Manitou Springs Colorado

Legend of the Separation of the Comanche and Ute Tribes

The large spring referred to by Dr. James, Sage, Fremont, Ruxton, and the other writers whom I have quoted, is the one now enclosed and used by the bottling works at Manitou. Ruxton says the two springs were intimately connected with the separation of the Comanche and the Snake, or Ute tribes, and he gives the following legend concerning the beginning of the trouble: Many hundreds of winters ago, when the cottonwoods on the Big River were no higher than an arrow, and the red men, who hunted the buffalo on the plains, all spoke the same language, and the … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Louis Smithnight

Smithnight, Louis; retired; born, Saxony, Germany, Dec. 16, 1834; son of Frederick and Auralia (Woolford) Smithnight; public school education in Germany; came to the United States at 15; married, 1866, Nettie Kingsley of Cleveland; surviving issue, one daughter; after a brief period in Columbus, O., came to Cleveland for A. J. Wenham, dry goods, for seven years; in 1858, went to Pike’s Peak, Col., to search for gold; being unsuccessful, returned to Cleveland, and opened a drug store, which conducted business until 1892; still own store at 2511 E. 9th St.; enlisted in 1861 as a private in the Cleveland … Read more