Over the years I have done stories about the danger of being close to Fountain Creek. There have been many floods that have swept down from the Palmer Divide and Ute Pass that damaged our area, and even to the Arkansas River and onto Kansas. I have looked in the old newspapers for information on the really old ones, with a bit of luck.
There were newspapers in this area as early as 1859, but not much has survived. The start of Colorado Springs in 1871 saw the start of newspapers that were actually saved. From that I find that the first recorded flood in this area was in 1878. At that time Colorado Springs and Colorado City saw bridges washed away. The Rio Grande was the only railroad in the area at the time, and large chunks of it from Fountain south were washed away. By the time the waters reached Pueblo the potential for damage was pretty well done.
In 1885 there was another flood that hit hard. It rained hard up on the Palmer Divide all the way down the front of the mountains to Canon City. It destroyed most of the bridges along the way except for one that was in Colorado Springs that was a replacement for one lost in 1878. Lower downtown Colorado Springs was flooded, but the area around Fountain seems to have been hit hard. Homes close to Fountain and Jimmy Camp Creeks were washed away. It seems that word came from the railroad telegraph, and no one was lost, but there was plenty of damage. The newspaper said,"the stream seamed as broad as the Missouri River and roared like the Arkansas on its way through the Grand Canyon." That was the name of the Royal Gorge back then. The area around Buttes was barely able to stand above the water. Further south the area had not seen as much rain and was flatter.
In Pueblo the people were prepared for a double punch. The waters, like they had in 1878, went down as they continued south to Pueblo, but the rain from the west meant the Arkansas was way up too. There was flooding in Pueblo, but it only lasted a few hours. Over the years Colorado Springs and Pueblo have both made changes after each of their floods. In Pueblo they even moved the river away from downtown after the 1921 flood. Colorado Springs channelized the Monument Creek path in 1936. Fountain eased onto higher ground. The earliest settlement was down in the low land where Fountain and Jimmy Camp Creek meet, which itself has moved further south after all of the flooding.