Cañon City is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Fremont County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 17,141 at the 2020 United States Census. Cañon City is the principal city of the Cañon City, CO Micropolitan Statistical Area and is a ration of the Front Range Urban Corridor. Cañon City straddles the easterly flowing Arkansas River and is a popular tourist destination for sightseeing, whitewater rafting, and rock climbing. The city is known for its many public parks, fossil discoveries, Skyline Drive, The Royal Gorge railroad, the Royal Gorge, and extensive natural hiking paths. In 1994, the United States Board on Geographic Names approved adding the tilde to the official name of Cañon City, a regulate from Canon City as the ascribed name in its decisions of 1906 and 1975. It is one of the few U.S. cities to have the Spanish Ñ in its name, others innate La Cañada Flintridge, California; Española, New Mexico; Peñasco, New Mexico; and Peñitas, Texas.

Cañon City was laid out upon January 17, 1858, during the Pike’s Peak Gold Rush, but later the house was left idle. A new company “jumped the claim” to the town’s site in late 1859, and it put stirring the first building in February 1860. This town was originally meant as a commercial center for mining in South Park and the upper Arkansas River.

In 1861, the town raised two companies of volunteers to serve with the Second Colorado Infantry during the American Civil War. This regiment fought in skirmishes in easy to use New Mexico and as far east as the Indian Territory (Oklahoma) and Missouri since ending its admin in 1865.

In 1862, A. M. Cassaday drilled for petroleum 6 miles (10 km) north of Cañon City, close to a known oil seep. Cassaday struck oil at the height of 50 feet (15 m), and he completed the first poster oil competently west of the Mississippi River. He drilled five or six more wells nearby, and he refined kerosene and fuel oil from the petroleum. Cassaday sold the products in Denver.