The General and his associates had had ample experience of new western railroad towns, and wished to eliminate the disagreeable features of such towns from Colorado Springs. Even then, though the prohibition movement had not been fairly launched in this country these practical men recognize the fact that Meeker had recognized; namely that with saloons, dance halls and gambling places, gunfighting and lynchings went hand in hand. It is recorded that the restriction seemed to work against the town at first, but, on the other hand, such growth as came was substantial, and Colorado Springs attracted a better class of settlers than the wide open towns nearby. The wisdom of this arrangement is amply proven, to-day, by a comparison of Colorado Springs with the neighboring town of Colorado City, which has not had prohibition. Even before Colorado Springs existed, General Palmer had fallen in love with the place and determined that he would some day have a home at the foot of the mountains in that neighborhood. In the early seventies he purchased a superb cañon a few miles west of the city, and the Tudor Castle which he built there, and which he named Glen Eyrie, because of the eagles' nests on the walls of his cañon, remains to-day one of the most remarkable houses on this continent. Every detail of the house as it stands, and every item in the history of its construction expresses the force and originality which were such strong attributes of its late proprietor. The General was an engineer. In the Civil War he was colonel of the 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry, and was breveted a general. After the war he went into the West and became a railroad builder. Evidently he was one of those men, typical of his time, who seem to have had a craving to condense into one lifetime the experiences and achievements of several. He was, so to speak, his own ancestor and his own descendant; there were, in effect, three generations of him: soldier, railroad builder, and landed baron. In his castle at Glen Eyrie one senses very strongly this baronial quality. Clearly the General could not be content with a mere modern house. He wanted a castle, and above all, an old castle. And, as Colorado is peculiarly free of old castles, he had to build one for himself. That is what he did, and the superb initiative of the man is again reflected in the means he used. The house must be of old lichen-covered stone, but, being already past middle age, the General could not wait on Nature. Therefore he caused the whole region to be scoured for flat, weathered stones which could be cut for his purpose. These he transported to his glen, where they were carefully cut and set in place, so that the moment the new wall was up it was an old wall. Finding the flat stones was easy, however, compared with finding those presenting a natural right angle, for the corners of the house. Nevertheless, all were ultimately discovered and laid, and the desired result was attained.