J.G. Hiestand (fl. c.1890-c.1904)
Ute Pass
“Gateway” and Pike’s Peak
Hand-tinted photographs
Manitou, Colorado: c. 1890s
25 x 21 inches, matboard
21 x 17 inches, photograph
$3,800, the pair

Dramatic pair of photographs of Colorado Rocky Mountain vistas by a resident of Manitou Springs, the town where the famous Pikes Peak (modern spelling omits the apostrophe) is located. The Ute Pass skirts the north side of Pikes Peak and climbs 3,000 feet to the summit at Divide, over 9,100 feet above sea level. A wagon road when this photograph was made, it is now a four-lane highway. During the late 1800s, Ute Pass and Manitou Springs became prime vacation spots and grand hotels catered to visitors who came to enjoy the hot springs and mountain scenery.

Both are titled and signed in the plate. The Ute Pass photo has the number “105” written before the title. The Denver Public Library has another photo by Hiestand similarly numbered “400.” They estimate the date as c. 1895-1900. Perhaps these photos (that we offer) were part of the same series as theirs.

J.G. Hiestand was the proprietor of the Iron Springs Pavilion from the late 1880s, which catered to tourists visiting Pikes Peak. In an anecdote recorded in The Pike’s Peak Cog Road (1972) by Morris W. Abbott, Hiestand would take a toboggan down the rails of the cog road at the end of his workday, and is credited with having made the entire trip in 11 minutes at the astonishing rate of speed of 50 mph. Hiestand also had one of Colorado’s great mineral cabinets and sold rocks such as topaz crystals in his Iron Springs Chateau Mineral Shop in Manitou Springs. In addition, he was a proficient photographer, and left behind a marvelous documentary record of the area in his many photographs, which are in collections of a number of libraries and historical societies in Colorado.

Condition: Original hand tinting. Mounted on board as issued. Generally good, with a bit of toning. Light mat burn 1/8 inch around edges of photograph, not obtrusive. Board slightly acidic and brittle, but sound.

References:

Carpenter, Matt. “A Pikes Peak Book Collection.” Pikes Peak Central. http://www.skyrunner.com/story/pp_books.htm (13 April 2004).

“Manitou / by J.G. Hiestand.” American Memory: Denver Public Library. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?hawp:2:./temp/~ammem_dBkB:: (13 April 2004).

Thompson, Jack D. “Pikes Peak Topaz: An Interview with Colorado Collector George M. White.” Rocks and Minerals. July 2001. http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m0GDX/4_76/76549849/p1/article.jhtml (13 April 2004).