About this Book

"With his fortune made during the Cripple Creek gold rush and subsequent commercial and industrial ventures, Spencer Penrose, 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 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. Through El Pomar Foundation, founded by the Penroses in 1937 and now one of the largest and most innovative charitable foundations in the Rocky Mountain West, they supported and built many of the region's cultural institutions and educational centers. Today, booming Colorado Springs has El Paso County on the verge of displacing Dener as Colorado's most populous country. This is the fascinating story of the movers and shakers behind the Colorado Springs success story."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved