AA-2026-5CF957
On the image
Sometime in the 1950s, a family stopped at the Manitou and Pike's Peak Railway depot in Manitou Springs, Colorado, and decided the best use of a preserved steam locomotive was as a swing set. The locomotive — Engine No. 1, the cog railway's original workhorse that had been hauling tourists up to 14,115 feet since 1891 — had been retired to a display mount and outfitted, with period optimism, with a small swing hung from its running board. The child swinging from it had no particular interest in the history of rack-and-pinion mountain railroading.
The Manitou and Pike's Peak Cog Railway was the kind of attraction that postwar American families drove considerable distances to reach, because the 1950s held a sincere belief that children should be exposed to Famous Things even if the Famous Thing in question was a retired mountain locomotive and the child's response was to treat it as playground equipment. The pueblo-revival building behind the stone wall is the depot itself, which the railway maintained with an architectural seriousness that the swing somewhat undercut.
The whole scene is a precise record of how mid-century tourism worked: a national landmark, a bored child, a patient parent with a camera, and the unspoken assumption that the photograph would prove the trip was worthwhile.
Visually related — by likeness
Child on Swing, Manitou & Pike's Peak Railway Locomotive No. 1 Display, 1950s. 1950–1959. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-5CF957. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/child-on-swing-manitou-pike-s-peak-railway-locomotive-no-1-display-1950s.
@misc{aaAA20265CF957,
title = {Child on Swing, Manitou \& Pike's Peak Railway Locomotive No. 1 Display, 1950s},
year = {1950–1959},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-5CF957},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/child-on-swing-manitou-pike-s-peak-railway-locomotive-no-1-display-1950s}
}TY - ART TI - Child on Swing, Manitou & Pike's Peak Railway Locomotive No. 1 Display, 1950s PY - 1950–1959 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-5CF957 UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/child-on-swing-manitou-pike-s-peak-railway-locomotive-no-1-display-1950s ER -
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