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COBWEB CORNERS: If old houses could talk

By Mel McFarland

       I have done lots of articles about old houses in our area. One of the first was on the big Victorian in the area north of Uintah Gardens. Here is another from that area. Do you remember the house above Uintah, actually surrounded by the Knolls apartments?
       It was there in the 1950s, long before the Knolls and even before Uintah was cut through from 1-25. When the Knolls property owner tried to buy it, the house's owner held out. The apartments were built, surrounding the house on three sides, until it was finally absorbed by the property. The odd house was quickly torn down, and apartments built where it had been.
       You may also remember the stories of two houses on 31st Street. The first is now the Dive restaurant, off Pikes Peak Avenue. It was built as a house in the late 1800s, but has been a variety of restaurants for several decades. The other unusual house on 31st is the old farm house in the 400 block. It was built some 80 years before the Pleasant Valley subdivision and actually faces away from 31st.
       Another locally famous house, demolished in the 1960s, was a half-mile west of 31st Street, in what's now the Garden of the Gods RV Resort off Colorado Avenue at Columbia Road. This was the home of General Charles Adams, a prominent citizen who died in 1895. The area was known as Adams Crossing.
       A number of older houses are on the south side of Pikes Peak Avenue, but none as old as Adams' house would have been.
       There is a fine house with a turret on the south edge of the city's Rock Ledge Ranch, off Chambers Way. I remember when this house was on the corner of Uintah and Walnut streets. It was moved more than 20 years ago when the Uintah/1-25 interchange was widened.
       Quite a few houses in our area were built in other parts of Colorado Springs. Some were even out at Camp Carson and Woodman Sanitarium.
       I have been writing the Cobweb Corners column in the Westside Pioneer for more than 10 years. That is almost 600 columns! I sometimes wonder if I will ever run out of material. Right now, reading old newspapers from the 1930s, I keep finding good stories, and you readers give me more ideas.

(Posted 2/16/17; Opinion: Cobweb Corners)

       Editor's note: Local historian Mel McFarland has been writing his Cobweb Corners column in the Westside Pioneer since 2004. To see past columns, go to the Pioneer's Archives. Either look for desired articles under the Cobweb Corners category for any year, or search by keywords in the Find box.

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