Memories of a Lifetime

Memories of a Lifetime in the Pike's Peak Region is a first-person account by Irving Howbert, first published in 1925. Howbert came to Colorado in 1860, at fourteen, with his father, and he stayed in the Pike's Peak country for the next seventy-four years. The book is his own telling of those decades, written by a man who was present for much of what he describes.

According to the description, Howbert writes about the Santa Fe Trail, life in the placer mining camps of the 1859 to 1860 Pike's Peak Gold Rush, and Indian troubles, including the Sand Creek Massacre, in which he took part as an eighteen-year-old. He goes on to the coming of the railroad and the Cripple Creek mining excitement. As Colorado Springs grew he served as El Paso County Clerk, built the Colorado Springs Opera House, and held many mining and business interests.

The description also says that no one was more influential than Howbert in the Colorado Springs area in the late 1800s and early 1900s, other than his friend and business partner, General William Palmer. This is a Reprints title in our list: the words are Howbert's from 1925, and Western Reflections has brought the book back into print.

This book is for readers of Pike's Peak region history who want a primary source rather than a retelling. Researchers working on Colorado Springs, Colorado City, the Cripple Creek district or the Sand Creek Massacre will want a participant's own words on the record. Genealogists with pioneer families in El Paso County may find it useful, and so will libraries building a Colorado shelf. It is a memoir of its time, so expect Howbert's 1925 view of events, not a modern history.

Irving Howbert was a businessman, mine owner and public figure in the Pikes Peak region who was born in Indiana and came west as a boy. He served as El Paso County clerk and recorder from 1869 to 1879, and he later headed the First National Bank of Colorado Springs. Sources differ on the exact years of his birth and death, so we leave them out. More about him is on his author page.

More about Irving Howbert →

Howbert's own career gives the book its backbone. He was El Paso County clerk and recorder from 1869 to 1879, and he issued the paperwork that established Colorado Springs, according to his Wikipedia entry. He served about six months with the 3rd Colorado Cavalry in 1864 and 1865 and was at Sand Creek. His father was a Methodist missionary who first visited Colorado in 1860, and the family moved to Old Colorado City in 1861.

The Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum says Howbert, Benjamin Crowell and J.F. Humphrey built the city's Opera House in 1881 with profits from their mining ventures in Leadville. It cost $80,000, opened on April 18, 1881 with a sold-out performance of Camille, and stood at 18 North Tejon Street.

A Westside Pioneer article about a later reprint adds that Howbert's grandson of the same name let the 1925 copyright expire, reasoning that his grandfather would have wanted the book to reach as many readers as possible. The same article says Howbert helped establish the El Paso County Pioneers' Association in 1895.

Source: Irving Howbert, Wikipedia