About Pikes Peak, Colorado

• Named Pike's Peak (or Pikes Peak, after a ruling of US Board on Geographic Names)- after Lt. Zebulon Pike, an explorer, the first man to attemt to climb this mountain, after it was bought by the US in the Louisiana purchase.
• However, the first recorded ascent had to wait 14 years, only in 1820 by dr. Edwin James.
• After the Gold Rush, when Pikes Peak was an important visual landmark, the Cog Railway was built (late 1800s)
• It has been said that the poem which inspired the song, "America the Beautiful" was inspired by an ascending of the mountain (1893)
• Today, the region is visited by more than 6 million people every year, and around 500,000 of them visit the Peak itself!