Several Garden, Glen Eyrie past/present photos in newly published book

Several Garden, Glen Eyrie past/present photos in newly published book

A recent Grant Collier photo from his "Colorado Then & Now" book shows a view next to the North Dakota Hogback alongside the road to the Glen Eyrie property. He shot it from the same vantage point as the photo below by his great-great grandfather, Joseph Collier, in the early 1900s when a cottage was there.
Grant Collier photo from "Colorado Then & Now"

A recently released statewide book of photos includes several past/present shots in the Garden of the Gods and Glen Eyrie.
       Titled “Colorado Then & Now,” the 204-page publication is the second endeavor by Denver-area photographer Grant Collier to literally follow in the photographic “footsteps” of his great-great grandfather, Joseph Collier.
       Grant “traveled throughout Colorado taking photographs from the exact same spots where Joseph captured his images over a century before,” states the Collier Publishing website. “In 2001, Grant released a book of these photographs entitled 'Colorado Yesterday & Today.' 'Colorado Then & Now is the sequel to this book, and it contains 200 new photographs. These images capture, in stunning detail, the changes that have occurred in Colorado over the past 145 years.”
       A Westside Pioneer follow-up on two of the then/now Glen Eyrie photos shed historic light on a former cottage beside the North Dakota hogback, near the entrance to Colorado Springs founder William Palmer's castle property. It appears

Joseph Collier took this photo in the early 1900s of the cottage beside the North Dakota Hogback that was home for a dozen years to William Palmer's head gardener Billy Burghard and his family. The photo can be compared with the one above from Grant Collier's new "Colorado Then & Now" book, which was shot from the same vantage point.
Joseph Collier photo from "Colorado Then & Now"

in Joseph's photo, but not in Grant's. According to a paper by area historian Donald McGilchrist, the cottage was built in 1901 and housed the family of Billy Burghard, who was initially William Palmer's head gardener and later founder of Burghard's Floral. The family lived there from 1906 until 1918, when they decided to move after a large boulder landed near the house. The cottage was torn down in 1956.
       Among the book's early Garden of the Gods-area photos are the former Bear and Seal formation (the “seal” fell off in 1942), the site of a pioneer camp (which also shows the hillside, pre-Queen's Canyon Quarry) and the Gateway Rocks (with multiple paths/roads between the formations).
       Asked about his great-great grandfather, Grant Collier replied in an e-mail, “I don't know a whole about what inspired Joseph to take the shots he did. He didn't leave much writing behind, except for one letter. From that, it seems that a passion for adventure and travel inspired him to get out to many locations throughout Colorado and beyond. I'm sure he also considered the commercial viability of the images, as each plate he exposed was expensive to produce, so he had to be pretty selective with what he shot.”
       To purchase Collier's book, or to get more information, go to collierpublishing.com.

Westside Pioneer article
(Posted 12/9/16; Community: Arts)

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