PestGuardians offers pest control help in Fountain, serving a town whose 1888 depot blast has never had an explained cause. Call to describe the pest problem and check service availability.
Call (844) 924-1337Fountain's own name has a gentler origin than its most famous night. French trappers called the creek that runs through here Fontaine Qui Bouille, meaning boiling fountain or boiling spring, a name later shortened to plain Fountain. The area was homesteaded in 1859, though the town itself did not incorporate until 1903, and by the 1880s it had grown enough to support two competing railroads, enough that some residents at the time genuinely thought Fountain might grow to rival Colorado Springs. Then, at roughly 2:50 in the morning on May 14, 1888, five freight cars broke loose from a train stopped thirteen miles away in Colorado Springs and rolled downhill into the Fountain depot, where a passenger train from Pueblo happened to be stopped for the night. One car, carrying naphtha oil, ignited on impact, and residents formed a bucket brigade to try to save the depot before someone realized a second car held roughly 17,000 to 18,000 pounds of an explosive known as giant powder, bound for the mines at Leadville, and that it too had caught fire. The conductor's warning gave people only minutes to get clear before the blast leveled much of the town, left a crater behind, and destroyed two locomotive engines and fourteen rail cars, a disaster serious enough that the New York Times covered it from Colorado. Locally, people still just call it The Blast. Contemporary accounts disagree on the exact toll, reporting at least three deaths and as many as five, along with roughly nineteen injured. What has never been settled, though, is what actually caused it. No one ever established how those freight cars came loose in the first place, and because a body with a head injury turned up in the wreckage, a local theory has persisted for well over a century that the cars were released on purpose to cover up a killing, though nobody ever proved it. One physical piece of that night survived and is still standing: the steeple of a church destroyed in the blast was salvaged afterward and now sits atop the Fountain Independent Baptist Church, a real, present day landmark carried forward from the town's worst night. That mix of a still open historical question and a literal surviving piece of it gives Fountain a genuinely different kind of civic memory than most Front Range towns, one where some of the oldest surviving structures near downtown carry a documented, if unresolved, history worth knowing before assuming every property here has the same straightforward building background.
Fountain's buildings span the rebuild after the 1888 depot disaster, its 1903 incorporation, and newer subdivisions; discuss the construction era and credentials relevant to the proposed work. Colorado regulates pest control through the Department of Agriculture's pesticide licensing program rather than a dedicated structural pest control board. Anyone applying pesticides for compensation must hold a Commercial Applicator license in the specific category matching the work performed, such as Wood Destroying Organism Pest Control, Outdoor Vertebrate Pest Control, or Residential and Commercial Pest Control, and must pass a proctored exam for every category in which they plan to work. Licenses are valid for three years and expire on the applicator's birthdate. Nuisance wildlife removal sits outside this system almost entirely: Colorado Parks and Wildlife does not require a permit to remove most nuisance wildlife from a property, since state law leaves that determination to the landowner, though professional operators typically still carry CPW authorization along with liability insurance. That means a Colorado pest control license genuinely covers pesticide based treatment work, while trapping and wildlife exclusion follow a different, lighter regulatory path. Call (844) 924-1337 for pest control help in Fountain, to discuss your property, and to check service availability.
Call PestGuardians to discuss your pest problem and check local service availability.
Yes. Colorado regulates pest control through the Department of Agriculture's pesticide licensing program, and anyone applying pesticides for compensation must hold a Commercial Applicator license in the specific category matching the work performed, such as general pest control or wood destroying organism work. Every category requires its own proctored exam, so a licensed technician's actual scope of work is genuinely credential specific rather than one blanket certification.
Cost depends on the property size, the pest involved, and whether the job is a one time treatment or an ongoing service plan, so we can't post a set price here. Call PestGuardians to discuss pricing for your Fountain property, the pest activity, and the proposed service scope. An assessment may be needed before a quote can be confirmed.
Often, yes. Fountain's downtown core includes buildings that went up in the rebuild following a documented 1888 depot disaster and others added after the town's 1903 incorporation, while newer subdivisions have gone up well since then. Describe the building era so it informs the inspection and proposed treatment.
Not exactly. Colorado Parks and Wildlife doesn't require a permit to remove most nuisance wildlife, since state law leaves that determination to the landowner, so wildlife trapping and exclusion in Fountain follow a lighter regulatory path than pesticide based pest control. Many professional operators carry CPW authorization and liability insurance anyway, but it's a genuinely separate credential from the Commercial Applicator license that covers standard pest treatment.
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