History of Rocky Mountain National Park
History of Rocky Mountain National Park began when Paleo-Indians traveled along what is now Trail Ridge Road to hunt and forage for food. Ute and Arapaho people subsequently hunted and camped in the area. In 1820, the Long Expedition, led by Stephen H. Long for whom Longs Peak was named, approached the Rockies via the Platte River. Settlers began arriving in the mid-1800s, displacing the Native Americans who mostly left the area voluntarily by 1860, while others were removed to reservations by 1878.
Lulu City, Dutchtown, and Gaskill in the Never Summer Mountains were established in the 1870s when prospectors came in search of gold and silver. The boom ended by 1883 with miners deserting their claims. The railroad reached Lyons, Colorado in 1881 and the Big Thompson Canyon Road—a section of U.S. Route 34 from Loveland to Estes Park—was completed in 1904. The 1920s saw a boom in building lodges and roads in the park, culminating with the construction of Trail Ridge Road to Fall River Pass between 1929 and 1932, then to Grand Lake by 1938.
Prominent individuals in the effort to create a national park included Enos Mills from the Estes Park area, James Grafton Rogers from Denver, and J. Horace McFarland of Pennsylvania. The national park was established on January 26, 1915.
Early history
Paleo-Indians
People have been visiting the area near Rocky Mountain National Park for at least 11,000 years, including the Lindenmeier and Dent sites where projectile points were found that were used to hunt Mammoth and Bison antiquus. Both Clovis and Folsom projectile points have been found in the park, some near Trail Ridge. This indicates that there were early hunters, or Paleo-Indians, of large and now extinct mammals, like mastodons and bison antiquus, that traveled through the park. Their shelters were animal hide tents, brush huts, or rock shelters. They traveled into the Rocky Mountain National Park area using a trail that is now Trail Ridge Road.The Paleo-Indians began hunting smaller, modern bison and looked for many sources of food in nature when they adopted the lifestyle of the Archaic period about eight thousand years ago. Projectile points have been found at Fall River Pass, on Flattop Mountain, at Forest Canyon Pass, on a slope above Chapin Pass, near Oldman Mountain, and other places in the park. Archeologist Wilfred M. Husted said, "Evidence indicates intermittent occupation of the Park rather than continuous occupation. Travel back and forth across the Continental Divide was the primary reason why Indians entered the mountains. Small camps indicate seasonal hunting in the valleys and on the mountains."
Within the park there are archeological remains from about 3,850 to 3,400 B.C. of 42 low-walled stone structures or cairns, up to hundreds of feet in length, built for game drive systems. Remains of such structures were found on Mount Ida, Tombstone Ridge, and on Trail Ridge Road. These slight walls served as devices that permitted hunters to direct or herd game animals—like bison, sheep, deer, or elk— toward men waiting with weapons. Up to twenty-five people may have been needed to execute the game drive. Hunters may have killed the animals using darts, atlatl, spear throwers, or spears tipped with stone projectile points. A game drive sites was used in this timeframe in an alpine area south of the park. Since they were temporary camping sites, it was assumed that people still came to the area to hunt and did not live in the mountainous region during the winter.
Bows and arrows were used to hunt animals by 400 to 650 A.D., and pottery pieces have been found in the park that are dated to this period of time. The Paleo-Indians also continued to use game drives to hunt for meat until about 1000 AD. As hunter-gatherers, they also foraged for roots and berries for sustenance.
Native Americans
Between 1000 and 1300 AD, Ute people moved into the Rocky Mountain and western slope areas of Colorado, perhaps from the Great Basin of Utah. The Ute, who were hunter-gatherers, traveled along Ute trail. Their belongings were carried by the Utes or were pulled by dogs with travois, until they had horses. The Utes camped in bands or small family groupings and stayed in the park area during the summer months and in Estes Park for the winter. Their diet included bison, elk, bighorn sheep, jackrabbit, antelope, deer, berries and roots. When food was scarce, they ate tree bark. In the early 1800s, the Arapaho pushed the Utes out of Estes Park.In the early 1800s, the northern Arapaho entered into the Rocky Mountain regions of Colorado. At first, they sought lodgepole pines for their tepees from the Kawuneeche Valley. They then spent more time in the Estes Park and surrounding area. The Arapaho also pressed for access to the North Park, Middle Park, and South Park areas, which had been controlled by the Utes. There was a significant battle between the Arapaho and Ute at Grand Lake in which Ute women and children paddled a raft out to the middle of the lake for safety, but were drowned during a sudden storm.
An old Arapaho camp was located at Marys Lake. They had names for many of the sites within the park, often based upon an event or residing animals, which was published in Arapaho Names and Trails. The Arapaho left before 1860 when the area was settled by people of European descent. By 1878, the northern Arapaho were forced into a reservation at Wind River Indian Reservation.
There were three main trails used by the Ute and Arapaho people to travel between Middle Park and Estes Park. One was called Dog Trail, because the Arapaho had dogs pull travois over the snowy trail, is now called Fall River trail. Child's trail has a spot where children had to get off their horses due to the steep terrain; that trail is now Ute Trail and Trail Ridge Road. Big Trail, which went over Flattop Mountain to the Kawuneeche Valley, was used by fast-traveling warriors. Stone cairns were used by the Arapahos and the Utes to mark the forest trails.
There are hundreds of sites with evidence of Native American visits, including Tepee rings found along the Thompson River and other signs of summer camps. Stone and bone tools used for hunting, butchering, processing hides, and cooking have been found in the park. Additionally, Native Americans carried river boulders to the top of Oldman Mountain, the site of their ceremonial vision quests.
The Apache, Cheyenne, Sioux, and Shoshone periodically hunted or raided the area. Comanche people may have also hunted in the Rocky Mountains for hundreds of years.
19th-century explorers and settlers
Little has been recorded of Europeans who might have seen or visited the Rocky Mountain National Park area before the 19th century. French fur trappers visited in 1700s and gave Native Americans firearms in trades. A couple of French trappers called Longs Peak and Mount Meeker Les Deux Oreilles in 1799. Don Pedro de Villasur led a group of one hundred men from New Spain up the South Platte River into Nebraska and may have seen the Front Range of Colorado. The Spaniards were attacked by unfriendly Pawnees, who killed 88 of the men, and the Spanish lost interest in traveling so far north again.American fur trappers came to Colorado in the early 19th century, but were seen as trespassers. James Pursley was trapping in the area, and he spotted gold in 1805. Joseph Bijeau—who was later a guide for the Long expedition—lived, hunted and trapped in the Rockies for six years. There were other trappers who worked along the Front Range. A. P. Chouteau and Julius De Munn traded with Native Americans for furs from 1811 to 1817, but were subject to having the furs they had acquired confiscated by Spanish patrols. Besides the threat of running into Spanish military patrols, the men were also subject to hostile Native American tribes.
Long Expedition
of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, was engaged by President James Madison in 1819 to lead an expedition into the western frontier to document the topography, fauna, and flora encountered on the voyage to the headwaters of the Arkansas, Red River, and Platte Rivers. The expeditionary team moved westward from the plains, following the South Fork of the Platte River towards the mountains and on the western horizon saw what Long identified the "highest peak" on June 30, 1820. By 1825, the name Longs Peak began appearing on maps.Rufus B. Sage
traveled to the mountains in September 1843 and is believed to be the first white man to enter Estes Park. For a month, he hunted the abundant wildlife. Sage described the area as a "concentration of beautiful lateral valleys, intersected by meandering watercourses, ridged by lofty ledges of precipitous rock, and hemmed in on the west by vast piles of mountains climbing beyond clouds." At the time of his visit, Ute and Arapaho lived in the area. Sage published the earliest known description in Rocky Mountain Life, or Startling Scenes and Perilous Adventures in the Far West During an Expedition of Three Years. He was one of the first people to write about the fur trapper's experiences in the vicinity.After the Mexican–American War and during the gold rush, more people began to travel westward to the Rockies.
Joel Estes
In October 1859, while on a hunting expedition, Joel Estes and his son Milton discovered land where "no signs that white men had ever been there before us." In 1860, Joel Estes moved his family—which had included his wife Patsey, six children, five Black slaves, and a few friends—into two cabins that he built at the eastern edge of the park where Fish Creek, Lyons, and Loveland Roads converge. Estes brought his herd of cattle, that were raised in the green pastures of the park. He hunted deer and elk and sold their meat and hides in Denver. The Civil War broke out in 1861. During a trip that year to Missouri, where he was from, he freed his slaves. In 1865, Charles F. Estes, son of Milton and Mary Flemming Estes, was the first white child born in the park. The winters were too harsh for Estes and he left the area in 1866.Griff Evans moved into the area and
lived in the Estes cabin. Between 1868 and 1873, he added a gable and made improvements to the cabin. In 1926, the town of Estes Park erected a plaque in remembrance of the Estes family at the site of their cabin.