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Back in 1859 two men traveled from Denver for the purpose of establishing a new town along the Ute trail, Colorado City, what we know today as Old Colorado City, they traveled through towering fins of rock jutting over 300 feet into the air near Pikes Peak. One was, M. S. Beach, and he suggested that it would be a "capital place for a beer garden". His companion, Rufus Cable, awestruck by the impressive rock formations, exclaimed, "Beer Garden! Why it is a fit place for the Gods to assemble. We will call it the Garden of the Gods." In 1879 Charles Elliott Perkins, a friend of William Jackson Palmer, purchased 480 acres of land that included a portion of the present Garden of the Gods. Upon Perkins' death, his family gave the land to the City of Colorado Springs in 1909, with the provision that it would be a free public park. Todays over 1,300-acre park grows almost every year as thoughtful folks donate more land. About 65 million years ago, there was an intense period of mountain building caused by the Pacific Tectonic plate pushing, with great force, into the North American Tectonic plate in the area of California’s San Andreas Fault. As the Front Range Mountains rose, the overlying sedimentary rocks were bent upward. Over time, the softer rocks eroded and valleys were created leaving harder rocks standing as the tall ridges in the Park.
https://www.colorado.com/articles/garden-gods-6-fun-things-do
https://www.colorado.com/natural-landmarks/garden-gods-visitor-and-nature-center
