What we know
Two-story frame hotel with one-story wings, labeled 'Monument Ho.' on both Sanborn maps; in 1900 a drugstore had the east wing (S-0147). Col. and Mrs. Ford, from Maine, ran it with 19 sleeping rooms, a parlor, an office and reading room, and a veranda to the west, at $2 a day; later Dr. and Mrs. Ballou, Dr. and Mrs. Rupp and Roy and Nellie Petrie ran it. It burned on March 24, 1922 (Lavelett, S-0011, pp. 38, 79). The business directories list the Monument House under Mrs. Ford (with varying initials) from 1875 to 1885, William Younger in 1886 and A. Dunshee in 1888 (pp. 23-29). Lavelett gives 1870 for its building, before the town was platted in 1874; Carrigan places it where the post office of 1975-2000 stood on Front Street (S-0034).
Where it was
125 Front Street and 315 Second, the southeast corner of Front and Second, 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-0034: Rob Carrigan's history posts on Colorado Restless Native (part of S-0001), read in full 2026-10-05
- 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.