Ernest Whitney

author

Ernest Whitney

1858–1893

A Yale-educated teacher and writer, he is best remembered for preserving stories and landscapes of the Pike’s Peak region in the late 19th century. His work blends local color, poetry, and an early effort to record Native traditions connected with Manitou and the Colorado Rockies.

1 Audiobook

Legends of the Pike's Peak Region; The Sacred Myths of the Manitou

Legends of the Pike's Peak Region; The Sacred Myths of the Manitou

by Ernest Whitney, William S. Alexander

About the author

Born in Cornwall, Connecticut, on February 27, 1858, Ernest Whitney studied at Yale and went on to teach, including work at a boys' school in Elmira, New York, and later at Albany Academy, where he taught English and rhetoric. He eventually moved west to Colorado Springs, a change that shaped the writing he is known for today.

Whitney wrote about the scenery, folklore, and atmosphere of the Pike’s Peak area. His best-known books include Pictures and Poems of the Pike’s Peak Region (published around 1890) and Legends of the Pike’s Peak Region; The Sacred Myths of the Manitou (1892), a work associated with William S. Alexander. Those books helped capture both the visual appeal and the storytelling traditions linked to the region.

He died in 1893, still quite young. Although he is not widely known now, his surviving work offers a vivid glimpse of Colorado Springs and the cultural imagination surrounding Pike’s Peak in the 19th century.