Alice Bemis Taylor

Alice Bemis Taylor (October 15, 1877 – June 22, 1942) was a philanthropist and was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 2010.

[2][nb 1] The Bemis family moved to Colorado Springs in 1881 for Alice's mother's health when the girl was 4 years of age.

[1][3] After a few years, Alice Cogswell Bemis health was restored sufficiently for her to live a "comparatively normal life",[2] after which the family spent the summers on the East Coast.

[1][3][4] She lived a life of a child of wealthy parents, having attended private schools in Colorado Springs, spent the summers on the East Coast and, with her sister Maude and her mother, studied and traveled in Europe in 1896.

Taylor enjoyed playing tennis, riding horses, picnicking in the canons and at Garden of the Gods and ice skating.

She attended parties given by the Bells at Briarhurst and the Palmers at Glen Eyrie and formed the "Cheap and Hungry Dances" with her sister and girlfriends.

[4] She also collected Hispanic Santos made in New Mexico and Colorado and Southwestern Native American artifacts.

As a result, Taylor had a "devotion to duty" that spurred her philanthropic interests and desire to make the world better for her fellow man and woman.

[7] The Colorado College Special Collections benefited from a donation by Taylor of 290 works and letters by writers and poets from the United States and Britain.

[6] With $600,000, she funded the 1936 construction of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center and provided a $400,000 donation for an endowment.

Over its history, the multi-use center has been used as a gallery, theatre, museum, research library, art school and music room.

Her estate left a total of $15.7 million to Colorado College, the Fine Arts Center, Day Nursery, and Bemis-Taylor Foundation.