Helen Hunt Falls in North Cheyenne Canon Park. Helen Hunt Jackson 1820-1885.

Author of children¹s stories, travel sketches, and poems, Jackson wrote thirty books and hundreds of articles for the New York Independent, Atlantic Monthly, and Scribners. Had she not used pen names, fashionable in her day, she would have been more well known. Even so, Ralph Waldo Emerson called her America¹s "greatest woman poet."

The winter of 1873-74 found her at Colorado Springs, Colorado, in search of a cure for a respiratory ailment. It was there that she met William Sharpless Jackson, a Pennsylvania Quaker, wealthy banker, and railroad magnate. They were married on October 22, 1875. For the new Mrs. Jackson this was a fortuitous union since it relieved her of financial worries, thus providing the freedom with her husband's support to pursue her fascination with the American West and its Indians from her home in Colorado. Inspiration Point at Seven Falls in South Cheyenne Canon is also the location of the original gravesite of Helen Hunt Jackson, a very important writer of the late 1800s. It was her last request that she be buried here at the spot that inspired so many of her famous poems. Her original gravesite is now marked by a historic plaque, although her remains now rest in Evergreen Cemetery in Colorado Springs.

Helen Hunt Jackson wrote the popular story of Ramona. Since 1884, publishers have reprinted Ramona more than 300 times; directors have filmed the story for large and small screens; and, since 1923, Hemet, California, holds an annual Ramona festival.

Gibson