For me, the Green Settlement was the first magical surprise on the trail north of what is now called Greenwood Park. As I first rode through there in awe, I found inch-wide, tiny deer tracks that looked like they belonged to miniature deer, or fawns – not our big mules, sunk deep into the dead pine needles. There were also the ruins of two old cabins, more like rotting logs in the shape of foundations, close to a giant boulder. Dad later told me it was known as the “Green Settlement”.
Of course, an unexplored “settlement” was like honey for us kids. After climbing straight uphill from the valley behind the “three chimneys ruin” (picture below), we dropped down a very steep trail to get to the settlement which actually turned out to be the remains of only two cabins, and perhaps a root cellar, or prospect pit. We kids managed to get there alone, or in pairs; on horse or on foot. For us, finding that hidden jewel was breathtaking, I mean, it really was. The area seemed closed off from the outside, almost stuffy like the wind hardly ever blew there.
Very few of the cabins remained, and if you were not careful, you could easily miss one or both of the foundations. Sometimes, I only saw one. There was a sign that read “wagon road,” two mounds, and the huge boulder on the right if you were coming from Greenwood Park.
‘The Green Settlement is a historic homestead site in North Cheyenne Cañon Park, Colorado Springs, Colorado. The remains of the settlement are located in a forest below Daniels Pass. Green’s Settlement Hike – a 6-mile hike along mostly easy trails with some climbing (1,200’ vertical). It is an out and back route from Pulloff 21 – Daniel’s Pass Trail and connecting Daniel’s Pass Trail, Sweetwater Trail, and Greenwood Path. Plan on a 3-hour hike.“
I remember my sister Sandy found a crumbling rusted-out lantern frame near one of the foundations. On another occasion, we with our cousins, managed to climb the giant rock. It took some effort, but we ate sack lunches up there until we felt a bit eerie and decided to leave. Maybe Clara had joined us, lol. We’d follow the faint trail back down the gully to the mysterious three chimneys, and back to Basing’s, the home we knew in the valley at the time. The land had changed hands several times, and now it was the Basing’s property.
By now, you’ve probably figured out that the mysterious “Greenwood Settlement” was the property of the courageous Clarra Cassatt. Why Clara’s place was known as the “Green Settlement” is a mystery, as is the name Green in Greenwood Park. There’s another mystery. Who built those structures that held the three lonely stone chimneys, and who burned them down? Maybe you can find the answers.
Photo (below) by Eric Swab
Frederic R. Smith, a Colorado Springs banker, replaced Bertha’s family and friends, as the energetic owner who had big dreams in the Sweetwater Valley.
A 1928 Gazette article mentions that the road that branches off the Old Stage Road near the “Voss Chimney” was Frederick Smith’s private auto access. Eric Swab told me the work was done by Henry B. Martin (Bertha’s son-in-law) along with a Mr. Mosier the owner of the property “south of Greenwood Park” Whatever that meant.
Frederick likely built a summer house and 8 ponds for trout at the canyon. However, nothing definitive of his home remains except a charming photo of a nice house overlooking a pond, in a clipping that Eric found, and a couple of small pond basins. I vaguely remember seeing two or three cement-ringed basins way down the meadow below Basing’s home in the 50s and 60s. Several other broken earthwork dams once held fish, of course, there is nothing left to see in 2024 when my sisters and I last saw the meadow.
Remnants of those ponds must have been the inspiration for my dad to build his trout dams in Twilight Canyon.
Our house overlooked the middle of the dam, much like Frederick’s home in the photo.
I feel pretty certain Smith built the reservoir and pumphouse up by the bridge over Sweetwater Creek, which was destroyed by Subsequent owners, toward the upper-end of the valley. Frederick may have been the reason for the many raspberry bushes in that area, as well as the currants along the reservoir’s rim. This makes sense since the bushes did not seem to grow anywhere else in the valley. It is uncertain whether he built the music house and the garage, and I can’t recall who else might have done so.
Further down the valley from those properties, to the southeast, where the canyon walls become very steep, there is a junction where Sweetwater Creek flows into South Cheyenne Creek. It was there that in 1926 Frederick proposed to construct a huge 75-foot-tall dam. It never came to be, I guess.
But I remember chunks of cement and lots of iron rust littered the stream in that area, so who knows? If he had managed to complete it, we Mulbergers probably would not have lived where we did, and the folks at Seven Falls would have had a serious fit.
A few years back, Eric sent me this article that would have fit into that general area.
Article supplied by Eric Swab
Fred, the banker later sold the property to Frank Cheeks, who passed it along to his daughter Dorothy Smith. Dorothy was the curator of the Pioneer Museum in Colorado Springs. She then bought it back in 1944. Eric has a photo of her sitting atop a horse. She was the second Rodeo Queen at Pike’s Peak or Bust Rodeo.
The Pikes Peak or Bust Rodeo has been a Colorado Springs tradition since 1937, showcasing the top rodeo talent and action, while providing wholesome entertainment for the Pikes Peak community to enjoy.”
Dorothy owned Georgianna Russell’s place between 1944 and 1948. She sold the land in 1948 to my dad, Hank C. Mulberger, and his friend, Myrtle Basing. Basing apparently never platted the land in Sweetwater Canyon, and his name, oddly, doesn’t appear in the ownership records. Another one of those mysteries.
Myrtle (Mert) Basing was a friend of Dad’s from back in Wisconsin. He was a Green Bay Packer from the thirties, and or, forties – when there was no padding on the uniforms, and the helmets were made of leather with long ear flaps, as the only real protection. He was the co-pilot who flew over the property with Dad when they decided to buy the 160 acres and split it into 80 acres each.
Basing’s gorgeous resort-like home was faced with logs. I thought it was a log home, but the back and side walls were formed with cement. The entrance opened into a humongous living room with a lovely fireplace in the middle of the east-facing wall, and at that end, there were two large picture windows. There were two sets of other picture windows in the living room, one on each side of the front door.
At the west end, there was a kitchen smallish and quaint, and a stove that I thought was wood or coal, which was always busy baking bread, or some such. That stove was later changed for a gas range, probably from Montgomery Ward’s. Most of our furnishings seem to have come from the “Monkey Wards” catalog at the time. There was a side-door exit, beyond a pantry and perhaps a small bathroom. The exit was out near the retaining wall between the house and the garage. Later, a propane tank was installed by that wall.
There were three levels. A half-level up featured the bedrooms and a bathroom, arranged along an enticing, pine-paneled hallway. The half-level had an unobstructed view of the living room below it. The hall ended in a door that opened – but went nowhere – except down – I guess the steps never got made. At the other end of the lovely pine board hall, toward the kitchen, was a linen closet, and to its left were a few stairs that led up to an expansive, open loft with a piano, then the dining area and long living room lay below the loft.
Laurette Basing was very kind and tried to teach Sandy and me needlework. I remember she had one of the old tomato style needle sharpeners. She also prepared and tended the most beautiful perennial garden I have ever seen. It was loaded with beautiful blooms.
She had several colors of columbines, hollyhocks, and snapdragons; she showed us how to open and close their tiny mouths. There were also glorious daylilies and tiger lilies, as well as morning glories, foxgloves, delphinium, dahlias, gladiolus, and Johnny jump-up pansies. Most memorable though, were the Irises. Her Irises were unbelievably big and beautiful and came in mauve and maroon, and many shades we’d never seen before. Sandy and I got our life-long love of irises in that garden.
In the 1960s my favorite memories were picking red raspberries that must have gone wild all along the road from the bridge. where buildings once stood. My sisters and brothers -Val, Fella, Peter, Sandy and I, would carry pitchers of the treasured fruit to Eleanor, who became part of our family after my mom, Peg’s death. Eleanor’s jam was marvelous. Only once, do I remember competing for the berries with the bears, at the Basing’s place. We left! In our 2024 visit, there was not a single raspberry or current bush to be found! Too many flash floods.
When we last saw Laurette’s Garden beneath the patio wall, on a nostalgia trip at a family reunion in the early 1990’s, the retaining walls were gone, and it was a ruin. All of us kids were together when we looked at what was left of the burnt building. There were still some brave, volunteer irises in the old bed, under where the patio once was. Through the decades, Sandy and I dug some to take with us wherever we went, as a reminder of that lovely place and time. In 2024 we noticed brave sentinel irises popping up around the meadow because the flower bed from nearly 70 years ago been destroyed.
The expansive cinder block patio bricks above the garden had been pink and gray. I remember looking out the screen door from the Basing’s living room, watching a cat come softly padding-right across the patio toward me. It was about my height and had beautiful white markings around its mouth and eyes – which were staring right at me – about two feet away. At first, I was awed by its beauty, then it got creepy and I was frozen.
I tried to say something to Mom about the kitty, and eventually, she and Laurette stepped over and closed the door on the cougar. Looking back, I can see that it was curious rather than threatening – but still, a flimsy screen in a door is too fragile for protection. We went all over those mountains and never got eaten, although Sandy had another close encounter at our house, which wasn’t far from the Basing’s, and it could easily have been the same animal.
The Basing’s had two domestic cats; one lived until it was 16, the other maybe 12 or 14. That was the longest I’d ever heard of at that time. Most outdoor cats, even today, live 6 or 7 years. They also had a dog, a huge German Shepherd. Our parents had that dog’s brother, whom they loved and they called him “Big Mike.”
Photo of Peg and Big Mike. Hank and Peg, once called it the “honeymoon shack”.
For some weird, unknown reason the Basing’s dog came over into our canyon one day, and attacked Mom from the back when she was hanging out laundry on the clothesline in the yard outside the kitchen window. I think it bit her back and arms, then she ran into the house to get a .22 pistol and shot the dog in the head trying to kill it, but the bullet lodged in its skull, and the animal ran home. The dog didn’t die, but the Basing’s were horrified by the fact that Mom had shot their beloved pet.
For their part, Mom and Dad could not believe the Basing’s were unsympathetic to Mom’s circumstance. This was a catastrophic event that happened around 1956-7. Mert and Laurette refused to get rid of the dog, and unfortunately, that ended their long-time friendship. Sadly, Mr. Basing died shortly after that from a heart attack.
We children felt awful but didn’t know what to do. . .
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PART THREE Will Be Posted
Very Soon!
Author Diane Olsen
Diane Olsen Award Winning Author 