A Timeline of Colorado Springs Queer History
Below is a query of all dated bullet points from across this database. It is in development. Due to Obsidian's date formats, dates must be entered with a month, date, and year. In cases in which exact days or months are not known, they are rounded down to either the 1st in a month, or January in a year. For more exact information about dates, read the article.
Note
The omission of any key events is due to this research being an ongoing effort, and is not a reflection of an event's significance. You can help us create a more complete timeline by contributing to the project.
1858
| Date1 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| July 01, 1858 | The Pikes Peak Gold Rush leads to an influx of miners and prospectors, leading to the founding of Colorado City as a supply hub. Miners brought their traditions of same sex dances with them, which went by a handful of names, among them: cowboy dances, bull dances, stag dances, or "Miner's Balls" | Pikes Peak Gold Rush |
1878
| Date1 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| July 01, 1878 | A group of horse thieves who had been active in the southern and western parts of the state are intercepted by vigilantes. One of the horse thieves is killed by gunfire, and it is revealed that they were assigned female at birth, and dressed in male attire. | The Horse Thief of 1878 |
1893
| Date1 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| January 01, 1893 | During her summer teaching English at Colorado College, Katharine Lee Bates pens "America the Beautiful," inspired by a trip to the top of Pikes Peak. | Katharine Lee Bates |
1899
| Date1 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| June 30, 1899 | Helen Thompson is arrested for masquerading in male attire. "The gay Helen was also packing a gun," as reported by the Cripple Creek Weekly Tribune & Advertiser. | Helen Thompson |
1906
| Date1 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| January 01, 1906 | April, 13th, : Bessie the Girl Hobo is discovered at the Sierra Madre train station, dressed in mens' clothing. Her story sparks a national media frenzy. | Bessie the Girl Hobo |
1948
| Date2 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| January 01, 1948 | Barbara Grier and her family move to Colorado Springs. She starts attending Colorado Springs High School (now called Palmer High School). She is frequently at-odds with her counselors, who are distressed by her open lesbianism. | Barbara Grier |
| January 01, 1948 | Barbara Grier is taken from school and questioned by two Colorado Springs police officers about her lesbianism. She is told to stay away from the young woman who reported her, as well as her workplace, the Peak Theater. | Barbara Grier |
1949
| Date1 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| January 01, 1949 | Barbara Grier steals her local library's only copy of The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall. This may have been Penrose. Still researching. | Barbara Grier |
1959
| Date1 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| November 01, 1959 | The Denver Mattachine newsletter publishes an account by a man named Stanley Norman about how he was tricked and harassed by someone who claimed to be an undercover military cop from Camp Carson. Upon asking the Colorado Springs Police Department, Stanley finds out the man was not actually a cop. | Stanley Norman |
1965
| Date1 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| January 01, 1965 | Date approximate. According to her own account, Elvira starts performing at The Purple Cow at the age of 14. She stands in for a drag queen who had to call out one night, but soon becomes a regular part of the act. This precedes the official opening announcement of The Purple Cow. Working to figure out this discrepancy. | The Purple Cow |
1969
| Date3 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| January 01, 1969 | The Exit shifts into being a gay bar full-time. | The Exit |
| July 04, 1969 | The Purple Cow changes hands from Karen Muir Davis to Gerda Luck, and changes from serving New Orleans Cuisine to German. Under Gerda Luck's ownership, the club begins to host some of the first drag shows in Colorado Springs. | The Purple Cow |
| December 27, 1969 | "The Family," an LA-based drag troupe under the direction of Robert Juleff, is performing in Colorado Springs. I am unsure when their time at the Purple Cow started or ended. Elvira, Cassandra Peterson at the time, begins to perform alongside them. | The Purple Cow |
1971
| Date5 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| January 01, 1971 | The Community Action Project, including gay Chicano activist Donaciano Martinez, founds the Colorado Springs Free Clinic which would go on to become Peak Vista. | Colorado Springs Free Clinic |
| August 01, 1971 | The Purple Cow changed hands to Gabe Duenas and became "The Critic's Choice." It was also called "Beefeaters II." Gabe cites issues with the venue's reputation as a "loser's place" because of its changing ownership and history as a strip club. | The Purple Cow |
| October 17, 1971 | The Gay Liberation Front of Colorado Springs holds its first political education class on gay liberation. In attendance were people who were involved in the black movement, the chicano movement, GI organizing, women's liberation, the poverty program, and the movement to free Angela Davis and other political prisoners. | Gay Liberation Front of Colorado Springs |
| November 06, 1971 | The Gay Liberation Front of Colorado Springs marches in an anti-war protest in Denver, alongside the Denver and Fort Collins fronts. | Gay Liberation Front of Colorado Springs |
| December 14, 1971 | The Colorado College Campus Association meets to discuss the chartering of the Gay Liberation Front of Colorado Springs, which now consists of both community members and Colorado College. The student government approves the request at the meeting, but the decision is vetoed by the President of the college, Lloyd Worner. Protests ensue in the coming weeks and months, encouraged by national GLF figures like Jack Baker. | Gay Liberation Front of Colorado Springs |
1972
| Date2 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| January 01, 1972 | The Colorado Springs Women's Health Service Clinic is founded with the mission to teach other women about their bodies and their health through the "well-woman" context, and to provide healthcare services for women. | Colorado Springs Women's Health Service Clinic |
| December 11, 1972 | Colorado College holds Same-Sex Lifestyles Symposium featuring national figures like Jack Baker and Dr. Mark Friedman. The symposium was in response to the growing unrest between the student body, president Worner, and the Gay Liberation Front of Colorado Springs when Worner vetoed the student government's decision to charter the Gay Liberation Front as a campus group. | Colorado College |
1973
| Date2 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| January 01, 1973 | In the Spring of this year, the Gay Liberation Front of Colorado Springs held a protest at Colorado Springs City Hall to address the police harassment that had been going on outside of the local bars. The organization referred to it as the "1973 Witch Hunt." The media refused to cover it, and the more moderate gay men in the community found the move too controversial. | Gay Liberation Front of Colorado Springs |
| September 01, 1973 | Colorado College launches its first Women's Studies class, developed by one of the few women professors at the time and the teaching collective with Colorado Springs Women's Health Service Clinic. | Colorado College |
1974
| Date1 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| June 17, 1974 | Victoria Henderson, a black trans woman, is murdered by a Fort Carson soldier, George W. Phelps, at 610 S. Union Blvd. | Victoria Owens |
1975
| Date3 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| March 06, 1975 | The Lambda Services Bureau is founded by Dorothy Bell, Donaciano Martinez, and Malachi Truman Harris. | Lambda Services Bureau |
| March 26, 1975 | David McCord and David Zamora make national news as the first same-sex couple in Colorado history to get a marriage license. | Marriage of David McCord and David Zamora |
| November 01, 1975 | The Box Car Opens. | The Box Car |
1976
| Date4 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| March 06, 1976 | The IRS revokes the Lambda Services Bureau's 501(c)3 status because the organization refused to state that homosexuality was a "sickness, disturbance, or a diseased pathology." | Lambda Services Bureau |
| June 06, 1976 | Count and Countess Shel Anderson and Nicki Lee announce the founding of the Southern Colorado auxiliary court to the Rocky Mountain Empire that would come to be known as the United Court of the Pikes Peak Empire. | United Court of the Pikes Peak Empire |
| July 01, 1976 | A hearing is held at the IRS National Office regarding the IRS' decision to revoke the Lambda Services Bureau's 501(c)3 status. | Lambda Services Bureau |
| November 21, 1976 | The Box Car hosted the Ms. Gay Colorado contest. The event was sponsored by the Royal Sub-court of the United Court of Southern Colorado. According to Out Front, the event was the "first gay women's title event that this paper has ever heard of in the U.S." The event was hosted by Shel Anderson and Mike Brown (Nikki Lee), the Count and Contessa of Southern Colorado. | The Box Car |
1977
| Date3 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| June 12, 1977 | The Hide & Seek hosts the first annual Lambda Awards event, in which gay businesses across Colorado would select winners from various categories. | Lambda Awards |
| August 01, 1977 | The 501(c)3 status of the Lambda Services Bureau is reinstated. | Lambda Services Bureau |
| November 01, 1977 | The Lambda Services Bureau dissolves. | Lambda Services Bureau |
1978
| Date1 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| September 01, 1978 | Sergeant Bill Douglas protests the army dragging their feet on discharging him for being gay by going into the Fort Carson mess hall in full drag. | Little Bill Douglas |
1979
| Date3 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| January 01, 1979 | The Colorado Springs Women's Health Service Clinic moves to 111 E Dale St. | Colorado Springs Women's Health Service Clinic |
| June 25, 1979 | At the meeting of the Gay Community Center of Colorado, the PPGCC was officially recognized as an affiliate. | Colorado Springs Pride Center |
| October 11, 1979 | The first board is appointed to the Pikes Peak Gay Community Center. | Colorado Springs Pride Center |
1980
| Date1 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| November 05, 1980 | The Box Car bar is intentionally set on fire, according to investigators' findings. | The Box Car |
1981
| Date2 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| June 05, 1981 | First noted outbreak of HIV/AIDS, which would go on to devastate the gay community for decades to come. | AIDS Epidemic |
| July 27, 1981 | KKTV airs a 4-night news special over the course of the week called "Gays in Colorado Springs." | Gays in Colorado Springs by KKTV |
1984
| Date2 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| January 01, 1984 | The Colorado Springs Women's Health Service Center closes its doors. | Colorado Springs Women's Health Service Clinic |
| January 22, 1984 | The Pikes Peak Gay Community Center opens the Lambda Resource Center at 729 1/2 W Colorado Ave. It was its first building, which housed the library, offices for the board of directors and the helpline. | Colorado Springs Pride Center |
1985
| Date7 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| January 01, 1985 | The Source releases its first issue. | The Source |
| January 01, 1985 | Alan Wakefield approaches the Pikes Peak Gay Community Center with the idea of the center's helpline sponsoring a block party. This led to the first Center Block Party, Alive With Pride in '85. This sparked an annual tradition. | Alan Wakefield |
| May 10, 1985 | Excel, a weekend conference for gay and lesbian Christians, is attended by 57 gay men and women from across the region. The conference takes place at La Foret Conference Center. | Excel |
| July 15, 1985 | The 501 N Foote STI clinic starts to offer testing for HIV/AIDS, alongside 7 other clinics across the state of Colorado. | 501 N Foote Clinic |
| September 01, 1985 | Don Thomas passes away at 39 from AIDS. He is memorialized in The AIDS Quilt. One of his last wishes, expressed to his friends, was to "do whatever we could to make sure this wouldn't happen to anyone else." | Don Thomas |
| November 02, 1985 | Ricky Morris passes away of AIDS at the age of 32. | Ricky Morris |
| November 17, 1985 | The Gazette runs the article RICKY: Life and Death with AIDS, written by Cate Terwilliger. | Ricky Morris |
1987
| Date1 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| November 14, 1987 | The Colorado College Board of Trustees approved the following statement to their college catalog and administrative handbooks, making the school the first in Colorado to adopt such a policy, according to a school official at the time: "The policy of Colorado College is not to discriminate on the basis of race, color, age, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or handicap." | Colorado College |
1988
| Date1 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| September 01, 1988 | Modesto performs at an AIDS benefit fundraiser in drag. This would later be used against him when he is court martialed. | Edward Modesto |
1990
| Date3 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| January 01, 1990 | IOYS is founded by Regina Dipadova. | Inside Out Youth Services |
| February 01, 1990 | Alan Wakefield passes away due to HIV/AIDS. The Pikes Peak Gay Community Center's block party that year was dedicated to him, in honor of him starting the tradition. | Alan Wakefield |
| October 22, 1990 | The trial of Edward Modesto begins. Modesto faces nine counts of doncut unbecoming of an officer for engaging in homosexual acts, and two counts of indecent exposure for performing in drag at the Hide & Seek. | Edward Modesto |
1991
| Date2 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| January 01, 1991 | Debut of the first ever Pikes Peak Pride festival. | Pikes Peak Pridefest |
| January 01, 1991 | Focus on the Family moves to Colorado Springs, unfortunately. | Focus on the Family |
1992
| Date2 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| November 01, 1992 | Amendment 2 passes, which amended the Colorado state constitution to make it illegal to discriminate based on sexual orientation. This gained Colorado the name "The Hate State." | Passage of Amendment 2 |
| December 01, 1992 | Terry Schleder founds "Boycott Colorado" in response to the passage of Amendment 2. | Boycott Colorado |
1993
| Date2 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| September 25, 1993 | Seven members of the Lesbian Avengers are arrested at the Focus on the Family opening ceremony. Seven other members had tickets to the event. Four were led off the property, three were arrested under investigation of disorderly conduct. Named in the October 11, issue of Stonewall News: Tressa Priest of Manitou Springs. | Lesbian Avengers |
| October 25, 1993 | The Lesbian Avengers appear in court regarding their demonstration at the Focus on the Family opening ceremony. | Lesbian Avengers |
1995
| Date1 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| June 16, 1995 | New Phazes art show opening reception at the Pikes Peak Gay Community Center, Bijou and Parkside. Mentioned also were accompanying special events at The Penthouse Lounge and the The Hide & Seek. | New Phazes |
1996
| Date3 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| January 01, 1996 | LisaJo Laptad and Christina Danielle found the Southern Colorado Intraregional Transgendered Society, which would later become Peak Area Gender Expressions. | Peak Area Gender Expressions |
| February 06, 1996 | The trial of Sean O'Neill draws national attention, and members of the advocacy group The Transsexual Menace fly into Colorado Springs to advocate for his freedom. | Sean O'Neill |
| May 20, 1996 | The Supreme Court strikes down Amendment 2, ruling it unconstitutional. | Passage of Amendment 2 |
2002
| Date2 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| March 01, 2002 | The Pikes Peak Gay and Lesbian Community Center's building on W Pikes Peak Ave. burns down due to arson. | Colorado Springs Pride Center |
| April 26, 2002 | Lesbian Avenger, KRCC Radio Host, and beloved community member Jocelyn Sandberg is murdered outside of Armstrong Hall at Colorado College. | Jocelyn Sandberg |
2006
| Date1 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| November 01, 2006 | The Born Different campaign launches in response to Amendment 43 which sought to make gay marriage illegal in Colorado. | Born Different and The Dog That Moos |
2007
| Date1 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| January 01, 2007 | Focus on the Fabulous by Matt Kailey is published. | Focus on the Fabulous |
2008
| Date1 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| October 11, 2008 | The Colorado Springs Pride Center releases its anthology Colors of Courage - Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Life in Colorado Springs. | Colors of Courage - Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Life in Colorado Springs |
2011
| Date1 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| July 03, 2011 | Three male dancers who perform at a local gay club were attacked at a fast food restaurant in North Colorado Springs were attacked by a group of five men and two women who assaulted them and called them faggots. | July 3rd Attack |
2012
| Date1 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| June 13, 2012 | Colorado Springs School District 11 votes to include gender expression, identity, transgender status, and sexual orientation in anti-disctimination and harassment policies pertaining to students and staff, with input from the Pikes Peak Safe at Schools Coalition | Inside Out Youth Services |
2013
| Date1 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| January 01, 2013 | Colorado College finds itself at the center of a national debate after it uses the word "queer" on an online job application when applicant John Kichi filed a complaint with Colorado Attorney General John Suthers. The story gains national attention and sparks a nationwide debate around the term "queer." | Colorado College |
2015
| Date1 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| January 08, 2015 | The Pikes Peak Pride Center closes its doors after 36 years of operation. | Colorado Springs Pride Center |
2016
| Date1 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| February 05, 2016 | First ever Queer Open Mic at Mountain Fold Books | Keep Colorado Springs Queer |
2022
| Date1 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| November 19, 2022 | Anderson Lee Aldrich enters the Club Q bar and nightclub and commits a mass shooting which injures 25 and kills 5. Daniel Davis Aston, Kelly Loving, Ashley Paugh, Derrick Rump, and Raymond Green Vance lost their lives. | Shooting at Club Q |
2026
| Date1 | Event | Article |
|---|---|---|
| January 07, 2026 | Colorado Springs-born woman, Renee Nicole Good, is killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, MN. | Renee Nicole Good |
This timeline is incomplete and being added to on a regular basis. Want something added? Contribute to the project and let us know!