El Pomar Carriage Museum

Did you know Colorado Springs has a museum about carriages and early automobiles? And it’s free!

The El Pomar Carriage Museum located on Lake Avenue, across from the Broadmoor Hotel. It features over thirty carriages and early automobiles from the collection of Spencer and Julie Penrose, some of the founders of Colorado Springs and the creator of the Broadmoor Hotel.

The museum is not terribly big, but there is a lot to look at and the curator, Jason, is very knowledgeable and eager to share information and answer your questions.  (Seriously, most museum curators know their stuff but Jason knew his stuff and had a passion for it that was easily transferred to us!)

In addition to the carriages and vehicles, there’s a display of cowboy and Native American artifacts from the Penrose collection as well.

Be sure to open the drawers for some more interesting items!

There is also a section with history from the Pikes Peak Hill Climb, and this spring they are expanding the museum to have an even larger section on the Hill Climb history.  It’s expected to be completed in June 2014.

This museum is definitely worth visiting if you love local history or just history in general.  My kids like history and historical fiction and we were all imagining ourselves riding around in these vehicles in turn-of-the-century attire.

You can park in the Broadmoor parking garage right next to the museum and the museum will give you a ticket so you don’t have to pay for parking.  When you go up the elevator from the parking garage, turn right out of the elevator, go down a short hallway, and then turn left and go up the stairs and outside to get to the museum.

For more information on the El Pomar Carriage Museum, go here.

Looking for more things to do in Colorado Springs?  Our events page lists not only local events, but things that you can do almost day of the year!