Review by Ed Quillen
History – April 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine
A Pike’s Peak Partnership – The Penroses and the Tutts
by Thomas J. Noel and Cathleen M. Norman
Published in 2000 by University Press of Colorado
ISBN 0-87081-609-8
WHEN THE Salida Regional Library was expanding a few years ago, it had to raise money because construction costs were running well ahead of the architect’s estimates, and the bond issue had been based on the estimates.
Donations came in — including a six-digit contribution from the El Pomar Foundation of Colorado Springs. That’s been the case for scores of projects — other libraries, as well as hospitals, museums, private schools — in the southern half of Colorado since 1937.
A Pike’s Peak Partnership explains where that money came from and how it is managed, and it does so by telling the story of two families, Penrose and Tutt.
Spencer Penrose came from a long line of Philadelphia blue-bloods (his brother, Boies, became a U.S. senator), but he was something of a family black sheep. Charles L. Tutt was also from Philadelphia, but without that privileged background.
Both went west to Colorado in the late 19th century to seek their fortunes. They met in Colorado Springs, invested early in Cripple Creek and got rich. They got richer by building chloridation mills to treat Cripple Creek’s gold ore.
The really big money came from another investment. They trusted a mining engineer named Daniel Jackling when he said that the low-grade copper ores of Bingham Canyon, Utah, could be mined profitably, just as electricity and telephones were catching on, creating a huge demand for the metal.
Some of those profits went into sugar beets and other agricultural production around Garden City, Kan. Penrose also built a resort hotel near Colorado Springs, the famous Broadmoor, which he delighted in promoting, along with other attractions he owned, like the Pike’s Peak Highway.
Charles Tutt and his descendants had a varying relationship with Penrose — sometimes partners, sometimes hired managers.
Penrose eventually consolidated all his investments into a holding company, named El Pomar for the apple orchard that had stood where he built a mansion.
Even before his death, he made major charitable donations at the urging of his generous wife, Julie. After his death, the holding company became a charitable foundation, managed by various Tutt heirs even to this day.
That’s the basic story, and since this is an authorized history, it naturally focuses on the bright spots.
BUT IT DOESN’T GLOSS over the horrid working and living conditions in the mines and mills and company towns that Penrose owned, nor does it minimize his role in trying to smash unions and union organizing in the early 20th century.
In the last half of the 20th Century, El Pomar became a major force guiding the development of the Colorado Springs area — for instance, by providing money to lobby for the Air Force Academy:
“Driving through Colorado Springs, one sees many landmarks connected to the Penroses, the Tutts, and El Pomar. On the north side of town lie the Air Force Academy Visitor Center, Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame, Focus on the Family headquarters, and the new library and research center at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, each funded by large El Pomar grants. On the south side are the Broadmoor Hotel, Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun, Penrose House, and Colorado Springs World Arena.
“To the west are the Pike’s Peak Automobile Highway and the Manitou & Pike’s Peak Railway. In the heart of the city are the Colorado College campus, the Montgomery shelter for the hungry and homeless, the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, and Penrose Hospital. On the eastern edge lies the U.S. Olympic Complex.”
That’s quite a list, and many of those are institutions which help define the character of this region. So this is a significant history, and one told well.
Some analysis of the effects of El Pomar philanthropy would have been welcome (i.e., how did the arrival of Focus on the Family headquarters change Colorado’s traditional “live and let live” politics), but that’s probably asking too much from an authorized account.
— Ed Quillen
