Cheyenne Mineral Spring

Cheyenne spring is another natural Cheyenne Spring artesian soda spring, though it wasn’t developed commercially until 1893, when the Manitou Mineral Water Co. built a stone spring house around it and conveyed the water and gas to their bottling plant. The water is now piped to the cast bronze font designed and fabricated by sculptor Paul Rogers.

During the 1870s, Cheyenne Spring was part of the then-larger Soda Springs Park which encompassed the springs of Navajo, Cheyenne, Shoshone, and Manitou (now located inside the Spa Building). Twenty years later, the current spring-house was built over the naturally-carbonated, artesian soda spring by the Manitou Mineral Water Company. The red-orange Lyons sandstone was sourced from nearby Kenmuir Quarry, now Red Rock Canyon Open Space. Other expressions of the Lyons sandstone can be found in Garden of the Gods Park, northeast of Manitou Springs. Inside the spring-house, a copper-clad, carbon-dioxide gas collector sits in the center of the cistern. The mineral water company claimed to be the first in the world to capture natural gas emitting from the source and reinsert it during the bottling process to produce ever-popular sparkling beverages.

About the Font Artist: Paul Rogers

The cast-bronze font was designed and fabricated by sculpture artist Paul Rogers. Mr. Rogers holds a BFA from the University of Oklahoma, with minors in Design, Sculpture, and Art Education. He also studied Design and Sculpture at San Francisco Art Institute, City College of San Francisco, and did post-graduate studies in Ceramic Design at Redlands College, CA. Manitou Springs is proud to have Paul Rogers' work exhibited locally at the Commonwheel Artist Co-op Gallery at 102 Cañon Avenue.