Travel! Super Spots that Tell the Whole Story

We Texans love to escape to the cool Colorado Rocky Mountains, and Estes Park, with Rocky Mountain National Park next door, is a favorite destination. BIG SHOUT-OUT to Estes Park for shining the public history light on the women who made this town flourish and enriched the community! Here are examples of how a community can publicly honor ALL the people who contributed.

Twelve bronze statues of awesome women right on the RiverWalk

✔ The Estes Park Women’s Monument features sculptures of 12 historic women in a beautiful and well-traveled spot in the heart of downtown next to the Big Thompson Riverwalk. Don’t miss these sculptures at the Women’s Heritage Plaza.

You’ll meet each of these women and more in my Estes Park Women’s Tour below!

✔ The city even featured women such as go-getter businesswoman Josie Hupp in their fun scavenger hunt for small sculptures of pikas, a frisky mountain critter.

✔ The city and area organizations create and promote numerous events lauding historical and contemporary women such as the festivities this year honoring explorer Isabella Bird and other women’s history stars.

Isabella was a world explorer and author who lived in the Estes area in the 1870s.

One wonderful example: People can learn of influential women of the past and explore how to make their HERstory more wellknown in talks sponsored by the Rocky Mountain Conservancy. And they can join others on awesome Conservancy bus tours to see where these women made herstory in Rocky Mountain National Park.

✔ The Estes Park Woman’s Club—who’ve been kicking civic butt for a century—and other advocates published a fascinating club history. The city honored the Woman’s Club with a plaque downtown, and groups such as the Stanley Home Museum present the Woman’s Club story in the beautiful home that Club member Flora lived in with husband F. O.

This book tells how women had a big role in crucial city projects that continue to benefit.

✔ Women’s groups in Estes gathered short histories of 100 women of the past and present who make Estes better and compiled it in a book.

Why this inclusive focus on women? Because these HERstories make history complete and not just a partial and selective telling of a city’s heritage. The truth is that women have ALWAYS been on the front lines, working by themselves or with a spouse doing everything from homesteading to running the lodges that brought waves of tourists to starting libraries to mountain-climbing.

And here’s one last shout-out to the Estes way of telling its story.

How do visitors and locals know what a community considers their noteworthy contributors from history? Markers and statues tell that “public history” story, as do the public history tellers, such as museums. KUDOS to the Estes Park Museum for bringing a diverse and more complete account of all those who made Estes better!

A few great examples: Visitors are encouraged to see a video of Estes history, and the Native Americans who were the first peoples here get full attention. Also, Estes women are honored as well, such as a big display about women homesteaders.

And the Museum has a superb collection of historic photos that can be seen online. Many thanks to the Museum for sharing these photos so that visitors to this blog can see history come to life. Enjoy all the outdoor splendor of Estes on your visit, but don’t miss a Museum trip, too!

In far too many places, the stories of women and other overlooked communities stay hidden. Not so here. Now all of us—tourists and residents—can enjoy inspiring community HERstories!

Let’s Go Touring!

Geology expert and first female ranger Margaret Fuller Boos

Elkhorn Avenue, a storied street that escorts visitors to the beckoning Rockies, hosts a slew of herstoric women. Take a walk to meet them. This walk all along Elkhorn is less than a mile one way.

Women’s Monument

☛ Let’s start at the marvelous Estes Park Women’s Monument at the Women’s Heritage Plaza right in the heart of downtown Estes Park at 220 E. Elkhorn.

The sculptures at the Women’s Heritage Plaza are a pleasant destination, next to a nice playground, near restaurants, and on the Riverwalk. Park at the free garage just a short walk away.

This collection of 12 statues honoring historic and a few contemporary women who’ve done much for the city is a grassroots labor of love. The Monument Committee (mostly all women) spent years fundraising, asking and asking until they reached their goal.

The committee commissioned Colorado-based sculptor Jane DeDecker to do the work. Jane believes in the power of women—check out her sculptures of awesome women such as racial justice journalist Ida B. Wells and suffragist Alice Paul that inspire viewers across the country in 38 states and Washington, D.C.

Savor all these women honored by sculptures—we’ll be learning more about them and visiting spots where they’ve made history as we tour.

☛ At the Women’s Sculptures, turn toward the roaring Big Thompson River running along the city’s beautiful and extensive Riverwalk. See those big boulders lining the river? This geological wonder was the first research focus of Margaret “Peggy” Fuller Boos.

Born in Beatrice, Nebraska, Margaret was a teacher in a Nebraska one-room school. She always loved rocks, so she got a doctor’s degree in geology from the University of Chicago. Peggy’s PhD thesis was on the geology of the Big Thompson River Valley, which barrels down from the Continental Divide down through the Colorado foothills. She’d go on to study Colorado geology for the next six decades. Peggy even found a husband, Charles, who shared her passion, and they coauthored some papers on Front Range geology.

Peggy was a renowned geologist who was also the first female park ranger at Rocky Mountain National Park.

Peggy was the first female ranger-naturalist at Rocky Mountain National Park in 1928-29. Her position was temporary, and she turned down the permanent position. She was too busy moving on to post-doctoral work at the University of California-Berkeley and then being Geology chair at the University of Denver. During WWII, Peggy was called to Washington to work on the strategic minerals program of the U.S. Bureau of Mines. Later when she started a geologic consulting company, she got so much business her husband quit his job to work for her.

Peggy supported other women geologists with a scholarship for female geologists at Northwestern University. She donated her extensive rock collection to the University of Northern Colorado. “Peggy’s Peak” in the Talkeetna Mountains of central Alaska is named for her.

And while Peggy and other pioneer female ranger-naturalists faced plenty of sexism, female rangers now make up over 37% of park rangers nationwide!

And plenty of women are park superintendents. Darla Sidles took charge in 2016 of Rocky Mountain National Park, the nation’s fourth-busiest park—after a 30-year stint with the National Park Service. She retired this year.

Bond Park

☛ Cross over Elkhorn Avenue at the intersection of Moraine and Virginia to Bond Park. See some elk hanging out there today? Estes is famous for the elk that roam the city. Remember to keep your distance, even though the elk are typically tame, except for males in love season.

Look for the markers on the shelter on the west corner of Bond Park. One honors Cornelius Bond, a businessman who first bought land that would become Estes Park and sold city lots. Another honors the Estes Park Woman’s Club, whose members created and funded crucial civic jewels for the city on this park land over the years, including the library and the first chamber of commerce.

☛ Now cross Virginia Drive to your left and look at the set of historical markers there.

Find the one honoring Eleanor Hondius. The Woman’s Club made sure this marker happened, because Eleanor was a force in starting the Women’s Club and the major force behind the women who got the library up and running in its original spot in Bond Park.

Eleanor grew up steeped in the skills of the town’s biggest business, tourism. Her parents owned the fabled Elkhorn Lodge (we’ll visit the still-standing lodge later in the Tour), which also originally hosted the town’s school. Eleanor knew her way around the town businesses and players.

Eleanor Hondius grew up steeped in the town’s moneymaker: tourism.

In the early years of Estes in 1895, the town’s men had formed the Estes Park Protective and Improvement Association. The group took on some projects, but the organization faded out from time to time. They had problems raising funds. For example, they wanted to get a fish hatchery going, so tourists would catch plenty of fish stocked into local rivers and lakes. But they couldn’t raise the money to operate one.

So they invited the ladies to form a Ladies Auxiliary group to help with fundraising. The women agreed, and got real busy. Within a few years, they were throwing entertaining events in town—suppers, dances, shows—and funneling major dough from proceeds into the men’s group coffers.

The ladies decided to focus on improving roads and trails, and they raised $300—back then a very impressive amount of money—toward their goal. But when Eleanor delivered the roll of bills in her purse to a meeting of the men’s group, the men had other ideas about how to spend the money. Eleanor put the money back in her purse, snapped it shut, and walked out.

The Woman’s Club gather to plot further betterment.

In short order, the Estes Park Woman’s Club was born. And it continues today! Women have made their own decisions about how they’ll spend the money they raise, and they’ve poured well over a million dollars into improving Estes Park. Women took on hundreds of projects over the years, strengthening the schools and local tourism programs and hospitals and children.

The excellent history of the Club, Then the Women Took Over: A Hundred Years of the Estes Park Woman’s Club, by Harriet Rose Burgess, gives wonderful detail of all the club has done. The members served as de factor policy makers, the Estes Park Trail editor noted in 1922, 10 years after the club began. “The Woman’s Club was the mayor and town council, for Estes was an unincorporated village [until 1917],” he wrote as he recounted the many town improvements women had enacted.

Two major projects illustrate the impact that these savvy women made, community assets which continue to make Estes thrive today. Estes Park needed a library, club members decided in 1913, just months after the club began.

By 1916, the library opened with nearly 400 books awaiting in a room at the Estes Park grade school. By 1922, a full-fledged library was up and operating, and the Woman’s Club maintained and expanded the library for decades until the city took over in the early 1970s. The Woman’s Club continued to provide major funding.

The Woman’s Club kept the Park’s headquarters in Estes.

The Woman’s Club scored another coup in 1922, when they were able to keep the headquarters for Rocky Mountain National Park in Estes. This was big: The Park was a big draw, and having the headquarters here would ensure another layer of employment for the town. So when the Park Service decided to move the headquarters to Denver, the women proposed a deal.

The Club had bought a few lots in years past as a potential place for a library and clubhouse. They told the Park Service that they’d donate the land for Rocky Mountain’s headquarters, and the Park Service agreed. This bold move got the Woman’s Club accolades from all over the U. S.

Estes and other Colorado women bought a bomber for the boys in WWII.

Oh yeah, and the ladies bought a bomber for US troops during WWII. The Club called on other Colorado women’s clubs that were part of a club coalition. Together, they raised money to buy one of the B-24 bombers, nicknamed “The Liberator.” It bore the name, “Colo Fed of Women’s Clubs,” as it flew on its missions. Nationwide, 47 women’s state club federations bought one or more bombers.

☛ Check out the Woman’s Club history book, and take a hike to honor Eleanor Hondius. One of the Club’s first projects was to build a trail from Estes Park up to the magnificent Deer Mountain. The Deer Mountain trail has been in recent years renamed the Eleanor Hondius Deer Mountain Trail. Go to the Deer Mountain Trailhead in Rocky Mountain National Park, and hike down as you think of Eleanor and the women.

MISS E.M.A. FOOT

☛ Head back across the street to Bond Park, and as you enjoy the green expanse, picture the town’s first Chamber of Commerce building there. That would be the gift of Elizabeth Mary Ann Foot, or Miss E.M.A. Foot, as she preferred. Businesses find strength in uniting for common purpose, and in Estes, E.M.A. made it happen.

Decades after she donated money for the first Chamber of Commerce building, E.M.A. Foot is honored.

Born in England in 1871, E.M.A. came to Estes to see its lauded beauty for herself. She first camped on the property of settler Shep Husted.

E.M.A. wrote of camping on Shep Husted’s ranch when she first arrived from England.

E.M.A. became a leading business force when she bought some property west of downtown Estes on Falls River. (We’ll walk by that place in the Tour.) She rented out tents and then cottages, and then opened a general store in 1891. E.M.A. moved it downtown to Elkhorn and Moraine, which became prime real estate.

She used income from her businesses to help grow Estes, funding the Chamber of Commerce building then in Bond Park. A marker to her generosity placed at the time notes, “With affectionate loyalty to Estes Park, my home for sixty years, I give this building.”

ESTES PARK LIBRARY

☛ Go to your right on Elkhorn to find the Estes Park Library, and go inside the library to enjoy all the fabulous free resources that a library offers the town and visitors. Climb up the charming book-painted stairs to find the quiet room, where a statue donated by Eleanor graces this lovely retreat.

Walk behind the library to walk around the Knoll-Willows Open Space. Sit beside the babbling brooklet and check out the historic Birch Cabin history.

Mary Banken is honored for her work keeping Estes beauty open to all.

And take a seat on this bench and appreciate the work of a woman who walked in the footsteps of women such as Mary Belle King Sherman, who lobbied to get the land that would be Rocky Mountain National Park preserved. Mary Banken began as leader of the Estes Valley Land Trust in 2007 and worked to keep Estes area outdoor treasures preserved for all to enjoy.

CITY HALL

☛ Tons of tourists come to visit Town Hall . . . because of the awesome restrooms they have available just to the right of their front door! But after using the nice, clean bathrooms, pop in the front door of Town Hall. That’s where you’ll see pictures of Mayor Wendy Koenig and the town leadership. Mayor Wendy grew up in Estes and did loads of civic work before being elected mayor. Take a look at the city’s current leadership—majority female!

Estes Park city government is a female-blessed entity.

Wendy was also a champion runner when she was younger—a two-time U.S. Olympian who ran the 800 meters in the 1972 and 1976 Olympic games. A shout-out to Wendy in the book 100 Years: A Celebration of Women recounts the sting of sexism she felt as a super-accomplished runner.

During the Olympics she found that women often had to pay most or all of their expenses, while men had their way paid. Wendy had been promised an athletic scholarship to attend Colorado State University, but it went to a male athlete while she got a less valuable presidential grant. Wendy is an entrepreneur who founded and runs an Estes audiology business, Community Hearing Center.

TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS

Estes has long bustled with business, but history tends to record the commerce of businessmen. Let’s look at some female movers and shakers who grew and sustained the town through owning, running, and working at places loved by locals and tourists.

☛ Macdonald Book Store, 152 E. Elkhorn Av.

In 1906, Jessica Chapin Macdonald was a schoolteacher in Denver when she and another teacher friend decided to head up to Estes, taking a train and then a stagecoach. They loved it, and on subsequent trips Jessica happened into J. Edward Macdonald. They married, and the two operated a general store. Then the two opened a book and stationary shop in the front of their cabin. If you’re in the awesome Macdonald Book Store, you’re in that cabin!

Jessica Chapin Macdonald and a female lineage kept the bookstore going.

J. Edward died in 1932, and Jessica took over the store. Thus began a lineage of women who kept the store thriving to offer the wide and eclectic offerings it has today. As the store’s history tells it, daughters Louise and Marcia helped run the store, along with niece Rhoda. Granddaughter Paula Brown Steige took over, running the store for 50 years after Jessica died in 1957, leaving the store to her daughters.

Paula’s daughter Stacia and her husband Kevin now run the store. Browse the great selection of books documenting womens’ role in Estes and the area, including 1870s explorer Isabella Bird’s A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains and Following Isabella: Travels in Colorado Then and Now, in which author Robert L. Root, Jr., follows in the intrepid footsteps of Isabella. Learn all about the many women who ran (and continue to run) tourist lodges in Estes in The History of the Lodges of Estes Park & the Irrepressible Women of Estes Park & Their Lodging Establishments, by Jenny Sommer.

And do browse Macdonald’s sister store, Inkwell & Brew in back of the store. You’ll find beautiful notebooks and pens, unusual gifts, and a sunny coffee shop, too.

Josephine Hotel, 132 E. Elkhorn

☛ Head up Elkhorn two doors west of Macdonald’s, and wheel into the Wheel Bar. You’re now in what was once the Josephine Hotel, namesake of businesswoman extraordinaire Josephine Hupp. Josie, as she preferred, was born in Michigan and came to Estes with spouse Augustus Blinn. Augustus died, and in 1893, Josie married Henry Hupp. Together, they made plans to build Estes’ first downtown hotel, the Hupp Hotel.

In the meantime and after the hotel opened, Josie was starting a blitz of businesses. She opened a bakery in 1906, and a laundry in 1908. And while Henry focused on a meat market and other ventures, Josie expanded her hotel holdings.

Josie is the 6th from the left of the standing women in this Woman’s Club photo that’s on the marker honoring the Club’s work in Bond Park.

She named the Josephine Hotel after herself, and the Woman’s Club often gathered at the popular Josephine Café. As historian James H. Pickering notes in the 100 Years: A Celebration of Women, Josie would run the Hupp Hotel and also purchase and manage the Manford Hotel and the Sherwood Hotel, “earning for herself a place in Estes Park history unlikely to be duplicated.”

Manford Hotel, 101 E. Elkhorn

Get a flashback of the Josie business vibe by browsing at Rocky Mountain Tops, where her Manford Hotel was located.

Josie owned the Manford—you can see its roots in this Then and Now photo from the cool collection book of Estes Park Then and Now photos.

Old Plantation Restaurant, 128 E. Elkhorn

☛ What’s now The Grey House was once the Old Plantation Restaurant, which had an English pub decor and menu and where the waitresses wore pinafores and mop caps. That restaurant is where environmentalist and activist Jean Weaver first found a means to support her love of Estes-area wilderness, which spawned her passion for recycling.

Jean is known as the Estes Valley Recycling Queen for her lifelong campaign to get recycling implemented throughout Estes and the Park. Recycling is a passion she began as a teen in WWII-era New Jersey, joining the Women’s Land Army that took over men’s jobs while they were away fighting. Jean especially liked the scrap drives that recycled metal and paper waste into war materials.

During college, she and a friend hitchhiked to Colorado and when Jean met Estes, she stayed put. Women-owned businesses provided a home: She stayed in Mrs. Baldridge’s Boarding House and worked at the Old Plantation Restaurant, owned by Thelma Burgess, who needed income for her family after her husband died of pneumonia.

Jean loved the outdoors and hiking and started teaching herself skiing while working as a cook at the Hidden Valley ski area. She seemed such a natural at skiing that the owners hired her to teach skiing, even though she was just one lesson ahead of her students.

Before the rest of America caught on to recycling, Jean started students and parents recycling in 1972 for a high-school fundraiser and now the city is award-winning model for recycling that extends throughout RMNP.

Jean was a pioneer female hiker as well, the first female to summit all the 13,000-high peaks and most of the 14ers. At her celebration of life following her death in 2017, friends were encouraged to bring cans to recycle and take home one of her many awards for community service.

Can you imagine the waste left behind by millions of Park visitors if there weren’t countless recycling receptacles like this one at the Sheep Lake trailhead?

Hupp Hotel, 106 W. Elkhorn

☛ What’s now the popular bar Lonigan’s appeals to passersby with its open windows and lively atmosphere. And they’re also proud to have the history of Josie’s Hupp Hotel, “a world-class resort,” in their past.

The Hupp was indeed the draw of tourists, many of them distinguished. Rates in 1912 were $2.50 a day. Josie was smart to claim this cornerstone of Estes Park real estate at Elkhorn and Moraine. It became know as “The Corners.” Take a look around the Corners now and compare it with the Corners in days past.

Sherwood Hotel, 119 W. Elkhorn

☛ Josie also owned the Sherwood Hotel, which burned down in 1956. Here are a few views of the building. The space has long been host to the family-owned Ore Cart Rock Shop. The Sherwood used to be next door to Estes Park’s oldest taffy shop, begun in 1935, that still offers delicious stickiness to the sweet-toothed.

That’s the Sherwood on the right towering over the Pueblo Building, home to the Taffy Shop. The taffy joint had once been home to the Falls River Hand Laundry. Say thanks to some of the many women who made sure Estes folks had clean clothes over the years.

Old Post Office, 144 W. Elkhorn

☛ Estes women have taken charge of the postal service, particularly critical when it was the only means of communication. Josie Hupp, in addition to running a business empire, was postmaster from 1907-1914.

Hattie Carruthers was another postmaster from 1919-1923. She was a teacher who left for Estes with husband the Reverend, who needed the Rockies high and dry climate to fight off his malaria. She worked with him at the Estes Park Presbyterian Church. When citizens formed the Local Council of Defense during WWI, Hattie led the Women’s Division. She was Postmaster from 1919-1923, in times when the mail may have required horse and wagon—or sleigh—to get through.

The Old Post Office site is now occupied by Mountain Gear. Just imagine what a challenge postal delivery was during Estes winters and deep snowdrifts!

Mrs. Walsh’s Garden on West Elkhorn

☛ Walk up Elkhorn past Spruce Street and look left for this lovely refuge. Winifred “Peggy” Walsh was like many women who came to the rugged landscape of the old West: She hiked, rode horses, and dealt with the challenges of long, cold winters and primitive conditions in the old days.

Peggy was also an avid gardener who loved to grow mountain wildflowers on her property south of what’s now Mrs. Walsh’s Garden.

Peggy’s grandchildren cherished their time with Peggy, enjoying the flowers and having “Breakfast Club” on Sunday mornings, reading stories and doing crafts with Grandma.

One grandchild, Judy Lamy, created this garden to show the beauty and environmental upsides to gardening with native plants that flourish best in the area, such as Woods Rose and Western Virgin's Bower Vine. Come get a quiet getaway and learn about native plants in Mrs. Walsh’s Garden.

E.M.A. Foot’s First Business

☛ Look across Elkhorn and look at the parking lot and the slope heading up to Performance Park. (Go up to Performance Park and check out its intimate stage. If you’re interested in climbing, try out the climbing wall there.) Imagine a fleet of tents springing up there to house tourists, the first and lucrative business for E.M.A. Foot. She was able to parley the tents revenue into building a fleet of tourist cottages here that helped launch her business career.

The Elkhorn Lodge and Guest Ranch, 600 W. Elkhorn

☛ This spot was once a premier tourist destination, and Eleanor Hondius was there from childhood on to shepherd its growth. With its guided tours of the nearby Rockies, charming lodge and cabins, and lots of tourist entertainment such as rodeos, folks flocked to this spot. Eleanor’s parents, William and Ella, built the lodge in 1874 and it operated into the 1990s, making it Colorado’s oldest, continuously operating hotel. Local reporting indicates it has been bought by a major hotel chain, which will keep its historic character.

Visit the Estes Park Museum to see videos of all the goings-on that played out here at the Elkhorn Lodge, plus lots of other fascinating portrayals of past Estes, including the legacy of the Ute and Arapaho peoples who were first here.

Female-Focused Field Trips

Fabulous females made herstory all over Estes and the area, including Rocky Mountain National Park. Here are some jaunts to take you to see where it all happened and imagine these women in ACTION!

Stanley Home Museum, 415 W. Wonderview Avenue

☛ Thanks to the scary movie The Shining, many folks want to go to the Stanley Hotel in Estes where frightening sequences were set. The Stanley Hotel is definitely worth a visit, but be sure to also check out the beautiful Stanley Home Museum.

Museum with Stanley Steamer out front—the invention of F. O. Stanley and twin brother F. E.

That’s where you’ll learn more about Flora Stanley, spouse of the well-known F. O. Stanley. As her sculpture plaque notes, Flora was committed to the betterment of low-income women and universal suffrage for women, as well as a pioneer for civic involvement in the town.

Flora is featured at the magnificent Museum that was once her home.

Flora was a match to her husband’s intellect and civic involvement, championing fundraising for many betterment projects such as the town fish hatchery over the years. She was a lover of music, creating a song about the beauty of Estes Park. You’ll also learn about her sister-in-law Chansonetta Stanley Emmons, a photographer who transported her heavy cameras into the wilderness to take beautiful photos. Her work highlighted the photographic innovation by her brothers that netted them a fortune when they sold it to the Eastman Company of Kodak fame.

The Stanley Hotel, 333 Wonderview Avenue

☛ Take a look around this gorgeous hotel and grounds. Be sure to visit the mezzanine to your left as you walk in the front entrance. That’s where you’ll find a bevy of photos of the Stanleys, including Flora. Wander about to see more historic photos of the Estes area, including the lower level.

Picture Flora doing her signature schtick of fortune-telling for the Woman’s Club fundraisers here at the hotel and elsewhere. She did that at a ball in 1915 held here to raise money for the new Children’s Hospital in Denver. The women were able to send $80 from that evening to help the children. As the Woman’s Club history notes, the “colored employees” of the hotel chipped in to send an additional $5 for the hospital.

Note: You’ll pay $10 to park in the hotel’s parking lot, but you’ll get a token that is worth $5 to use at the restaurants and bars at the Stanley.

Mountain Home Café, 445 E. Wonderview

☛ Olga Ortega de Rojas and her husband Enrique started Mountain Home Café when they made Estes Park their year-round home, becoming one of the first Latino families to do so. Olga gave back to the community who flocked to their restaurant, organizing and growing the Cinco de Mayo festival which remains free and draws hundreds of visitors.

Olga gives back to Estes and champions the Latino community.

Olga was a founder of “Estes Park Gives Back” program; community businesses pledge 1% of sales to area nonprofits. During the pandemic, she fed people and gave away masks.

She advocates for the many lower-income Estes Park residents who provide the workforce for the tourism industry, but find it hard to live in the community where they work. With her leadership, a lodging tax funds housing and childcare for those critical workers.

TIP: Try the chile rellenos—muy sabroso! But then, so is everything else.

MacGregor Ranch Museum, 1301 Clara Drive, Estes Park

☛ You wouldn’t be enjoying this ranch museum here if it wasn’t for Muriel MacGregor and Orpha Kendall. They saved this last of the working cattle ranches in the area when Muriel willed that it remain an educational resource. After Muriel got sick, Orpha, who was the longtime ranch manager and friend, helped her fight for the ranch against the long and litigious actions of relatives who wanted a part of it.

Muriel was an only child, and headed off to get a college degree and a history master’s degree from the University of Colorado. Muriel got a law degree at the University of Denver, and in 1936, she became one of two women admitted to practice before the Colorado Supreme Court.

Muriel made it possible for the MacGregor Ranch to educate and entertain.

But when her mother Clara became very sick, Muriel came back to the ranch. After Orpha negotiated the final agreement to keep the ranch an education draw for locals and tourists, the work of establishing and staffing a museum began. Orpha credits a network of mostly women who volunteered year after year to keep this community jewel thriving.

Ute Women Worksite, near corner of Devil’s Gulch Road and Dry Gulch Road

☛ The first peoples to the area that became Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park were the Ute and Arapaho peoples. As this look at the Native past notes, these hunter-gathering people were here for thousands of years before white settler activity forced them out.

Plenty of evidence notes their past presence, such as “game drives,” rock fences where game would be driven over the precipice to harvest for eating. And an archaelogical dig found an extensive women’s work site north of Estes Park that documents how important women were to the thriving and surviving of their people.

The dig evidence and expert analysis shows that while men were more often the ones who hunted and killed the animals for eating, women took over the long and time-intensive tasks that made it possible for people to eat and wear and use animal products. And women also gathered and processed the important plant materials that the community ate and used for daily life.

The report Excavation at Bode’s Draw: A Women’s Work Area in the Mountains Near Estes Park, Colorado, by James B. Benedict (check it out at the Estes Library) says: “Women gathered and processed plant materials, prepared food, filleted and dried meat, extracted marrow and bone grease, tanned hides, sewed garments, manufactured and maintained tipi, collected firewood, carried water, and manufactured the tools needed to perform these tasks.”

Women also did much to gather stories and Native place names to learn and honor Native presence. Harriet Vaille took charge of an effort to learn and assign the Indian names they’d given to places in the Park. This was before the Park was approved as a Park, and Harriet and others thought that having more Native and other names designated would help get approval for a national park.

Harriet Vaille with Arapaho elders in 1912

Harriet conferred with experts and went with her friend Edna Hendrie to the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming to seek Arapaho elders who’d come to the area and tell them stories and names. She raised travel money for the elders, and asked her 23-year-old cousin Oliver Toll to help document what they said. Oliver’s presence also gave a male legitimacy to the venture, writes Jan Robertson in The Magnificent Mountain Women.

Harriet was empassioned by the elders’ words, and gave lectures about Indian culture. Just one story: Despite many settler’s assertions that the Estes Valley was a blank slate before they arrived, elders said that they’d often climbed Long’s Peak to trap eagles long before any white people ascended Long’s to lauds of being “the first.”

Her young cousin Oliver got the author credit in the booklet he wrote about what the elders said. In the end, though, few names assigned were the Native terms. A few did: Tonahutu Creek, Never Summer Range, and Lumpy Ridge. Some were added later, such as the Kawuneeche (“coyote” in Arapaho) Valley, which became the name of the Park’s west entrance near Grand Lake.

Honor the Native American women of the Estes Valley when visiting the Women’s Sculpture Monument. Neinoo Biiti’owu’ Singing in Water, a representative Native American woman, honors the contributions of Native women to the area.

YMCA of the Rockies, 2515 Tunnel Road

☛ The YMCA of the Rockies is a wonderful destination, with its lodges and cabins and programming attracting thousands of visitors each year. The YMCA also hosted YWCA programming over the years, including gatherings focused on suffrage and empowering women.

As this wonderful tour of women’s contributions in Estes Park notes, the YWCA programs also took on the courageous act of inviting women and girls of color to conferences held at the YMCA camp. This happened in the context of de facto segregation in Estes Park (and elsewhere in most places in Colorado and other states) where African-Americans and sometimes Jewish people were not welcome at lodges and camps. And it happened in a dangerous era from the mid-1910s to the mid-1920s, when Colorado had the second highest membership of Ku Klux Klan leaders.

The YWCA was growing its focus on reducing racism by programming that increased diversity and friendships between whites and people of color. The YWCA began the Girls’ Reserves network of clubs in 1918 to instruct girls on supporting the troops and WWI’s stateside needs. It was also a way to get girls of different races together when organizations or faith institutions sponsored clubs. The YWCA also put on Business Girls Conferences, hosting them at predominantly white YWCAs and YMCAs, including Estes Park’s YMCA.

Marie’s roots in YWCA girls’ programs held at the YMCA launched her groundbreaking mark in Colorado education.

In 1929, Marie L. Greenwood and Margaret I. Shelton became two of the first Black girls to attend the girls’ conference in Estes Park, as well as one of the first Black mentors, Lillian Bondurant, the tour notes. Marie would go on to break barriers in Colorado education history, notes the Visible Network, a group strengthening community networks to create fairness.

Marie was born in Los Angeles in 1912, and became the first tenured African American educator in Colorado. Her family had moved to Denver when she was 13, and at 17, Marie attended the Girls’ Reserve and Business Girls Conference in Estes Park.

She started in 1931 at Colorado Teachers College, now the University of Northern Colorado, where segregation mandated that she could not join clubs, student organizations, or live on campus. She began teaching as a tenured educator at Denver’s Whittier Elementary School, where she became a well-loved teacher.

Marie changed many young people’s lives through her teaching and mentoring.

Her legacy continues: Her name was given to a Denver elementary school in 2001, and in 2010, Denver proclaimed November 4th as Marie Greenwood Day. She published two books: By the Grace of God and Every Child Can Learn, an autobiography that chronicles the stories of some of her most notable students. She also received an honorary doctorate from UNC, as well as the Martin Luther King Trailblazer Award. In 2019, she died at the age of 106.

Girls enjoying the mountain fun at Lincoln Hills

Meanwhile, discrimination against non-white people in the tourism industry caused African-Americans to start their own Rockies lodges and camps, such as the Lincoln Hills resort not far from Denver.

Camper at the equestrian camp Nizhoni (Beautiful in Navajo)

Thanks to the organization Lincoln Hills Cares, outdoor education and camps continues for Black and diverse kids. Check out their history and programs!

Jewish lodges and camps in the Rockies thrived as well, and at least one remains, Camp Shwayder in Idaho Springs.

Beaver Meadows Meander, Rocky Mountain National Park

☛ Enter the Park at the Beaver Meadows entrance to enjoy this sought-after tourist magnet, with its beautiful meadows and mountain trails and sylvan lakes and waterfalls and streams. You’ll be able to see areas along your way which were also sought after by women who built a cabin retreat, or who ran many lodges and opened businesses. Learn more about them with the great guidebook, History of the Lodges of Estes Park: The Irrepressible Women of Estes Park & Their Lodging Establishments, by Jenny Sommer—find it at the woman-owned Macdonald Bookstore.

Imogene tending her lodge fire in 1924; thanks to the National Parks Service

If you visit the Moraine Park Discovery Center, picture Imogene Green McPhearson, boss of the Moraine Park Lodge, bustling about here. Imogene came out west after a divorce, and stayed at Sprague Lodge, run by Alberta and Abner Sprague. Inspired, she homesteaded nearby, and named her cabin “Hillcrest.”

Imogene’s lodge now educates Park visitors at the Moraine Park Discovery Center

Soon Imogene joined up with the Estes Park Woman’s Club, and decided to open her own business, the Moraine Park Lodge. The only building remaining of Imogene’s spread became the Moraine Park Discovery Center.

Judge Florence Allen in Moraine Park

☛ As you keep going on Bear Lake Road, notice a turn to the left, Kaley Cottage Road. That’s where Judge Florence Ellinwood Allen turned off back when she’d take a much-needed summer break to her cabin.

Florence was determined from girlhood on, learning Greek and Latin by age seven. She went on to gain a Masters of Arts in political science and constitutional law from Western Reserve in 1908.

But when she applied to law school at Western Reserve, she was rejected because she was female, notes this Parks Service biography. She graduated from New York University’s law school in 1913, where she’d also been speaking out for women’s suffrage.

Seeking the mountain hiking she did as a girl in Utah, she bought a cabin in Moraine Park for the summers. She shared it with her partner, Mary Pierce. The Estes Park newspaper lauded her when she became the first woman placed on the Ohio Supreme Court. President Franklin Roosevelt nominated her to U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, and once again she was the first woman to sit on any federal bench of general jurisdiction.

L-R: Mary E. Pierce, Bertha “Bert” Miller, and Florence Allen at the cabin, which was later known as the Kaley Cottage; thanks to Kent State University

Florence was fearless, facing down a crime boss in her courtroom and endured heckling at rallies for suffrage and other measures. Her opinions would shape public policy on issues such as labor rights, trusts and monopolies, and bankruptcy. As this women’s tour look at Florence notes, Florence had hoped to be nominated to the U. S. Supreme Court; the first female Justice would be Sandra Day O’Conner in 1981. But Florence served as an inspiration to women and a mentor to many throughout the U.S. and her summer community in Estes.

Elizabeth’s legacy lives on for children’s benefit.

Another brilliant woman did much of her groundbreaking work at a cabin she had built on Kaley Cottage Road. Elizabeth Lee Vincent was the dean of the home economics department at Cornell University, which she shepherded into the more apt title of Human Ecology.

Elizabeth was an important figure in the then-new arena of child psychology, and her textbooks on the topic were used for decades. She’d often do her writing under a second story window in her cabin, writes Dorothy Bass in the application to place the Vincent-Hachette cabin on the National Register of Historic Places (which was granted).

Vincent’s legacy lives on today with a long line of professors carrying out vital research and writing about the topics affecting children’s well-being as an Elizabeth Lee Vincent Professor of Human Ecology.

Yaye Kato’s Bear Lake Road Tea House

☛ Wander down Bear Lake Road until you see the Tuxedo Park Picnic Area. This is near where tourists and locals swarmed in 1931 to Yaye Kato’s beautiful Oriental Tea Garden. Yaye would serve Chinese and Japanese food to guests, wearing a lovely Asian dress. The Tea Garden’s gated entrance was wreathed with Japanese lanterns.

Yaye was born in 1901 in Okayma, Japan, and at age 10, emigrated with her family to San Francisco. She married Ryoji Kato and they moved to Estes Park, opening the Kato Art Shop, an art and gift shop on Elkhorn Avenue. Their daughter was born in 1929, and Yaye opened the Oriental Tea Garden two years later.

Yaye died in 1932, and Ryoji remarried to Haruno Yamaguchi and the two had a son, Ken. Their fortunes changed with WWII. As reported by the Estes Park Trail-Gazette, in 1942 the Kato family was removed from Estes and imprisoned as part of President Franklin Roosevelt's authorization of evacuation and internment of Japanese Americans on the west coast.

Considered a threat to national security during World War II, the Kato family was among some 127,000 Japanese Americans taken from their homes. When they attempted to return to Estes Park in 1943, community sentiment had changed against them, and Ryoji was denied a business license.

In a “letter of respect” addressed to Leland Kirisu, Yaye and Ryoji’s grandson, the city of Estes Park apologized for this action. Mayor Wendy Koenig and the city council members agreed with the federal Civic Liberties Act of 1988 enacted by President Ronald Reagan, which apologized for the internment of Japanese Americans. Koenig said to Leland, "How I only wish your family lived here today so we could show them respect without reservation."

☛ Continue down Bear Lake Road to its end, and if you’re up to it, take a hike to Alberta Falls. This stunning falls were named after Alberta Sprague, partner in lodge enterprises run by her and husband Abner.

Alberta Falls is named for lodge-running lady Alberta Sprague.

When the family arrived to homestead in 1874, Alberta was part of that onerous task of bringing in supplies by mule, and then getting the household running and keeping the family supplied with food and all they needed each day.

Alberta is to the right of Abner at center as they guide the pack train.

When increasing visitors stopped by their cabin seeking food and boarding, the Spragues decided to expand it into a lodge. Alberta continued with the many responsibilities of an inn-keeper, tending constant visitor needs and coordinating excursions for fishing and hunting and hiking. Later they would build another lodge in Glacier Park and enlarge a pond there to become Sprague Lake, now the site of another great Park hike.

Alberta was busy with innkeeping and family responsibilities.

Alberta was a mover and shaker in Estes Park as well, taking on the presidency of the Estes Park Woman’s Club in 1926.

Fall River entrance, Rocky Mountain National Park

☛ Tourists may find the Fall River entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park a great alternative to the more crowded Beaver Meadows entrance. Here, too, you’ll find the mark of plenty of awesome women of history and present.

Make a stop at the beautiful Horseshoe Park overlook. Look down at the horseshoe shapes carved by the Fall River into grassy meadows that attracted women homesteaders such as Esther Burnell. As awesome Rocky Mountain Conservancy educator Amelia Gross told a recent group of the Women of Rocky history tour, Esther was a woman who followed her bliss by choosing a tough but beautiful life staking and building her homestead. And she serves as an inspiration to women then and now.

One women inspired by Esther is her daughter, Enda, who’s honored in the Estes Park Women’s Sculpture Monument. Enda Mills had formidable ancestry to fuel her dedication to the Park and Estes Park. Many locals know her father, Enos Mills, as the Father of Rocky Mountain National Park for his mission to preserve the park for all.

Enos and Enda; thanks to the Enos Mill Cabin Museum

Here are just a few highlights from a fascinating family history done by Enos and Esther Mills’ great-granddaughter, Eryn. Enos’ parents were Quakers—mom Ann would become a Quaker preacher at 83—who moved to Kansas from Indiana to help Kansas stay a free state in the Civil War slavery struggles. Enos was sickly and his sisters tutored him well to make up for frequent school absences.

Enos’ cousin Ruth Elkanah and kids ran the ranch.

His parents knew he’d thrive better in Rocky Mountain climate. So Enos hitchhiked to Kansas City and earned money to get a train ticket to Denver. He then headed to Estes, where cousins Elkanah and Ruth Lamb had homesteaded. Reverend Elkanah was gone often preaching throughout his territory, so Ruth and son Carlyle ran the operation.

Carlyle took Enos up his first ascent of Long’s Peak, and Enos decided to homestead, building a cabin. To make money, he took a job at the Anaconda Copper Mine in Butte, Montana. Incidentally, Enos learned by researching at Butte’s excellent library that his sickness was a wheat allergy—by avoiding wheat products he remained healthy and hearty, hiking all over the Rockies.

Enos looks at the photographer while scaling Long’s Peak for the first time at 15.

The income from mining allowed him to travel widely, and he met naturalist John Muir in San Francisco, who inspired him to learn and teach about nature. Enos went home and bought Long’s Peak Inn south of Estes, and took visitors on countless nature hikes.

Enos wrote his first book, Wild Life in the Rockies, in 1907. Believing that every place should have a place of unspoiled nature, he launched his goal to create what became Rocky Mountain National Park, writing, lobbying, and speechifying toward that goal. F.O. Stanley, whose businesses had prospered as Estes grew, helped fund Enos’ lobbying project. In 1915, the Park was dedicated, to great acclaim in a spot that’s now the Lawn Lake trailhead.

In the meantime, Enda’s mother Esther Burnell was up to major badassery as well. Esther had gotten an interior decorator degree at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, and had been working at Sherwin-Williams in Cleveland, Ohio, as an interior decorator. She made a good living, but she was bored.

She and sis Elizabeth, department chair of math and physics at Lake Erie College, went to a talk by Enos Mill, who was lecturing around the country after the Park’s dedication in 1915. They took up his invitation to come to Estes, and stayed at his Long’s Peak Inn.

Esther was ready to move. She got her homesteading papers in Denver, and homesteaded a plot near the RMNP Falls River entrance. She built a cabin she called Keewaydin, an Algonquin word for “northwest winds,” and built her furniture as well.

Elizabeth Burnell treks as a nature guide.

She was immediately an outdoorswoman extraordinaire, thinking nothing of snowshoeing 30 miles across the continental divide to visit friends. One Christmas Day, she did a midway meetup with another intrepid homesteader Katherine Garetson (more about her below). They had a joyful lunch, heating soup over a fire in the snow, and then snowshoed home as the sun went down.

A nine-mile one-way snowshoe venture for both, in freezing temps? Whatever. She hiked all over the mountains and enjoyed, says her granddaughter Eryn, a freedom few women enjoyed.

Esther crossed paths with Enos and helped with his writings. Enos was smitten with Esther. He had been lobbying the Parks administration to hire female guides, and asked Esther and her sister if they were interested.

When permission was granted, Elizabeth and Esther became the Park’s first female nature guides. Females were restricted from going to the timberline unless accompanied by male guides, but they both routinely violated that rule, taking tourists to alpine places such as the top of 14,259-foot Long’s Peak.

In 1918, Esther agreed to marry, and Enda was born the next year. Enos died three years later, and Esther took over Long’s Peak Inn. She continued the campaign to preserve parks and published more books by Enos.

Enda also loved adventure, going to work for American Airlines and taking flying lessons. On the brink of getting her pilot’s license, she was disqualified because she was blind in one eye, the result of a childhood accident. She signed up the Navy W.A.V.E.S. in World War II and was stationed in Rhode Island, where she met her husband to be Robert Kiley. After raising four children, they returned to Estes, where she carried on her parents’ mission, advocating for nature and publicizing the works written by her father. Enda’s daughter Elizabeth and granddaughter Eryn educate visitors with tours of the Enos Mills Cabin Museum.

Lawn Lake Trailhead, Fall River Road

☛ Pause here before taking the lovely hike to Lawn Lake. This is the general area where crowds of Estes Parkers and folks from way beyond gathered for the dedication of Rocky Mountain National Park. One woman gave a speech that day: Mary Bell King Sherman. She had become known as the National Park Lady for her longstanding advocacy to create Rocky Mountain National, along with Grand Canyon and five other national parks that draw millions of tourists from around the world.

Mary Belle King Sherman among the other dignitaries at the Park dedication

Mary Belle, a parliamentary law instructor at the John Marshall School of Law in Chicago, had moved with husband John to Estes in 1909. She gave talks to women’s clubs and other venues in Colorado and other states, urging the creation of park spaces to give children and other community members the gift of outdoor fun and nature learning. We who love the parks and their legacy for future generations salute her!

Alpine Visitor Center, Trail Ridge Road in the Park

☛ The alpine zone in the Park has a fierce beauty and breathtaking views. While the alpine zone is marked with few trees, the vegetation there is no less precious. Several women devoted themselves to the study and preservation of alpine plant life. And other women catalogued the dazzling wildflowers of the Rockies, notes Jan Robertson in her look at the “Gutsy Lady Botanists” in her book, The Magnificent Mountain Women.

Alice was sick of riding sidesaddle in a long skirt to collect plants.

Alice Eastwood fell in love with botany early on, starting her plant collection in high school in Denver. She taught school in Kiowa in eastern Colorado and Denver, saving money to buy botany books and fund time in the mountains cataloguing the gorgeous flowers of the Rockies.

Alice was frustrated at the cultural mandate that women ride sidesaddle in long skirts and dresses. So she invented a culotte with buttoned flaps so she could ride her horse astride and comfortably while collecting in the most rugged of terrains.

Alice discovered and named several Colorado wildflowers, and her huge collection is held by the University of Colorado. She went on to study at the world’s great herbaria and became curator of botany at the California Academy of Science. Under her direction, the collection there held over 300,000 plants. She retired from as Academy Curator at 90.

Hazel, state botanist and nature missionary

Hazel Schmoll broke some glass ceilings as the first woman to gain a doctorate in ecology at the University of Chicago. And she became Colorado’s first female state botanist in 1919. She lobbied the Colorado legislature to get Colorado’s state flower, the lavender columbine, protected.

But she left academia to be a community ecologist in Ward, Colorado, 30 miles south of Estes where she’d grown up. The throngs of guests at her Range View Ranch lodge eagerly responded to her mission to make them “converts to nature” in trips to the Park. She continued that mission in the Ward community, her home a mecca for nature lovers. Her lifelong deep civic involvement prompted a city award at age 88.

You may still see Ruth Ashton Nelson’s Plants of Rocky Mountain Park for sale! Ruth hiked thousands of miles to research Park flora when she worked there in the mid-1920s.

Other women worked to further learning of the Park area’s fauna, hunting the animals that would be mounted to travel to museums far away for visitors who’d never be able to visit the Park.

Martha Maxwell is featured in The Magnificent Mountain Women as one of America’s earliest female taxidermists, and a first-rate naturalist as well who hosted the Colorado wildlife exhibit at the 1876 American Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. A variety of owls, otus asio maxwelliae, is named for Martha.

And Beatrice “Bettie” Willard used her research done from the 1950s to the 1980s, high in freezing Alpine temperatures, to get better protection from tourists and hikers of the delicate but no less important alpine flora. Her legacy lives on in the “Bettie Courses” offered by the Rocky Mountain Conservancy to connect women to conservation efforts through educational experiences. Women learn about stream ecology, fly fishing, mountain climbing and protecting the environment.

Bettie also worked with Estella Leopold to save the Florissant Fossil Lake Beds in southern Colorado and get them protected as a national park. It worked, after a lot of lobbying from the two and others, and the National Monument opened in 1969 to offer visitors a look at the ancient fossils and site for prehistoric hunting and gathering Paleo-Indians, the Ute and Jicarilla Apache peoples.

South Estes Valley Entrepreneurs

☛ Meander down south of Estes Park on Highway 7 to meet some savvy businesswomen. First stop: Lily Lake, a sylvan lake right off Highway 7. Visitors flock to Lily Lake for its beauty and easy access. Do check out the Lily Lake loop, but take a hike away from the lake to see what was once a very busy teahouse serving thirsty hikers.

Hike from Lily Lake to the tea room, an awesome businesswoman’s first business.

Anna and the Wigwam Tea Room

Anna Wolfrom Dove built her Wigwam Tea Room in 1914, but it was only the first of her many businesses in the Estes area and beyond to New Orleans! Read the amazing Anna saga in Nina Jones Kunze’s Anna Wolfrom Dove and the Wigwam Tea Room: The Remarkable Single Woman Homesteader and the History of Her Legendary Tea Room in the Rocky Mountains. Nina writes that she was inspired to write about Anna after finding so little already written about such a remarkable woman.

Anna’s open for business at the Wigwam Tea Room.

Anna had already had an adventurous life before homesteading in Estes in 1907. She had studied at Oxford University, traveled to Paris with a friend and several other European spots, wrote a book on French history, and had gone to the Irish Parliament to meet Windham Thomas Wyndham-Quinn. Windham was known as Lord Dunraven in Estes, where he’d tried to acquire (using somewhat suspicious means) vast lots of land to create a European playground.

Anna was intrigued by moving to Estes, but first she went back to get a liberal arts degree at the University of Missouri at age 35 and teach in Kansas City schools. She made the move, selecting a homestead site on Lily Mountain on beautiful Aspen Creek, and built a cabin with a hired hand.

She needed income, so she expanded her house and opened the Wigwam Tea Room. Cleverly, Anna improved a road to the property so motorists as well as hikers could come. Soon she had up to 200 guests a day streaming in for tea and other delicious fare and gifts.

Anna’s third business, the Beaver Point Store

She began expanding, and started with a place to sell the Native America work that fascinated her and led her to collect items. She opened the Indian Store and What Not Shop right on “the Corners,” the epicenter of Estes then and now.

Next, she opened her Beaver Point Store, otherwise known as the Wolfrom Filling Station and Confectionary. That spot is now the home of the restaurant Bird & Jim, which commemorates another awesome Estes influence, adventurer Isabella Bird and her sometimes sidekick Mountain Jim.

Next, Anna bought some land and built cottages, bringing in her niece Louise Belknap to manage the Belknap Cottages on Highway 66, on the way to the popular YMCA camp. The two added the Louise Gift Shop on the grounds.

Anna married late in life to physician Orville Dove. The two wintered in New Orleans, where Anna started The Totem, where she sold Native American items and antiques. Orville took ill, and Anna longed to return to her businesses in Estes. Eventually she did, and died at age 77 of heart illness in nearby Longmont.

The National Parks Service stabilized the Wigwam Tea Room to honor Anna’s herstory.

Look for this sign on the way to the Wigwam.

Salute Anna’s enterprise by packing some tea and picnic fare on a hike to the Wigwam site. In the Lily Lake parking lot, head toward the bathrooms end and continue on the trail heading straight beyond the bathrooms. Walk until you reach a bridge, and take a sharp right before the bridge. Look for this sign to make sure you’re on the right path. You’ll find the former Tea Room before the private property line.

And when you’re in Estes, check out Bird & Jim’s or the sites of Anna’s other former businesses, and raise a mental toast to this leading lady business BOSS!

Katherine’s Big Owl Tea Place

☛ Toodle down Highway 7 until you hit Big Owl Road to the left if you want to take in the vibes of another intrepid homesteader and teahouse owner, Katherine Garetson. Katherine’s homestead cabin is gone now, but her story still inspires. Like Anna, she homesteaded to get some land of her own, following the contract to “prove” it by building a cabin, raising crops, and improving the low-cost land. She invited friend “A.A.,” Annie Adele Shreve, and a Great Dane pup named Gypsy.

Katherine on right and A.A. by the Big Owl Tea House

Katherine nearly gave up at times, as she writes in her memoir, Homesteading Big Owl, embattled by bitterly cold, isolating, and long winters. The rocky soil and short growing season made growing her potatoes and oats very challenging. After the three year term, government inspectors said her progress was unsatisfactory. It took another two years to gain ownership.

Cornelia Otis Skinner and other fancy folk came to the Big Owl Tea Place.

In the meantime, Katherine and A.A. got the Big Owl Tea Place up and running, and it became a magnet for folks from near and far, including writer Edna Ferber and actor and playwright Cornelia Otis Skinner. Katherine decorated it as a Russian tea room, complete with a samovar.

Katherine ran the Big Owl Tea Place from 1915-1934. She went to work in Denver, becoming the head of the Colorado Liquor Licensing Board until her retirement.

Long’s Peak Ladies

Long’s Peak is a spectacular talisman for Rocky Mountain National Park and the Estes area. At 14,259 feet and marked with treacherous and rocky features, it has long been a challenge to those who sought to climb it. Dozens of people have died trying over the years.

Native Americans climbed it regularly, and then white men recorded their ascents. Let’s meet a few of the first white women to summit Long’s Peak.

Addie Alexander

☛ To follow in the footsteps of the Long’s Peak ladies, arrive EARLY to the Long’s Peak trailhead off Highway 7. So many hikers seek to hike the peak paths that parking slots fill long before dawn. You’ll need to be an experienced hiker to take the top, but do take a hike along its many paths. First, you’ll walk the path of Addie Alexander.

Addie Alexander is credited as the first white women to make the top of Long’s Peak in 1871, which the area newspapers reported at the time. But since Addie didn’t trumpet her success, her feat was hidden for a century, Jan Robertson notes in The Magnificent Mountain Women.

Anna Dickinson

And Addie’s climb was overshadowed by the famous feminist speaker, Anna Dickinson, who climbed Long’s Peak two years later in 1873. Anna would get two peaks named for her in subsequent years! One is Mount Lady Washington (Anna’s nickname, given because she summited Mount Washington in New Hampshire 28 times) adjacent Long’s Peak. She’s also honored by Mount Dickinson, in the Mummy Range northeast of Estes Park. AND—proving that she was considered a nationally prominent historical figure—a WWII cargo ship bore her name, the S.S. Anna Dickinson!

Fiery speaker Anna was known as America’s Joan of Arc.

Anna E. Dickinson was just two when her father died, and her mother started taking in boarders and opened a school in their Philadelphia home. Anna first got published at age 13 in a national magazine, The Liberator, with her abolitionist essay. She went to work by 15, and at 18, began her speaking career.

People flocked by the thousands to hear Anna speak, notes author Sarah Hahn Campbell, in her wonderful blog that chronicles her goal to climb all the Colorado peaks named for women and write a book about it. Anna was the first woman to speak in 1863 on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.

By 1865, she was earning today’s equivalent of $280,000 annually from speaking fees, first as an abolitionist and then as an advocate for laborer's rights, for equality for all, and for women's rights. Her persuasive speeches made her known as "America's Joan of Arc,” Sarah writes. Anna wrote several books and plays.

Anna dared to wear pants for her Long’s Peak climb, which provoked scandalized outbursts reported in the newspaper. And headlines crackled when Anna split her pants sliding in snow, which delighted Anna!

Next up for white women is the adventurer Isabella Bird, an Englishwoman who traveled—typically by herself—not just to the Rockies but to China, India, the Hawaiian Islands (then called the Sandwich Islands), Japan, and more destinations.

Isabella Bird traveled the world and inspired women with her books about her adventures.

Isabella took photos on three China tours.

She wrote books about her travels, which sold well (and earned her a stipend from the publisher) and funded further travel. She started hospitals in China, India, Australia, and Korea. She lugged photographic equipment on many trips, such as three tours of China to document Chinese life that she took in her 60s. In 1892, she became the first woman elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society.

She was an extraordinary woman, so DO enjoy learning much more through the extraordinary tribute to Isabella launched by the Estes Park visitor’s bureau, Visit Estes. You’ll find lots of fun ways Estes organizations and businesses are bringing Isabella to life, as well as great articles and interviews with experts about her life. If you’re lucky enough to be in Estes this fall, join in with all the innovative ways the community honors an awesome woman on the 150th anniversary of her Long’s Peak climb and Estes adventuring.

Isabella also worked as a cowhand in Estes.

Isabella did do Estes a big favor when she came in 1873, no spring chicken at age 41. Her writings extolled the beauty of the mountains, and when her book was published, visitors by the trainload came. Her book, A Lady’s LIfe in the Rocky Mountains, also describes the hardships of living and traveling in those times. Isabella would work as a cattle driver at times for Griff Evans, the rancher who rented her a cabin. She was a skilled horsewoman from girlhood.

And Isabella was honest about her Long’s Peak ascent. At times, her companions, including the burly Mountain Jim, would carry her up particularly difficult passages. But she made it.

And that triumph, like so many Isabella achieved in her lifetime, continues to inspire women to take on their dreams and see them through!