Qualla: Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun

Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun: Introduction

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown authorUnknown author or not provided, Public domain. Every fifteen minutes, Westminster chimes ring out from a five-story tower on the slopes of Cheyenne Mountain, carrying across the valley to Colorado Springs below. The sound comes from a vibraharp inside a building made entirely without wood or nails, constructed from a single block of pink granite quarried from the very mountain it stands on. Spencer Penrose began building this tower in the early 1930s as a monument to the rising and setting sun. Then, in August 1935, his friend Will Rogers died in a plane crash in Alaska, and Penrose gave the shrine a second purpose: a memorial to the man who had made America laugh through the Great Depression. The Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun is part monument, part mausoleum, and part time capsule, blending Romanesque stone with murals of Colorado's frontier history and art spanning five centuries.

Image: Unknown authorUnknown author or not provided | Public domain

Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun: The Man Who Built Colorado Springs

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tokeamour, CC BY-SA 4.0. Spencer Penrose was not a modest man. He arrived in Colorado Springs at the turn of the twentieth century and proceeded to build or acquire much of what defines the city to this day. The Broadmoor resort, the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, the Pikes Peak Highway, and the shrine itself al...

Image: Tokeamour | CC BY-SA 4.0

Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun: A Humorist Immortalized

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Frank Winkelmann, CC BY 3.0. Will Rogers was already a national treasure when he boarded Wiley Post's experimental floatplane in August 1935 for a flight through Alaska. Rogers had risen from Cherokee ranch life in Oklahoma to become America's most beloved humorist, filling stages, movie screens, and radio a...

Image: Frank Winkelmann | CC BY 3.0

Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun: Stone, Art, and Sacred Ground

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jonathunder, Public domain. The shrine is entered through a stone gateway into grounds encircled by a wall of the same pink granite as the tower. Inside the walls stand Jo Davidson's statue of Will Rogers, Chinese sculptures, and native plantings, along with a bronze bust of Spencer Penrose by sculptor Avar...

Image: Jonathunder | Public domain

Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun: The Chapel Below

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Frank Winkelmann, CC BY 3.0. Beneath the tower lies a chapel that doubles as a crypt and an art gallery spanning centuries and continents. European works from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries fill the space, including a sixteenth-century Baroque painting of the Madonna, carved monk benches, a Classical ...

Image: Frank Winkelmann | CC BY 3.0

Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun: Chimes Over the Valley

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Frank Winkelmann, CC BY 3.0. At night, floodlights illuminate the granite tower while the walkway leading to it glows softly, and Cheyenne Lake at The Broadmoor below reflects the light. During the day, visitors climb the internal staircase through five stories of murals, photographs, and art before emerging...

Image: Frank Winkelmann | CC BY 3.0