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The Town of Estes Park is a statutory town in Larimer County, Colorado, United States. A popular summer resort and the location of the headquarters for Rocky Mountain National Park, Estes Park lies along the Big Thompson River. Estes Park had a population of 5,858 at the 2010 census. Landmarks include the Stanley Hotel. ==Early history== Before Europeans came to the Estes Park valley, the Arapaho Indians lived there in the summertime and called the valley "the Circle." When three elderly Arapahoes visited Estes Park in 1914, they pointed out sites they remembered from their younger days. A photograph at the Estes Park Museum identified the touring party as Shep Husted, guide; Gun Griswold, a 73-year-old judge; Sherman Sage, a 63-year-old chief of police; Tom Crispin, 38-year-old reservation resident and interpreter; Oliver W. Toll, recorder; and David Robert Hawkins, a Princeton student. In the 1850s, the Arapaho had spent summers camped around Mary's Lake, where their rock fireplaces, tipi sites, and dance rings were still visible. They also recalled building eagle traps atop Long's Peak to get the war feathers coveted by all tribes. They remembered their routes to and from the valley in detail, naming trails and landmarks. They pointed out the site of their buffalo trap, and described the use of dogs to pack meat out of the valley. Their recollections included a battle with Apaches in the 1850s, and fights with Utes who came to the area to hunt bighorn sheep, so all three of those tribes used the valley's resources.〔Clement Yore, "Estes Park Region was Formerly the Playground of the Arapaho Indians," ''Estes Park Trail'', January 27, 1922, p. 7 and February 3, 1922, pp. 7-8. An account of unidentified Indians raiding white ranches for horses is given in Abner Sprague, "Roads and Trails," ''Estes Park Trail'', December 8, 1922, p. 3.〕 Whites probably came into the Estes Park valley before the 1850s as trappers, but did not stay long. The town is named after Missouri native Joel Estes,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Profile for Estes Park, Colorado, CO )〕 who founded the community in 1859.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Estes Park Colorado )〕 Estes moved his family there in 1863. One of Estes' early visitors was William Byers, a newspaper editor who wrote of his ascent of Long's Peak in 1864, publicizing the area as a pristine wilderness.〔William Byers, "Ascent of Long's Peak," ''Rocky Mountain News'', September 23, 1864, p. 2, quoted in James H. Pickering, ''"This Blue Hollow": Estes Park, the Early Years, 1859-1915'' (Boulder, Colo: University Press of Colorado, 1999), chapter 1.〕 Griff Evans and his family came to Estes Park in 1867 to act as caretakers for the former Estes ranch. Recognizing the potential for tourism, he began building cabins to accommodate travelers. Soon it was known as the first dude ranch in Estes Park, with guides for hunting, fishing, and mountaineering.〔Betty D. Freudenburg, ''Facing the Frontier: The Story of the MacGregor Ranch''(Estes Park, Colo.: Rocky Mountain Nature Association, 2005), p. 61.〕 The 4th Earl of Dunraven and Mount-Earl, a young Anglo-Irish peer, arrived in late December 1872, visited repeatedly, and decided to take over the valley for his own private hunting preserve. Lord Dunraven's 'land grab' didn't work, but he controlled 6,000 acres before he changed tactics and opened the area's first resort, the Estes Park Hotel, which was destroyed by fire in 1911.〔Freudenburg pp. 61-67.〕 In 1873, Englishwoman Isabella Bird, the daughter of an Anglican minister, came to the United States. Landing at San Francisco, she came overland to Colorado, where she borrowed a horse and set out to explore the Rocky Mountains with a guide, the notorious James Nugent, aka 'Rocky Mountain Jim'. She wrote a memoir of their travels, including the breathtaking ascent of Long's Peak, where she was literally hauled up the steep pitches "like a bale of goods."〔Isabella Bird, ''A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains'' (Sausalito, Calif.: Comstock, 1980), Letter 7, p. 87.〕 On June 19th 1874 Rocky Mountain Jim and neighbor Griff Evans (see above) had an argument. Having had bitter history with each other, Nugent and Evans hated each other and were deep personal rivals when it came to tour guiding tourists. The argument escalated until Evans blasted Jim in the head with his rifle shotgun. Evans then traveled to Fort Collins to file an assault charge against Nugent, but he was arrested and tried for first degree murder when Jim Nugent died on September 9th 1874 of the bullet wound. Evans was put on trial, but the case was soon dismissed due to the lack of witnesses to the shooting. On August 9th 1875, the Loveland court-house acquitted Evans of any charges in the case. William Henry Jackson photographed Estes Park in 1873.〔USGS photo in Freudenburg, p. 56.〕 Alex and Clara (Heeney) MacGregor arrived soon after and homesteaded at the foot of Lumpy Ridge. The MacGregor Ranch has been preserved as a historic site. In 1874, MacGregor incorporated a company to build a new toll road from Lyons, Colorado to Estes Park. The road became what is today U.S. Highway 36. Before that time, however, the "road" was only a trail fit for pack horses. The improved road brought more visitors into Estes Park; some of them became full-time residents and built new hotels to accommodate the growing number of travelers.〔Freudenburg, chapter 7.〕 In 1884, Enos Mills (1870-1922) left Kansas and came to Estes Park, where his relative Rev. Elkanah Lamb lived. That move proved significant for Estes Park because Mills became a naturalist and conservationist who devoted his life after 1909 to preserving nearly a thousand square miles of Colorado as Rocky Mountain National Park. He succeeded and the park was dedicated in 1915.〔Pickering, ''"This Blue Hollow": Estes Park, the Early Years, 1859-1915'', pp. 220-235.〕 Enos Mills' younger brother Joe Mills (1880-1935) came to Estes Park in 1889. He wrote a series of articles about his youthful experiences for ''Boys Life'' and were later published as a book. After some years as a college athletics coach, he and his wife returned to Estes Park and built a hotel called The Crags on the north side of Prospect Mountain, overlooking the village. They ran that business in the summer while he continued his coaching career in winters at University of Colorado in Boulder.〔''A Mountain Boyhood'' (New York: J.H. Sears, 1926, republished 1988 by University of Nebraska Press), introduction.〕 Many early visitors came to Estes Park in search of better health. The Rocky Mountain West especially attracted those with pulmonary diseases, and in Estes Park some resorts catered to them, providing staff physicians for their care.〔Pickering, ''This Blue Hollow'', 127-128.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Estes Park, Colorado」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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