William Jackson Palmer William Jackson Palmer ( September 18 , 1836 – March 13 , 1909 ) was an American civil engineer , soldier , industrialist , and philanthropist . During the Civil War , he was made General ( brevet ) and was a Medal of Honor recipient . Palmer ' s early career helping build and develop the expanding railroads of the United States in Pennsylvania was interrupted by the American Civil War ( 1861 – 65 ) . He served in colorful fashion as a Union Army cavalry colonel and was appointed to the brevet grade of brigadier general . After the War , he contributed financially to educational efforts for the freed former slaves of the South . Heading west in 1867 , while Palmer helped build the Kansas Pacific Railway he met a young English doctor , Dr . William Abraham Bell who became his friend and partner in most of his business ventures in which we would generally find Palmer as president with Bell as vice president . The two men are best known as co - founders of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad ( Rio Grande ) . The Rio Grande and its successors eventually operated the largest network of narrow gauge railroad in the United States , and ultimately became part of the 21st century Union Pacific Railroad . Palmer and Bell are notable for observing in Great Britain ( Bell ' s country of origin ) and helping introduce to the United States railroads , the practices of burning coal ( rather than wood ) and the use of narrow gauge railroading . He helped develop rail - related industries in Colorado , such as a large steel mill near Pueblo . He was the founder of the new city of Colorado Springs , in 1871 , as well as several other communities . After moving west , General Palmer continued his philanthropic efforts in his adopted home , particularly educational institutions of higher education . Public schools in Colorado Springs were named for both the General , and his wife , Mary ( née Mellen ) Palmer , who was known by her nickname of " Queen " . A statue of Palmer also exists in downtown Colorado Springs , across from the school named in his honor . Early life . William Jackson Palmer was born to a Hicksite sect Quaker family near Leipsic , Kent County , Delaware on Kinsdale Farm in 1836 . His parents were John and Matilda ( Jackson ) Palmer . When he was five years old , his family moved to Germantown in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , where he attended Friends School , Zane Street School , and Boys ' High School . Pennsylvania railroads . In 1851 , Palmer went to work in western Pennsylvania for Hempfield Railroad ' s engineering department as a clerk . Two years later , at age 17 , he worked under chief engineer Charles Ellet , Jr . as a rodman . Palmer became transitman for Hempfield in 1854 . Frank H . Jackson , president of Westmoreland Coal Company and Palmer ' s uncle , encouraged him to go to England to study coal mining and railroads . Palmer was particularly interested in running railroad engines on anthracite coal . He left in the summer of 1855 for a six - month period and wrote articles for " Miner ' s Journal " of Pottsville , Pennsylvania to finance the trip abroad . He also borrowed money from his uncle . While in England , he met with noted railroad engineers — like Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Robert Stephenson — and visited railroads , mills , and coal mines . Palmer went to work in 1856 for Westmoreland Coal Company as secretary and treasurer . The following year he worked at Pennsylvania Railroad and became private secretary to President John Edgar Thomson , a successful Quaker businessman , at a time when Andrew Carnegie was a peer and secretary to a company vice president . Palmer wrote , " Reports of Experiments with Coal Burning Locomotives " and learned about running a railroad from Thomson . Palmer began an evaluation of converting engines to run on coal , which was more abundant , rather than wood . His findings were key to changing the type of fuel used to run the country ' s locomotives . He began a relationship with Thomas A . Scott at Pennsylvania Railroad , who became Assistant Secretary of War in charge of military transportation during the Civil War . Civil War service . As the American Civil War began in 1861 , although his Quaker upbringing made Palmer abhor violence , his passionate abolitionism compelled him to enlist in keeping with the dictates of his conscience to enlist in the Pennsylvania volunteers . Palmer took a commission in the Union Army . He organized the Anderson Troop , an independent company of Pennsylvania cavalry , in the fall of 1861 and was elected its captain . Originally formed to act as a bodyguard for Brig . Gen . Robert Anderson , it instead served as the headquarters cavalry for General Don Carlos Buell , commanding the Army of the Ohio . Impressed with the " elite scouts " that Palmer had assembled , Buell detailed Palmer and 12 of his men to go back to Pennsylvania to recruit more men to form a battalion around the Anderson Troop that would be known as the " 1st Anderson Cavalry " . In ten days of recruiting , however , Palmer received enough applications for enlistment to form a regiment , which was authorized as the 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry . He was appointed the regiment ' s colonel . Before Palmer was able to organize the regiment at Camp Alabama in Carlisle , Pennsylvania , he and a portion of it were ordered on September 9 to help the Army of the Potomac resist the Confederate s invasion of Maryland . For nearly a week Palmer , accompanied by a telegrapher , personally sought information of Lee ' s movements every night in civilian clothing , and transmitted his findings to General George B . McClellan via telegraph connections . Two days after the Battle of Antietam , Palmer was captured while scouting at the personal direction of McClellan , seeking information on any preparations by Lee ' s army to cross the Potomac River back into Virginia . He was on the Confederate side of the river , again garbed in civilian clothes and accompanied by a local blacksmith and a parson as his guides , attempting to recross to the Union side after midnight when he was captured by Confederate artillerymen sent to guard the dam he used for the crossing . When questioned , Palmer gave his name as " W . J . Peters , " and claimed to be an engineer on an inspection trip . He was interrogated by General William N . Pendleton , who thought he was a spy . He was detained and sent to Richmond , Virginia , with a rambling note from Pendleton that was ignored . Palmer was incarcerated at the notorious Castle Thunder prison on Tobacco Row , Richmond where his true identity was never uncovered . Doubts about his identity were apparently reinforced by publication of a fictitious dispatch in the Philadelphia newspapers that purported that Palmer was in Washington , D . C . after scouting in Virginia . When he was freed after four months of confinement , he found that his guide , the Reverend J . J . Stine , had escaped but been arrested by Union authorities , accused of betraying him to the enemy . Rather than risk Palmer ' s life by publication of the circumstances in the Northern press , Stine had remained imprisoned in Fort Delaware until Palmer ' s personal application to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton resulted in his release . Palmer was set free in a prisoner exchange for a prominent Richmond citizen , recuperated two weeks , and rejoined his regiment in February 1863 . During his period of imprisonment , the regiment had become mutinous because of a failure to have officers appointed and other enlistment inducements it felt had not been honored . 212 troopers faced court - martial and the possibility of going before a firing squad for refusing to fight in the Battle of Stone ' s River . Palmer reorganized the regiment , personally appointed officers in whose abilities he had great trust , and had the charges against the confined soldiers dropped on the condition that they behaved going forward . The severely demoralized group of men rallied and distinguished themselves during the 1863 Tullahoma Campaign , the Battle of Chickamauga , the capture of Brig . Gen . Robert B . Vance ' s raiding cavalry and re - capture of 28 wagons of a foraging train in January 1864 , and the Franklin – Nashville Campaign . At Chickamauga , Palmer ' s regiment was detailed as headquarters guard for the Army of the Cumberland with many troopers doled out to the various corps as couriers and scouts . When Longstreet unexpectedly attacked the union right near Rosecrans ' headquarters , Palmer gathered all the men of his regiment available and prepared to counterattack with a saber charge . The Union right flank dissolved , however , and after attempting to rally the panicked infantry , his regiment crossed the battlefield in good order under Confederate artillery fire to protect the Union artillery . During the army ' s retreat to Chattanooga , the 15th Pennsylvania provided escort for the army ' s supply train . Not easily impressed , Major General George H . Thomas ( the " Rock of Chickamauga " ) recommended that Palmer receive a brigadier ' s star for his success at turning a highly demoralized group of men to an effective group of soldiers . Palmer was very vigorous in pursuing Confederate General John Bell Hood after the Battle of Nashville in 1864 . On March 9 , 1865 , President Abraham Lincoln nominated Palmer for appointment to the brevet grade of brigadier general of volunteers at the age of 28 , with the U . S . Senate confirming the appointment on March 10 , 1865 . On March 16 he was promoted to command of the 1st Brigade of the Cavalry Division , District of East Tennessee , consisting of the 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry , the 10th Michigan Cavalry and the 12th Ohio Cavalry . A month later he assumed command of the division when General Alvan C . Gillem was promoted to command of the District of East Tennessee . Palmer commanded the cavalry pursuit of Jefferson Davis following the surrender by General Joseph E . Johnson . Davis was followed through North Carolina , South Carolina , and Georgia and driven into the hands of General James H . Wilson . During the pursuit Palmer ' s former command overtook and captured near Covington , Georgia wagons carrying millions of dollars of specie , bonds , securities , notes , and other Confederate assets that had been kept in the Bank of Macon ( Georgia ) . Palmer was mustered out of the Union Army on June 21 , 1865 . General George Henry Thomas wrote of Palmer : On February 24 , 1894 , Palmer was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions as colonel leading the 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry at Red Hill , Alabama , January 14 , 1865 where " with less than 200 men , [ he ] attacked and defeated a superior force of the enemy , captured their fieldpiece and about 100 prisoners without losing a man . " Six former officers of the 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry had nominated him the previous October to receive the honor , but for the scouting efforts in mufti during the Antietam Campaign that resulted in his capture . The War Department rejected that nomination on the basis that the acts , while valorous , had not been performed of a field of battle . They then submitted a new nomination for the action at Red Hill , which was approved . Western railroads . Kansas Pacific Railway . After the War , Palmer resumed the railroad career he had started previous to the conflict . In 1867 , a very optimistic , eager 30 - year - old Palmer , and his 21 - year - old chief assistant Edward Hibberd Johnson , headed west from their hometown of Philadelphia , Pennsylvania . Palmer worked the Kansas Pacific Railway first as secretary and treasurer and then as managing director responsible for extending service through south central Colorado . With Kansas Pacific chief engineer Colonel William Henry Greenwood , Palmer organized a surveying expedition that recommended in 1868 that the route to the coast be diverted at Ellsworth , Kansas to Pueblo , Colorado and through the Royal Gorge to the San Luis Valley where it would turn south to Santa Fe , New Mexico . The route was rejected by the Kansas Pacific ' s board of directors in favor of a line through Denver , which was completed in 1870 . Denver and Rio Grande Railway . While in the Colorado Territory , Palmer went to Colorado City ( now Old Colorado City ) to consider a north - south route from Denver for his own railway . Palmer had a vision to build a railroad south from Denver through New Mexico and El Paso to Mexico City . Palmer founded — with Greenwood , Colonel D . C . Dodge , Governor Alexander Cameron Hunt , Charles B . Lambord and others — and was elected president of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad in 1870 . The first section of the railway included the first narrow gauge railroad tracks in the West . The line ran south of Denver and across the Palmer Divide , which separates the Platte River and Arkansas River watersheds , and to Colorado Springs by 1871 . The line went to Pueblo in 1872 , and further south to coal fields beyond Trinidad in 1873 . The railroad had service along the Arkansas River canyon to other coal mining locations , to the metal mining town of Leadville , and the iron mines in Saguache County , Colorado . Palmer stepped down as president in 1883 to focus greater attention on developing the Mexican line . Rio Grande Western Railway . Palmer was president of the Rio Grande Western Railway from 1881 or 1883 to 1901 . He built lines from the terminus of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railway in Grand Junction to the Utah cities of Ogden and Salt Lake City . This provided direct service from Denver to Utah via narrow - gauge railway . Mexican National Railway . In the spring of 1880 , Palmer was made president of the Mexican National Railway ( now National Railroad of Mexico ) . He hired Greenwood again as chief engineer in May , only to have Greenwood robbed and murdered on a survey near Mexico City on August 29 . Most of the line was completed by 1883 . The railroad made it to Mexico City . Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs . Palmer came to the Colorado Territory as a surveyor with the Kansas Pacific Railway in search of possible railroad routes . Dr . William Abraham Bell from England was also part of the survey party . On July 31 , 1871 , Palmer and Bell founded Fountain Colony ( later Colorado Springs ) , downstream of Colorado City , and it was laid out by the Colorado Springs Company that year . It was named for three natural mineral springs near Monument Creek or the springs in nearby Manitou Springs . He also founded the town of Manitou ( later Manitou Springs ) as a resort town at the base of Pikes Peak . Palmer spent about $ 1 , 000 , 000 ( ) on the construction of roads and development of parks in Manitou Springs , Old Colorado City , Colorado Springs , and Manitou Park . In Colorado Springs , Palmer provided funding for Colorado College and within two years , Colorado Springs the town at 1 , 500 residents , schools , churches , banks , and a newspaper . Palmer donated land to establish the first city park , Acacia , and additional parks : Antlers Park , Monument Valley Park , North Cheyenne Cañon Park , Palmer Park , Pioneer Square Park ( South Park ) , Prospect Lake and Bear Creek Cañon Park . He donated a total of 1 , 270 acres of land , some of which was also used for scenic drives , tree - lined roadways and foot and bridle paths . Palmer also provided the funding for a school for the deaf , a tuberculosis sanatorium , and libraries . With the land that he also gave for parks , churches , libraries , hospitals , and schools , he donated a total of 1 , 638 acres . Palmer founded the " Colorado Springs Gazette " newspaper . In 1883 , he built the Antlers Hotel . When it burned down in 1898 , he rebuilt the hotel with Italian Renaissance architecture . Other towns were founded by Palmer along his railoroad lines , include Salida , Alamosa , and Durango . Colorado Coal and Iron Company . Palmer envisioned " an integrated industrial complex based on steel manufacturing " in which all necessary resources were controlled by one company . In 1880 , Palmer constructed Colorado Coal and Iron Company ' s ( CC & I ) steel mill south of Pueblo and laid out the town of Bessemer ( now incorporated in Pueblo ) . The Minnequa plant became one of the greatest iron and steel plants in the country . His dream became a reality for his successors when , in 1892 , CC & I merged with the Colorado Fuel Company to form Colorado Fuel and Iron . Personal life . Over the course of his life , Palmer was a member of the Denver Club , Colorado Springs Country Club , El Paso Country Club , City Midday Club ( New York ) , and the Metropolitan Club ( New York ) . Marriage . Palmer met Mary Lincoln ( Queen ) Mellen in April 1869 while she and her father , William Proctor Mellen , were on a train returning from a trip to see the West . They were married November 7 , 1870 in Flushing , New York where the Mellen family lived at the time . They spent their honeymoon in Europe . They had three daughters , Elsie , Dorothy , and Marjory . Palmer built his Glen Eyrie , Scottish for " Valley of the Eagle ' s Nest , " in 1871 near Colorado Springs . Queen taught at Colorado Springs ' first school . Palmer had apartments in London and New York , a castle near Mexico City , and property throughout Colorado . The Palmers traveled frequently with their children and governesses to New York and London for William ' s business and lived part - time at Glen Eyrie in Colorado . Queen was of frail health possibly aggravated by living at high altitude . While pregnant with their middle daughter Dorothy in 1880 , Queen suffered a heart attack in Leadville during a vacation . Dorothy was born a few weeks later at Glen Eyrie . Then , their third daughter , Marjorie , was born in England . Two maids and a doctor had accompanied them on the trip . Over the next four years , Queen often lived on the East Coast or England , with visits by Palmer . In 1885 , she left Glen Eyrie permanently , needing to live at a lower altitude . About 1887 , Queen and the girls lived permanently in England including renting Ightham Mote in Kent for 3 years . William and Queen vacationed in France and Italy in the spring of 1889 . Queen died in England on December 27 , 1894 , at the age of 44 . Retirement . When Palmer retired from business , he devoted himself to philanthropic endeavors , giving away $ 4 million ( ) . In the autumn of 1906 , Palmer suffered a fall from a horse and was partially paralyzed . Left with a broken spine , Palmer was thereafter confined to a wheelchair . Unable to travel , Palmer hosted the veterans of his 15th Pennsylvania Volunteer Regiment troopers for their annual reunion in August 1907 at Glen Eyrie . He provided a special train and paid the travel expenses for 208 of about 260 surviving veterans . Mrs . J . A . Hayes , the wife of a prominent Colorado Springs banker and daughter of Jefferson Davis , was an honored guest at the reunion . William Jackson Palmer died on March 13 , 1909 at the age of 72 . On the day of his death schools , businesses , and trains stopped and flags flew at half mast in Colorado Springs . The mayor said Palmer was " the soldier , the builder of an empire , the philanthropist , the friend of the people , whose life was a blessing . " " Gazette " journalist Dave Phillips said that he was " an ardent pacifist , humanitarian and champion of preserving wildlands at a time when conservation was almost unheard of . " His and Queen ' s ashes are buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Colorado Springs , Colorado . Medal of Honor citation . The medal is on permanent display at the Colorado Springs Pioneer Museum .