Description of Jimmy Camp

Visitors of the mid-19th century were uniformly poetic in their descriptions of Jimmy Camp. It lay - they said - some twenty miles to the east of Pikes Peak in "a sweet little valley enclosed by piny ridges." Here were provided the three essential ingredients of pioneer travel: wood, water and grass. The campground itself stretched out over several acres, with "an abundance of grass" and "blooming wildflowers." To the north and west lay the hills and "lots of pine wood" for the evening fire. To the southeast ran a dry creek; on its right bank was "an elegant spring" with some of the "coldest and best water" to be had on the route. Game was abundant. Deer grazed the meadows. Mountain sheep dotted the hills. Antelopes were "almost constantly in sight."

Campground at Jimmy Camp

The Jimmy Camp of today is located on the eastern edge of Colorado Springs, within the present city limits and in an area yet awaiting development. It encompases much of the old Jimmy Camp Ranch, bordered by Highway 24 on the north, by Jimmy Camp Bluffs on the south, and by the Corral Bluffs on the east.

The entire area is bisected by Jimmy Camp Creek, which except for rainy spells is nothing more than a dry bed of sand. Water, however, still flows from as many as six cold springs, most of which have long since been dug out to form small reservoirs. Were a mountain man of the late 1840's or a gold seeker of the late 1850's to return today, he would have no difficulty in recognizing his favorite campground along the Front Range of the Rockies. Antelopes still bound over the pastures. Coyotes yet skulk through the bushes. Deer, even today, bed down under the trees to escape the midday heat.