Rock Ledge Ranch Living History Association

Background Statement

Rock Ledge Ranch Historic Site’s story begins with the American Indians. The Ute’s oral tradition says that Colorado is their homeland and they have no migration story. Camp Creek Valley, which today includes Rock Ledge Ranch, was one of the Ute’s base camps, and the Ute Trail passes through both Garden of the Gods and the Ranch site.

In the mid-19th century, gold discoveries and westward expansion brought the U.S. government and the Ute into conflict. Eventually, the Ute people were removed from this area to reservations in southwestern Colorado and Utah in the 1870s.

In 1862, The Homestead Act was passed by President Lincoln, and in 1867 Scottish-born Walter Galloway built the original homestead cabin on the Ranch site. In 1974, he sold the 160-acre homestead to Robert Chambers, who built a stone house, constructed a reservoir, and dug irrigation ditches to carry water to his crops. Mrs. Chambers renamed their new home “Rock Ledge Ranch.”

In 1900, the family sold the Ranch to Colorado Springs’ founder, General William J. Palmer, and it became part of the Glen Eyrie Estate. In 1907, Palmer commissioned the construction of a country estate, called Orchard House, on the Rock Ledge Ranch property for his sister-in-law Charlotte and her husband William Sclater, and the Sclaters lived there until Palmer’s death in 1909.

After Palmer’s death, the Rock Ledge Ranch historic homes were sold as part of the Glen Eyrie estate and changed hands and sat vacant off and on until 1968, when El Pomar and the Bemis Foundation joined forces to assist the City of Colorado Springs’ purchase of the Ranch in order to preserve the area around Garden of the Gods and save the homes from demolition. In 1993, Rock Ledge Ranch began the process of total restoration and became the living history museum visitors are able to experience today.