423 N. Cascade Avenue Colorado Springs, CO 80903 Phone (719) 635-7925 Karen Lakes, Curator klakes1817@mac.com

Hours: 10 AM – 4 PM Winter: September – April Thursday – Saturday Summer: May – August Wednesday – Saturday Sunday 12 PM – 4 PM Admission Charged For Tours

    The McAllister House Museum also offers special Christmas Teas and Tours in December and Valentine’s Day Teas and Tours in February. Guests tour the museum and then are invited to the Carriage House to enjoy their tea. Cost is $15.00 per person.

    Victorian Teas and Tours are also offered for private groups. The minimum number for these teas is 15 and the maximum is 18. Please call the curator for information and to book a date for your group. Or, if your group would like to rent the Carriage House for a meeting, the staff can also arrange a catered lunch along with a tour for $13.00 per person.

    We will be having Valentine Teas at noon and 2 pm on February 9th and 16th.

    We also will have a special story time session with Mary Mashburn at 2 pm on March 15th.

    Please call (719) 635-7925 for more information and reservations.
 

McAllister House History

From the Colorado Springs Gazette, September 27, 1873:      “The Walls of Major McAllister’s house on Cascade Avenue are rising rapidly. When completed, it will be far the handsomest resident yet put up in the town.”

In the Spring, 1873, as the winds swept across the fledgling town of Colorado Springs, a young army major, Henry McAllister, was brought here with his family by the city’s founder, famous Civil War General William Jackson Palmer. McAllister, the new director of the Colorado Springs Company, would contribute enormously to the development of Palmer’s dream of an “idyllic community” at the foot of Pikes Peak.

The early days were not easy ones in Colorado Springs. Most homes of the new town were single frame houses, put together with whatever materials were at hand, or were mail order houses sent from Chicago. Heavy Chinook winds sometimes buffeted the area as well, with one 1873 storm blowing a narrow gauge train from its rails.

Major McAllister determined his new home would be built to withstand the very worst of the elements – and so it was, now being one of the few surviving from that era. While under construction, he had the outer walls of his brick and stone cottage increased to twenty inches, and the roof anchored into the masonry with thick iron rods. The house was to serve as a symbol of stability and permanence for the new community.

Quite substantial for its time, the McAllister family house was finished to include marble fireplaces brought from Philadelphia, unique “doorway” windows, and carpentry work by later mining mogul W.S. Stratton. Standing almost alone in the northwest corner of town, Henry and Elisabeth McAllister’s house became one of the show places of Colorado Springs.

The McAllisters continued to influence Colorado Springs into the next century with the three children who were raised in the house on Cascade Avenue. Henry Jr. became a prominent lawyer and district attorney, and the daughters, Mary and Matilda, became school teachers in the community. Henry Jr.’s home in Denver today also serves as an historical house museum.

Through careful research and restoration, the Colonial Dames, aided by generous gifts, have been able to return the Downing Gothic Cottage to the original charm and elegance which greeted our first community leaders.

Today’s visitors may tour this home which is in a neighborhood of historic Victorians, stands on its own. Knowledgeable guides and staff help recreate the city and family history making the house and its pioneering occupants live again.