What we know

The castle-shaped butte just north of downtown that named the town (Wikipedia, 'Castle Rock, Colorado,' S-0150). The 1820 Long expedition's 'Castle Rock' was a different landmark, Elephant Rock near Palmer Lake (McFarling in Sabin, S-0019). A star was built on top in 1936 by Works Progress Administration labor and lit each winter from 1936 to 1941, dark during the war, turned into a 'V' on Aug. 14, 1945, and lit every season since (S-0150). Who gave the town the rock is not settled: Wikipedia says the land came by donation in 1936; a Larkspur Historical Society binder says Herb Stewart and his three brothers sold the 'Rock' and 20 surrounding acres to the town for a token $200 in 1947, after their father G. P. Stewart's death in 1943; it is now Rock Park (S-0005, Perry Park binder p. 356).

Where it was

USGS GNIS summit 'Castle Rock', Douglas County (2021 Colorado file, S-0007). Good to a few hundred feet.

See it on the map

Sources

S-0005: Larkspur Historical Society, "Historical Site Survey Binders"
S-0006: USGS Geographic Names Information System, Colorado file, 2021-08-25 edition
S-0007: USGS GNIS DomesticNames, Colorado (current edition)
S-0019: Marion Savage Sabin, Palmer Lake: A Historical Narrative, ed. Lloyd McFarling; 2nd ed. by Roger Davis; "Fifth Edition" (Palmer Lake: Palmer Lake Historical Society, 2019); first published Denver: Sage Books, 1957
S-0048: Wikipedia: "List of ghost towns in Colorado," the populated-places lists by county, county articles, and articles on vanished places
S-0073: Lloyd McFarling, "News from the Town of Monument, 1874–79," The Colorado Magazine 35, no. 3 (July 1958), pp. 193–208
S-0150: Wikipedia articles on landmark landforms: "Castle Rock, Colorado" (rev. 1375089669), "Cathedral Rock (Colorado)" (rev. 1365424290), "Corral Bluffs" (rev. 1362716791), "Dawson Arkose" (rev. 1321242418)

Sources are named in the text above. Numbers such as S-0080 refer to our source list. Most newspaper quotations were read in the Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection. Long quotations from recent books are shortened here.

Know more about Castle Rock (the butte)?

Corrections, family stories, photographs, deeds, letters and maps are all welcome. Messages and files come to Michael Christensen privately; nothing appears on the site until it has been checked, and you'll be credited the way you ask.