If you’ve enjoyed a doughnut at the Summit House atop Pikes Peak, then you’ve accomplished two things the great Zebulon Pike never did. He never reached the top of his mountain, and the doughnut was invented in 1847, 34 years after Pike’s death.
Score two points for you, but let’s examine Pike’s resume and see if the lead holds. I would argue Pike is Colorado’s greatest contribution to the American story, worthy of more than Colorado has given back. That’s saying a mouthful about Pike, whose peak is America’s mountain‘, where Katherine Lee Bates was inspired to write “America the Beautiful” in 1893.
Sure, Colorado also gave Zebulon a neighboring national forest, but some perspective: We live in a place that has handed out names to natural wonders such as Poverty Gulch, Big Dry Creek, Bald Knob, Mount Baldy, Middle Baldy and Little Baldy. My man Zeb should have a county or a city named after him, equal to (railroad promoter and Gov. John) Evans, (Ute Chief) Ouray, (surveyor John W.) Gunnison or (state Sen.) John H. Crowley. Sixty-four counties have been named in this state, and none of them are named Pike.