The first settlement was made at this agricultural town, which now ranks fourth in the county and is situated twenty miles north of Colorado Springs, in 1869, by a party of surveyors, prominent among whom were Henry Limbach and Charles Adams. The earliest settlers of Monument were David McShane and family; Colonel F. E. Ford and family; David, Henry and J. M. Guire, Simpson Brothers and C. S. Agnew. They endured many pioneer hardships, and were at various times driven from their homes by the Indians, their houses plundered, and their lives threatened.

Monument was incorporated as a town in 1873, and depends mainly for its life upon the potato crop which is grown without irrigation. It is the main shipping point for the "Divide" country for a radius of fifteen miles, between Denver and Colorado Springs. The Denver & Rio Grande, Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe, Missouri Pacific, Colorado Midland and the Rock Island Railroads run through the town. During 1889 Monument exported one hundred and twenty-eight carloads of potatoes, one hundred of lumber, seventy-five of wood, and sixteen of miscellaneous produce. Husted and Pring sidings which are tributary to Monument, shipped in the same year, one hundred and ninety-nine and two hundred and twenty-three carloads of agricultural produce, respectively.

The Monument "Mentor" was published here, weekly, so far back as 1878, but was discontinued in 1880, the editor, A. T. Blackly removing to Gunnison. The government geological survey of 1889 reported favorably on two locations in this region where water could be stored and a vast area thereby irrigated. During 1889 indications of coal and oil were here discovered. Monument has a good school system, a Presbyterian church, a weekly paper, the "El Paso Register" founded in 1886, and some twenty business buildings. The population is about three hundred.