Register of the Rockies

The existence of hundreds of names in the Garden of the Gods has long been one of the best kept secrets of the Pikes Peak region. Covering the great sandstone rocks – to the height of the human reach – are the engraved names of some of the countless multitude who passed this way and who followed the centuries-old American custom of immortalizing their visits in stone. With chisel or knife or jagged rock they have carved into the naked sandstone surfaces not only their names, but also their points of departure and dates of arrival.

The Garden names are everywhere. There are names carved into the base of every major rock formation. There are some names high up on the rock walls, others half- hidden in the darkened recesses of the narrow clefts. There are names lining the passageway that leads to the top of South Gateway Rock, and a few names forever sealed inside the great cavern of its companion to the north. Throughout the park - from Balanced Rock in the southwest corner to White Rock near its eastern gateway - countless individuals have seen fit to register their Christian names, their initials, their distinguishing family names.

The earliest identifiable names in the Garden date back to the year 1858 and the beginnings of the great Pikes Peak Gold Rush. These names belonged to gold seekers I. L. Avery, William Hartley, Marshall M. Jewett, Fred Kockerhans, Augustus S. Voorhees and Andrew C. Wright.

To these early gold seekers the sandstone rocks at the base of Pikes Peak must have appeared as blank pages of gigantic proportions. Adam-like, they could not resist being among the first to carve their names into the virgin rock. None of the individuals so immortalized could have known that their signatures would survive a century and a quarter of exposure to the elements. None could have foreseen that the dates they recorded would one day be used as physical proof to mark their passage. But sign their names they did, dating them in the sandstone rocks. And in so doing, they initiated the practice that has long since turned this Garden of the Gods into the great Register of the Rockies.


Andrew C. Wright

William Hartley

Augustus Voorhees

I. L. Avery

Fred Kocherhans

Marshall M. Jewett

E-mail me at GehlingR@aol.com