150th anniversary of Colorado

[John Meissner]

The 150th anniversary of Colorado's birth as a state is shortly to arrive, and I don't see much of any commemoration on the horizon, unlike the centennial, which was an entire year of historical re-enactments and celebration.

I know the 50th anniversary of the Big Thompson Canyon flood will be commemorated, which is right and proper, but I think it is also important to celebrate the beginnings of Estes Park, if not now, then at least before the end of the year.  Our newspapers are interested in history, but mostly as it relates to the Stanley, and there were pioneers and public houses in place well before Mr. Stanley arrived just after the start of the 20th Century.

I am most interested in the time prior to local newspapers, when the only history recorded was by intrepid photographers and tourists who wrote down their recollections.

Chronicling America is one free website, run by the Library of Congress, where newspapers from all over the U.S. have been digitized and are easily searchable.

I think it would be great if everyone interested, not just Estes residents but those in with an interest in Estes Park for whatever reason, were set loose like a pack of house on Chronicling America to search for Estes Park mentions specifically or northern Colorado hits generally, and push back dates with primary source material to within an inch of their very occurrence.

As one example, the arrival of Griffith Evans into Estes Park is a matter of some dispute.  He is recorded in two places in the 1870 territorial Colorado census, and neither of these is in Estes Park, which probably didn't have enough going on for a census enumerator to venture westward or northward.

But instead of a problematic census, Chronicling America provides us with an anonymous reporter sending back columns to a paper in Evansville, Indiana from Estes beginning in August 1870, using the pen name "W".  It is unfortunate we don't have a full name to give this individual credit for pointing out things no one bothered to point out elsewhere (e.g., the cost of a train ticket from Cheyenne to Denver in 1870 was $10).

This reporter mentions Evans in Estes by name, and one's comes away from the summary with the feeling that the description of Evans and family is of someone already somewhat established, as if 1870 wasn't the first year they had been in the area.  Other names are mentioned, and the route from Greeley to Estes, while unmarked, is clearly doable, giving lie to the idea that no one in the Greeley area knew how to tell Isabella Bird the way to Estes Park when she arrived in September 1873.  The most interesting fact presented is that two parties had already successfully ascended Longs Peak during the time of W's stay, which at a minimum ran from late August to late September 1870, and "W" claims these were the first successful summits since the Powell expedition in 1868 (W. says "1865" [sic], but the actual year of first reported and recorded success is well established).

The descriptions of Greeley and Estes Park are the best and possibly the only surviving decent newspaper account from 1870 outside of tepid Denver coverage (meaning William N. Byers, who does mention Estes Park in 1870 - with no mention of Evans - but with a set of tired eyes, as he had already been visiting the area and climbing area peaks since 1864).   

But that is not to claim that Griffith Evans and Estes Park don't receive additional Colorado newspaper mentions in 1870, which I'll leave intrepid investigators the joy of discovering for themselves, as they treasure hunt early Estes Park area mentions utilizing material that wasn't readily available to the average armchair history digger twenty years ago.

https://www.loc.gov/collections/chronicling-america/

-john