Who is this bloke, and why does he look so serious? I give you Zebulon Montgomery Pike, noted explorer and the namesake of Pikes Peak, the very large mountain that looms over our city. I cannot tell you why he looks so serious, but maybe it's because he (rather ironically) never made it to the summit of the 14,110 foot high mountain that bears his name. I don't really know very much about old Zeb, though it seems like practically everything here is named after him! (Those things that aren't are named after the Air Force Academy.) Here's something interesting: in googling him I stumbled across the fact that there is a Pikes Peak in Iowa! Who knew?!? I'm pretty sure it's not as tall as our Pikes Peak ;^)
Alas, there are no photographs of Mr. Pike, since he lived before photography was invented. By the way, Zeb died rather spectacularly, in Canada of all places -- you can find a brief account of his demise (and a nice portrait of him) HERE. And if you care to see this statue of him with your own two eyeballs, you can find it at 270 S. Tejon Street.
4 comments:
Thank you very much for the funny story on this very serious man " who is photographed in stone". Very entertaining writing about Zebulon
Montgomery Pike.
Tomás.
Interesting that he got the Peak named after him and he didn't even make it up...ha.
He does look serious.
I know a number of things about him from the history of the American west, but I hadn't ever seen a likeness. His expression looks very serious. The sculptor did good work.
Nice looking statue.
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