America's Switzerland: Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park, the Growth Years

2: The Growth of “the Village”

23 The Growth of “the Village” Chapter 2  The Growth of “the Village” AS PANGBORN SUGGESTS, Colorado towns tended to spring up quickly. An unplanned assortment of houses and commercial structures claimed the vacant land, and seemingly overnight—“asparagus-like”—a community had put down roots. Such was the case with the village of Estes Park. In little more than a decade, the town had established a visible footprint that would be recognizable to visitors returning fifty or seventy-five years later. Further growth and change came slowly and incrementally, scarcely disrupting the face of the known and familiar, and giving residents and returning visitors alike a reassuring sense of stability and permanence. Aesthetics scarcely mattered. Estes Park’s quickly earned reputation as a quaint and attractive resort community was clearly due to its picturesque mountain setting, not the architectural tastes, talents, or vision of its early builders. Although Estes Park did not become an incorporated village until 1917, its origins as a town can be clearly identified. That history began on April 20, 1905, when the principals of the newly-formed Estes Park Town Company —Cornelius H. Bond, Joseph R. Anderson, and William Beckfield of Loveland and John Y. Munson of Berthoud, all friends of long-standing— exercised their option to purchase John Cleave’s 185-acre ranch at the confluence of the Big Thompson and Fall Rivers for the purpose of establishing The towns here are a good deal like asparagus, for, figuratively, where you see naught but the bare ground at night, you the next morning behold a healthy and rapidly developing centre of business. —J. G. PANGBORN, Rocky Mountain Tourist (1877) 23 24 The Growth of “the Village” 2.1 Abner Sprague’s plat of the Town of Estes Park, dated January 1906. James H. Pickering Collection a town. The price paid was $8,000.1 Although the negotiations were completed with little public attention, and proved more difficult than anticipated ,2 Bond and his partners knew precisely what they were doing. 25 The Growth of “the Village” The site, though limited on the north, south, and west by the ruggedness of the terrain, was geographically-speaking a natural one. Others had thought so too, for adjacent to the Cleave house, clustered around the Corners , was the small nucleus of buildings that since before the turn of the century had served as the center of the valley’s community life. These included John Cleave’s post office; several small stores; a cabin and iron pump used by photographer Henry Rogers; and a long, narrow forty-by-twentytwo -foot building that served as school, church, and general meeting hall. To the west bordering Fall River were Frank Cantwell’s stage barns. Although busy enough throughout the year, summers transformed the Corners into a place of general rendezvous for visitor and resident alike. “During the season, “ Flora Stanley wrote, in describing her experiences during the summer of 1903, the “Corners” is a scene of life and gayety, when at nightfall, the stage comes in with the mail and passengers. The whole Park pours forth to meet it—ranchmen on their broncos, rigs from the scattered hotels, young men and maidens, usually on horseback—all chattering and laughing.3 In January 1905, the Corners had become busier still with the announcement from Washington that as of February 1 Estes Park and Moraine Park would receive year-round daily mail service from Lyons.4 Once their purchase had been made public, the partners wasted little time in advertising their intention to create “one of the prettiest resorts in the west.” “Many new buildings are contemplated and will be built,” the Loveland Register informed its readers on March 29, 1905, Estes Park is one of the world’s noted summer resorts, and the piece of land secured by these gentlemen is one of the most valuable in the park. It is said that a splendid offer has been made the fortunate purchasers on which they could have already realized a nice profit.5 Adding to expectations, a week later, was the “possibility” of “an electric road . . . to the park.”6 Cornelius H. Bond, the company’s president, was the driving force behind the new enterprise. Hardworking and entrepreneurial, Bond had arrived in Loveland from Ohio on March 7, 1879, at twenty-two a brand-new graduate of Muskingum College come west because of lung disease. That summer , taking to...