What we know
Still standing: the 'well-preserved 1894 farmhouse', a Queen Anne in a rural setting, on the State Register as Reynolds Ranch, 5EP.2223, since Sept. 10, 1997 (History Colorado, S-0194), with two bunkhouses and two barns, one of 1893; it is the last building of the Husted neighborhood on its original site (PLHS newsletter, 2016, S-0002; Gazette, 2016 and 2025, S-0108). Joseph E. Reynolds, a Union veteran and carpenter who had worked in the Divide sawmills, came to the neighborhood in 1882 (his 1883 homestead patent is three miles east-southeast, in Secs. 10 and 15; S-0080); by 1899 his 720-acre ranch 'stands on section 6' near Husted, and as a legislator he 'introduced the bill and secured its passage for building the state reservoir at Monument' (PBR 1899, S-0192, pp. 655-656). The Sun Hills essay says the Reynoldses bought this land in 1889 and built the house in 1894 (S-0114), the State Register's date; museum statements in the Gazette have said 'around 1892' (2016) and 'late 1890s' (2025). The ranch ran a dairy and a sawmill (Gazette, 2016). By 1918 John George Hagen 'now resides upon the Joe Reynolds ranch, known as the Twin Oak place, at Husted Station, comprising one thousand acres' (Stone, S-0193, vol. 3 p. 784). The 1977 county survey lists the 'Hagen farmhouse' at the Northgate exit of I-25 (Freed and Barber, S-0101), and Lavelett called it 'still a lovely home' in 1979 (S-0013, p. 68). Nine families owned it before the museum; the Air Force Academy bought the land west of I-25, which is why it survived (S-0002; Gazette, 2016).
Where it was
The Reynolds Ranch House on the grounds of the Western Museum of Mining & Industry, 225 North Gate Blvd: placed at the farmhouse nearest North Gate Boulevard in aerial imagery, which fits the Sun Hills essay's farmhouse 'which you see when you drive by' with the museum building 'farther back' (S-0114). It stands on Clark Z. Cozens's 1873 homestead, Sec. 6 lot 5 and Sec. 7 lot 1, T12S R66W (BLM GLO, S-0080), the 'section 6' of Reynolds's 1899 sketch, whose printed range 67 is a slip for 66: the section is 1.77 miles northeast of Husted station, as the sketch says. Good to a few hundred feet.
Placed from a written description, such as a land section, a distance from a landmark or an old survey note.
Sources
- S-0002: Palmer Lake Historical Society website (palmerdividehistory.org)
- 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-0013: Lucille Lavelett, Monument's Faded Neighboring Communities and Its Folklore: Pring, Husted, Gwillimville, Table Rock, Spring Valley, Greenland (Colorado Springs: printed by ABC Printing, 1979), 70, [40] p., illus., map, facsims.; page numbers cited are those of the third printing (Palmer Lake Historical Society, 2026), which is paged differently from the 1979 printing
- S-0080: General Land Office land patents, Bureau of Land Management (glorecords.blm.gov)
- 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-0108: The Gazette and The Tribune (Pikes Peak Newspapers) on gazette.com: local-history columns and features
- S-0114: Bill Eckert, "Sun Hills Neighborhood History," Sun Hills Association website (sunhillsestates.org), "History & Community Links" page; undated (after 2004)
- S-0192: Portrait and Biographical Record of the State of Colorado (Chicago: Chapman Publishing Company, 1899)
- S-0193: History of Colorado, illustrated, vols. 2-4, biographical (Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1918 [vols. 2-3] and 1919 [vol. 4]), the set edited by Wilbur Fisk Stone
- S-0194: History Colorado, Colorado State Register of Historic Properties: "Reynolds Ranch," site 5EP.2223, 225 N. Gate Rd., Colorado Springs vicinity (listed Sept. 10, 1997)
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.
1976 survey photographs
Taken for Elaine Freed and David Barber's survey of El Paso County's historic sites and held by the Pikes Peak Library District. The links open the library's records.