page_title: Seven Lakes, Colorado
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Seven Lakes, Colorado / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Tourists at Seven Lakes near Pikes Peak, taken about 1876 by L.K. Oldroyd
context_page_description: Seven Lakes is an abandoned, historical populated place in Teller County, Colorado on the Pikes Peak mountain. It was once the site of the Seven Lakes Hotel along a carriage road to the summit of Pikes Peak. Its waters flow from Beaver Creek to the Lake Moraine reservoir, a supplier of water to Colorado Springs.
context_section_description: Seven Lakes Park was a horse shoe basin nearly enclosed by Bald Mountain's (generally now called Almagre Mountain) walls. In the late 1870s a wagon road from Colorado City (now Old Colorado City) to Jones Park was extended to Seven Lakes. From there it was about five mile hike to the top of Pikes Peak. In 1889 the carriage road was completed from Seven Lakes to the Pikes Peak summit. Another route could be taken in 1904 on the Colorado Springs and Cripple Creek District Railway (Short Line) to the Clyde station. It was about 3.5 miles (5.6 km) via trails and the carriage road to Seven Lakes.
  A one-story log cabin built about 1877 in a ravine at 11,000 feet (3,400 m) in elevation served as hotel. In 1880, Mayo G. Smith bought the Seven Lakes Park property and ran the hotel from 1882 to 1883. It was visited in 1887 by the Boyden Expedition of Harvard College who took atmospheric measurements of Seven Lakes and Pikes Peak. The hotel was expanded to several stories and fitted with a billiard room and bowling alley, and burned down in the 1880s. Visitors came to the area to camp and fish. The Pike's Peak and Seven Lakes Toll Road Company was established by 1890.
caption: Tourists at Seven Lakes near Pikes Peak, taken about 1876 by L.K. Oldroyd
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