The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-09-05
Medicinal Springs Are Con sidered Among Most Won
 derful In the World
UNIQUE SIDE TRIPS
 RADIATE FROM HERE
Many Birmingham People There This Summer--Night Parties Up Pike's Peak to See the Sun
 Rise
nx c. NJ. STANLEY


 Mantou is principally one long street which follows alongside beautiful moun- tain stream and it is along this stream that the city's wonderful springs are found.
 The soda spring is the most popular this year as usual, and it is wonderful to see this water pouring forth as full of bubbles as our real carbonated soda water from the fountains It is so plentiful that vis- itors are allowed to take it away in their bottles and they make lavish use of the privilege.
 The iron springs have their devotees also but this water cannot be carried away because it is not so plentiful. A fact that seems strange is that these springs are all all privately owned. It would seem that public ownership would have been retained in these great gifts of nature.
 In reaching Mantou from Colorado Springs one passes through Colorado City, the oldest town in Colorado, and the states first capital. A diminutive log cabin along the route is pointed put as Colorados first state house, but it does not seem to be much honored for it's past. A sheet iron shed built against one side of it does not add much lustre to it's halo of historical pride.
 1t is from Manitou that visitors take the cog road to the top of Pikes Peak; the cog road up Mount Manitou; the trip through the Garden of the Gods; the journey to Williams cavern, and the Cave of the Winds, to say nothing of the less well known points of interest.
 Here as in Colorado Springs the livery business is one of the chief industries, for it takes lots of horses. carriages au- tomobiles and burros to carry the thou sands of visitors to the various points which the car lines and railways do not reach.
 One of the chief attractions at a pop corn stand adjoining the soda spring is ''Tommie," formerly one of The Age-EIer- ald's most ubiquitous and loquacious red headed office boys But you can always count on a good office boy to make bis way anywhere in the world.
 Tommie says there have ben no less than 30 Birmingham people at the Springs this season.
 No less than half mile of curio shop windows along the main. thoroughfafe e are never ending source of interest to visitors.
 Although there seems to be thousands of people here residents say the crowds are nothing like those of past seasons 
 If there be an unusually large proportion of consumptives in this section of Colo rado one would never suspect it, for have seen but two during my entire visit to the state who I thought were stricken. Drinking fountains are plentiful every where. Even the smallest towns have these sanitary fountains the principal corners
 spring here which yields so-called radium iron water" is not public, and water from it can be procured only in the form of lemonade purchasable at an ad- iaeent counter.
 It costs s1 to go to the top of Mt. Mani tot by a cable route and S5 to ascend Pike's peak by the cog road The Mt. Manitou trip seems to be about such a journey as that up Lookout at Chatta- nooga.
 It is very popular to go up Pkes peak to see the sun rise. The cog train makes special night trip for this purpose.
 Burro parties are organized every after noon to go up and the sun rise the following morning. Starting up the trail about 2:3O in the afternoon they get to the top about a. m., and thus have some time to rest before the sun comes up Many people-men and women--make the trip on foot. It takes about the same time as by burro. As you ascend you can see exhausted pedestrians all along the way, whose friends are working over them. Sometimes it is pure fatigue and sometimes the attitudes change in atmos- pheric pressure that proves too much for uninitiated. friend told me he walked up in the moonlight this week without stopping and smoked cigars all the way. The climb is approximately nine miles, though the actual altitude at the top is less than three miles The peak is 14109 feet high but Manitou, where the start is made, is 6slS feet.