The Broadmoor has had its fair share of interesting tales to tell over our 100-plus-year history. Here are a few of our favorites.
For a time during the 1960s, water-skiing was allowed on Cheyenne Lake. The resort would host demonstrations, and guests could also strap on a pair of skis and take a lap around the lake.
Topped by a glass roof and decorated with live plants and trees, La Taverne's Garden Room opened in 1953 and featured a fountain that, for a time, included a pair of resident flamingos. While most diners found them amusing, the flamingos were quickly relocated to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.
The Broadmoor's 35-by-80-foot indoor swimming pool was the largest in the West when the resort opened in 1918. Line with blue-and-white ceramic tiles, the pool was filled with mountain spring water and purified by filters and a powerful violet-ray machine.
Originally used for staging plays and musical performances - including Igor Stravinsky, Vladimir Horowitz and Sergei Rachmaninoff - The Little Theater became a movie theater on July 4, 1948. Today, guests can enjoy complimentary daily screenings.
In anticipation of Prohibition, Penrose stockpiled more than 300 cases of assorted liquor for the hotel. When Prohibition ended in 1933, he shipped an additional cache of liquor to the resort. Some of these bottles are memorialized in Bottle Alley, outside of La Taverne restaurant.
Ski Broadmoor opened in 1959 on the slopes of Cheyenne Mountain. Ahead of its time, the facility included lights and a $200,000 snowmaking machine known as the "Phenomenal Snowman," the first of its kind west of the Mississippi River.
The Broadmoor Manitou and Pikes Peak Cog Railway is the highest cog railway in the world and the highest railway in North America. Zalmon Simmons built the railway in 1891 and sold it to Spencer Penrose in 1926.
Mr. Penrose constructed the 7-mile-long Cheyenne Mountain Highway, nicknamed the Wonder Road, in 1925 as a means to reach his mountaintop hideaway atop Cheyenne Mountain. The road coast more than $1 million to build and rises more than 3,000 feet in elevation. It was featured in "Ripley's Believe It or Not" as the most-crooked highway.
During televised coverage of the 2008 U.S. Senior Open, a black bear wandered onto the course during the second round of the tournament. The bear crossed the tee box on hole No. 14 soon after Mark McNulty hit his drive. Tom Watson's backswing was interrupted by shouts of "Bear!" and an NBC commentator was seen running the opposite direction down the fairway.
On June 29, 1918, guests crowded into The Broadmoor for a gala grand opening. Visitors found the lobby, halls, restaurants and 350 guest rooms exquisitely decorated, with appointments personally selected by Julie Penrose, wife of Broadmoor founder Spencer Penrose. The room rate was $10 to $12 per night, which included three meals prepared by Executive Chef Louis Stratta.
