What we know

Sandstone pillar west of Monument, the formation the town is named for: when the Rio Grande came through in 1871, 'the railroad and Henry Limbach changed the name to Monument after the beautiful rock formation to the west,' which 'stands high and can be plainly seen from the town' (Lavelett, S-0011, p. 7; her cover photo of about 1885 is captioned the same way). The post office had been called Monument since April 1869 (p. 32), so the name was in use before the railroad. The Monument Nursery of 1907 stood 'at Monument Rock' by the 1976 survey's description (S-0101), 'at the foot of Mount Herman' by Carrigan's, and the Civilian Conservation Corps camp F-60-C worked 'in the shadow of Monument Rock' from 1933 to 1942 (Carrigan, S-0034). The town flag designed for the Bicentennial shows Monument Rock against Mount Herman (Case, S-0110).

Where it was

USGS GNIS pillar 'Monument Rock', El Paso County (2021 Colorado file, S-0007). Good to a few hundred feet.

See it on the map

Sources

S-0006: USGS Geographic Names Information System, Colorado file, 2021-08-25 edition
S-0007: USGS GNIS DomesticNames, Colorado (current edition)
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-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-0110: Linda Saulnier Case, "Monumental Happenings and Histories" (The Tribune, 2018–2019), part of S-0108

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 Monument Rock?

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.