History of Cheyenne Mountain Library

Cheyenne Mountain Library serves the community at one of the most historically important intersections in southwest Colorado Springs, where a historic wagon trail met the Cheyenne Boulevard trolley line 125 years ago. That wagon trail followed the only natural corridor between sections of steep terrain along the southwest edge of the city, forming what became 8th Street and creating the primary link between the West Side and the southern foothills for more than a century.  

The trolley line that met the trail was part of the Colorado Springs & Interurban Railway system, which was owned by Winfield Scott Stratton and whose routes extended throughout Colorado Springs and as far as Cheyenne Canyon, Palmer Park, and Manitou Springs. One of those lines ran along Cheyenne Boulevard, meeting the wagon trail at the intersection where Cheyenne Mountain Library is located today. 

Library service to the area began in 1956. The developing neighborhoods around the Broadmoor, though still outside city limits, placed high demand on the Colorado Springs Public Library. To meet that demand, the Library added a bookmobile stop at the then–Three Eagles Shopping Center—now the same Cheyenne Plaza where Cheyenne Mountain Library stands today—two years after the bookmobile program launched. The stop remained one of the system’s busiest for its entire existence. 

The area was officially brought under Pikes Peak Library District (PPLD) when the District formed in 1964, placing the Broadmoor neighborhoods within its formal service area. By the 1970s, PPLD was converting its highest-demand bookmobile stops into neighborhood libraries, the Broadmoor-area stop among them. In 1977, PPLD opened the Broadmarket Square Library just north of Cheyenne Plaza, named for the commercial center that housed it. Rising use led to an expansion into a larger space in the same shopping center in 1980. 

In 1993, the Library moved to a larger facility in Cheyenne Plaza, the same shopping center where Library service had begun nearly forty years earlier and adopted the name Cheyenne Mountain Library. In its early years at this location, it was also informally known as the “Teddy Bear Library” because of a prominent display of donated teddy bears. 

Today, Cheyenne Mountain Library continues to serve the community at the same crossroads where the wagon trail and the Cheyenne Boulevard trolley once met, a location shaped by geography and strengthened by history. Some patrons refer to it as the “8th Street Library,” a reflection of the long-standing role of the 8th Street–Cheyenne Boulevard corridor as a key connection point for the southwest side. The location remains one of Pikes Peak Library District’s busiest libraries to this day.