OVERLAND

Founded 1868

MAR 7

918

Pike's Peak

By

N. L. Drew

No. 5

A

GAIN have the eyes of motordom turned westward to the Nation's Playground to witness the virtual completion of the Pike's Peak Auto Highway, highest and most wonderful of the earth's motor roads. The road is wonderful in its marvelous engineering triumphs; wonderful in that it reaches into the

clouds 14,109 feet above the sea, and still more wonderful in the magnificence of its scenery. Climbing as it does the north or precipitous side of the mountain, every mile is crowded with scenic interest, and from its terminus more miles of mountain and plain are visible than from any other point on the globe reached by automo

On the highest motor road in

bile. Sixty thousand square miles in one vast limitless view, with a downward sweep to a greater depth than the Grand Canyon of Arizona; 8,109 feet from the snow clad summit to the rolling plain below; while indented on the western sky are a thousand pallid monsters of the Rockies, sublime in their massive grandeur. Long has Colorado Springs dreamed of such a road. Many efforts were made to have it built, but owing to the tremendous obstacles its construction presented, all were failures. At last, realizing the great importance that such a road would be to Colorado, Eugene A. Sunderlin, of Colorado Springs, a prominent railway executive, who at one time had the distinction of being the youngest railway president in the United States, set about over a year ago to overcome these obstacles. Consultations were had with City, County and State authorities, which resulted in a petition

America, 13,000 feet elevation.

being made to the United States Forest Service for a permit for a toll road through the Pike National Forest reserve. The Department, finding public sentiment unanimously in its favor, granted the permit granted the permit without delay. Pledges of financial support were secured from Spencer Penrose, prominent in financial affairs of Colorado, Charles M. MacNeill, copper magnate of New York and Colorado Springs, William A. Otis, investment banker of the city, Albert E. Carleton, Cripple Creek mining man, and other public spirited citizens who were willing to give of their gold to promote the welfare of the community in which they lived; thus in May of the present year the titanic undertaking was begun under the personal direction of Mr. Sunderlin, its builder. His specifications were not merely for an ordinary road, but a double track mountain boulevard wide enough that two machines