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.
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.
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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.
Andrew C. Wright
I. L. Avery
©1999-2000-2001-2002-2003-2004-2005-2006-2007 Richard Gehling