoples were the first to inhabit this land where Fountain Creek cuts through the eastern edge of the Southern Rockies. The Pikes Peak Gold Rush of 1859 brought the first wave of settlers, and Colorado City -- briefly the capital of Colorado Territory -- sprang up at the confluence of Fountain and Camp Creeks. In 1871, the Colorado Springs Company laid out a new town downstream and called it Fountain Colony, soon renamed Colorado Springs. So many English immigrants arrived in those early years that locals called it "Little London." The town incorporated in 1886, and by 1898 its grid was defined by Cascade Avenue running north-south and Washington and Pikes Peak Avenues running east-west, a framework the city still follows today.

World War II transformed Colorado Springs from a resort town into a military stronghold. Camp Carson, now the 135,000-acre Fort Carson, was established in 1941. Peterson Field followed in 1942. When the Cold War arrived, the city's geography proved strategically invaluable: Ent Air Force Base became Air Defense Command headquarters in 1950, and deep within the granite of Cheyenne Mountain, engineers carved out the hardened command center for NORAD -- North American Aerospace Defense Command. Today, nearly 45,000 active-duty troops and over 100,000 veterans call the area home. Defense contractors including Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and General Dynamics maintain significant operations here. The U.S. Air Force Academy, built on land donated by the city itself, trains the next generation of officers against a backdrop of mountain peaks.

When the former Ent Air Force Base was converted into a U.S. Olympic training center in 1977, Colorado Springs gained a new identity. The city now hosts the United States Olympic and Paralympic Training Center, the headquarters of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, and the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. Over 50 national sports organizations are headquartered here. The city has hosted the U.S. Figure Skating Championships six times and the World Figure Skating Championships five times, and the Broadmoor Skating Club remains one of the sport's premier training grounds. Every June, the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb -- known as "The Race to the Clouds" -- sends automobiles and motorcycles hurtling up the mountain's highway, a road not fully paved until 2011.

Garden of the Gods, a National Natural Landmark on the city's western edge, anchors Colorado Springs in deep geologic time. Its towering red and orange sandstone formations, thrust upward along the Front Range fault millions of years ago, stand in dramatic contrast against the snow-capped bulk of Pikes Peak behind them. The park is free and open to all. Beyond it, the city manages 136 neighborhood parks, trails stretching from Palmer Lake to Fountain, and 48 open-space areas. Monument Valley Park preserves Tahama Spring, the original spring that gave the city its name. The landscape shifts from ponderosa pine and Douglas fir in the foothills to Gambel oak and prickly pear cactus on the plains -- a botanical crossroads where mountains meet prairie.

Colorado Springs defies easy characterization. It has been called the "Evangelical Vatican" for hosting 81 religious organization headquarters, yet it also founded the Libertarian Party in the 1970s. In 2023, independent candidate Yemi Mobolade became the first non-Republican mayor in the city's history. The city banned recreational marijuana sales even as the rest of Colorado embraced legalization, yet its 131 medical marijuana centers do brisk business. North Korean propagandists once targeted it for a missile strike -- and pointed at Louisiana on the map. A Japanese torii gate stands downtown on Nevada Avenue, a gift from sister city Fujiyoshida since 1962. With 243 sunny days per year, a population approaching 479,000, and 23 million annual visitors drawn by more than 55 attractions, Colorado Springs continues to grow where the plains meet the peaks.