What we know
Two-story frame general store with one-and-a-half-story additions and a dwelling behind, on both Sanborn maps (S-0147). It is the only frame general store on Front Street on either sheet, which makes it a candidate for R. C. Elliott's store: Elliott and J. W. Mudge opened a store on Front Street in 1879, and Elliott ran it for many years (Lavelett, S-0011, pp. 15-16); the 1976 survey describes a two-and-a-half-story frame store of about 1880 (PPLD record of survey B61). The maps name no owners.
Where it was
104 Front Street, west side, on the Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Monument, sheet 1, Nov. 1895 and Oct. 1900 (Library of Congress, S-0147); placed by fitting the sheet to today's Front, Washington and Jefferson street crossings at 1st and 3rd streets (six points, each within about 15 feet of the fit). Good to about a hundred feet.
Sources
- S-0011: Lucille Lavelett, Through the Years at Monument, Colorado: The Story of Monument, Colorado, 5th printing (Palmer Lake: Palmer Lake Historical Society, 2004); first published Colorado Springs: Valliant Press, 1975
- S-0017: Pikes Peak Library District, Regional History & Genealogy
- S-0101: Elaine Freed and David Barber, Historic Sites & Structures, El Paso County, Colorado ([Colorado Springs]: prepared for the El Paso County Land Use Department, [1977]), 56 pp., with the survey photographs in PPLD's Historic Sites and Structures collection
- S-0147: Sanborn-Perris Map Co., Monument, El Paso County, Col., fire-insurance maps, sheet 1, November 1895 and October 1900 (Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division, Sanborn Maps collection)
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.