History
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The town of Monument was first settled in 1865 by Mr. David McShane and was originally named Henry's Station. It was later renamed Monument for the nearby geological formation known as Monument Rock, and it was incorporated in 1879. In its early days, Monument served as a stopover point for travelers and freight wagons making their way to the gold fields of the Rocky Mountains. (Palmer Lake Historical Society and the Vaile Museum)
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The Monument Volunteer Fire Department (MVFD) was founded in 1949 (Lavallette, n.d.) and served the area relying solely on donations and fundraising. In the mid-1970s, the developers of the Woodmoor Subdivision worked with the Town of Monument to create a full-time, paid fire department, which became the Woodmoor-Monument Fire Protection District (WMFPD). The boundaries for the new district were aligned with those of the Woodmoor Water and Sanitation District and the Monument Water Department, ensuring the area was protected by a network of fire hydrants.
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By 1977, the MVFD had reached a point where voluntary funding could no longer sustain adequate fire protection for the growing community. A Steering Committee, chaired by Howard Cloud, developed a Service Plan and submitted it to the El Paso County Board of Commissioners on February 28, 1977, seeking approval to form a new taxing special district under Colorado Revised Statutes 32-1-201, the Special District Control Act. Rather than a simple renaming, the MVFD voted to dissolve and donate its fire station, land, and all equipment valued at approximately $92,261 to the newly formed Tri-Lakes Fire Protection District (TLFPD) at no cost. The new district was established to serve an approximately 40-square-mile area bounded by Pike National Forest to the west, Highway 83 to the east, County Line Road to the north, and the United States Air Force Academy and Baptist Road to the south.
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For many years, the TLFPD operated out of the donated building it had received from the MVFD at 18650 Highway 105. In the late 1990s, the Board decided to build a new station on the same property. The district provided a full range of emergency services, including ambulance service to the WMFPD, and the population growth of the late 1990s and early 2000s enabled the TLFPD to transition into a combination paid and volunteer department. As the district continued to grow, a second fire station became necessary to serve its eastern portion. With the support of residents who approved a tax increase, Station 2 was built at 18460 Roller Coaster Road in 2004.
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A merger between the WMFPD and the TLFPD had been discussed for years, as the operational separation of the two districts had become increasingly difficult to justify. In 2004, the two Boards signed an agreement forming a Regional Fire Authority, effective January 1, 2005. The primary benefit of the Authority was a significant improvement in emergency response across the combined territory. While each district maintained its own Board of Directors, a combined authority board made up of members from both districts oversaw day-to-day operations across all three stations as a unified department. This partnership culminated in the formal creation of the Tri-Lakes Monument Fire Protection District (TLMFPD) on January 1, 2008, which operates with an all-career, paid firefighter workforce.
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In January 2022, Tri-Lakes Monument Fire Protection District and Donald Wescott Fire Protection District agreed to a partial-services contract, marking the first step toward unifying the two agencies. By July of that year, a full-service contract was in place, further integrating operations. To reflect this growing partnership and foster a shared organizational culture, the two districts began operating under the unified name Monument Fire District (MFD). The formal merger by inclusion was completed in 2025, bringing the two districts together as a single agency and closing a chapter that had begun nearly a century earlier with a small group of volunteers committed to protecting their community. Today, the Monument Fire District stands proud in its mission to protect the citizens of the greater Tri-Lakes region.
Lavallette, Lucille. Through the Years at Monument, Colorado. n.d.
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