Giddings Family History Event

Please register for this event as soon as possible as there is limited seating. The event will take place at 1410 Wood Avenue and parking is on the street.

Edwin Wight Giddings came to Colorado from Michigan in 1868. Like many at that time he came to Colorado because he had tuberculosis. He quickly recovered from his tuberculosis and went to work driving a peddlers wagon through the mining camps for Doolittle and Feldhauser of Denver. He married Hester Ayres in May 1870. Soon Edwin and his bride moved to Colorado Springs and in 1874 he opened the Giddings Department Store at 17 S. Tejon, he later constructed what we now know as the Giddings building on the northeast corner of Tejon and Bijou to house his department store.

Edwin Wight Giddings and his wife Hester Elizabeth Giddings had a great interest in the public welfare of the Pikes Peak Region. In 1927 Edwin & Hester’s children formed The Hester E. and Edwin W. Giddings Foundation and donated Mr. & Mrs, Giddings’ former home at the corner of Tejon and Boulder Streets (where Chase Bank is now located) to the Foundation for the use of local charities who were members of the Community Chest, that time’s equivalent of today’s Pikes Peak United Way. Since that time the Giddings Foundation has provided support to charitable organizations in EI Paso & Teller Counties.