Into the Future

With the inexorable spread of Colorado Springs to the east, it has long been only a matter of time until the Jimmy Camp area was slated for development. In the late 1980's Frank Aries bought most of the old Jimmy Camp Ranch, all except for thirty-five acres surrounding the houses and ranch buildings, as well as 100 acres around Jimmy Camp Bluffs, which remained with the family of the late Raymond Lewis. The 22,000 acres that made up Aries Properties was annexed by the city of Colorado Springs on 12 July 1988.

Frank Aries' plans for the Jimmy Camp Ranch included the construction of an Olympic Hall of Fame, a series of roads including the new Banning-Lewis Freeway and the building of low and medium density housing. At the suggestion of Tom Dines, an Aries Properties consultant and the stepson of Pinkey Lewis, an area on either side of Jimmy Camp Creek (including the traditional springs and much of the old campground) would have been given to the Colorado Springs Park and Recreation Department for development as a greenway, with 693 acre of horse trails and bicycle paths. A golf course would also have been built in the hills north of the springs, with the 17th hole located on the site of the Upper Springs. The archaeological report on the area had just been completed and excavation work was about to begin when the Savings and Loan Scandal broke. The Aries Properties were almost immediately taken over by a government agency.

This government agency - the Resolution Trust Company - finally sold the Aries Properties to a group of Saudis in March of 1993. The Saudis paid only $18,500,000 for it, less than one-tenth of what Frank Aries had borrowed on the property just eight years ealier. They also decided to honor Aries' original agreement to turn over 693 acres of park land to the city, but the city parks department has yet to develop this gift. The Park Advisory Board has been considering a plan to build a large reservoir near the new park. The reservoir would be spread out over as many as 1,000 acres and would hold water pumped up from the Pueblo Reservoir. Whether the waters from this reservoir would inundate any of the historic sites at Jimmy Camp yet remains to be seen.

It is to be hoped that, when the old Jimmy Camp area does become part of the city park system, archaologists and historians will be given an opportunity to study the springs, to measure the old foundations, to search for the graves, and to erect the necessary historical markers. Preservation was no problem when the area reposed as quiet ranchland. Now, suddenly, it becomes a matter of great urgency.

After a century and a quarter of peace, of enforced repose, Jimmy Camp is about to awaken to a renewed life. Once again, men will bring their horses to drink of the cool, spring water. Once again, dogs will bark and children will play along the river banks. Once again, the sound of human laughter will echo through this historic campground where mountain men once cooked their evening meals, where gold seekers dreamed of settling, and where a trader named Jimmy came but to die.