Austin Bluffs, Colorado
 Austin Bluffs Open Space: University Park
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Austin Bluffs Open Space, view of Pikes Peak
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Austin Bluffs Open Space: Pulpit Rock
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Austin Bluffs, looking west to Rampart Range
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Austin Bluffs is a summit in the Pikeview area of Colorado Springs in El Paso County, Colorado at 6,673 feet (2,034 m) in elevation. It is also a residential area, that was once a settlement and the site of a tuberculosis sanatorium. The University of Colorado Colorado Springs campus was moved there in 1965.
The rock in Austin Bluffs is from the Dawson Arkose, Arapahoe Formation, Denver Formation, and Eocene period of the Tertiary. Sedimentary sandstone and arkosic sandstone formations are evident due to a geological uplift in the area about 65 to 70 million years ago. Due to its rock formations, the United States Forest Service has deemed the open space as unique in the National Feature Inventory.
There is archaeological evidence that Native Americans lived in the Austin Bluffs area thousands of years ago, and perhaps as early as 10,000 years ago. There are more than a dozen sites that show that the area was used to quarry for stone for lithic tools. There are 30 sites that show signs of occupation between 100 and 1,400 AD by Plains Indians, including evidence of charcoal fires, on the west side of the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. There are also stone enclosures that may have been Ute vision quest sites.
In the 1870s, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway operated a railroad line along Monument Creek and what is now the western edge of the campus. Matt France sold the prairie land and bluffs that he owned northeast of Colorado Springs in 1873 to Henry Austin.Out West reported on November 7, 1872 that Mr. Austin of Chicago had purchased 5,200 acres [2,100 ha] of land on the northeastern boundary of the newly formed Colorado Springs. Austin, for whom Austin Bluffs are named, was a wealthy sheep ranch owner of 3,000 acres (1,200 ha). Austin hired Hispanic shepherds from southern Colorado and New Mexico to tend his sheep in the 1880s. Photographer Laura Gilpin was born in Austin Bluffs, which was more accessible for a doctor than the family ranch on Horse Creek.
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