Transcripts For CSPAN3 Rocky Mountain National Park Centennial 20240622

And how it shaped his interest in nature. He talked about the legislative houses and opposition to establishing the 10th National Park. Hosted by history colorado, this event marking the centennial of the park is a little over one hour. On genuine 26, 1915, Woodrow Wilson created rocky Mount National park. Five days earlier on january 20, the enabling legislation, a cartoon on the screen behind me appeared in the denver post. It shows enos mills shaking hands with the goddess colorado, who was saying, enos, i am proud of you. In the background, to mountains speaking. Further complements followed, and within months enos mills was being hailed as the father of Rocky Mountain National Park. The title that mills himself would appropriate in his own writings. That title has followed mills from his time to our own. To cite the most obvious public example, that title graces the pedestal of the bronze lifesize statue of mills and his border collie, scotch. It has stood in the corner of a park in downtown espen. The instruction reads, the father of Rocky Mountain National Park, homesteader nature guide naturalist, writer lecturer, photographer, and citizen of nature. The instruction continues as follows, he brought the love for nature and the wilderness to all that he touched. His legacy is in the scenery and wild gardens of the nature that we continue to enjoy. However pithy and memorable, the title father is both unfortunate and misleading. It all too easily lent itself to an allencompassing statement of fact. It implies that enos mills was somehow singlehandedly responsible for the establishment of the nations 12 National Park. He was not. Though important, his role was a time crucial but others helped in major ways over the course of an exhausting campaign that lasted nearly seven years. It is the story of that campaign , the campaign that created Rocky Mountain National Park and the role that enos mills and others played that i want to share with you this evening. Lets do something a bit unusual. Lets start at the end of things , rather than at the beginning. Here is a picture of the dedication site, both then and now, and Horseshoe Park. The afternoon of september 4, 1915 the saturday was great and glowering, not at all the kind of weather that one expect to encounter in colorado before the aspen begin to turn. Those braving the uncertain whether the crowd and Horseshoe Park scarcely seem to mind. It was all new, a very special day. Indeed, a historic one. Rocky Mountain National park was at long last to reality. After much anticipation, the day had come to dedicate the new park, a watershed moment certainly in the history of colorado and the nation. The dedication was a festive affair as existing photographs clearly demonstrate. Many of the attendees arrived early in order to visited picnic, and take full advantage of what the day had to offer. Park residents and those staying at local ranches and hotels came on foot and on horseback, as well as by bicycle, carriage where can, motorcycle, and by automobile. By midmorning, a steady stream of cars from the towns had begun to arrive, the road coming up from the village past the Fish Hatchery and powerplant with steep and narrow, creating something of a logistical problem, but by that time the official ceremonies began at 2 00 p. M. Some 267 automobiles and a large and enthusiastic gathering of spectators and guests by one count numbering as many as 2000 had managed to crowd onto the dedication site. As the denver times noted the day after, and i quote the horizon was a fast collection of automobiles closely parked to crate the effect of a bit of scenery all their own. A reporter for the Rocky Mountain news, the greatest automobile demonstration ever seen in colorado. [laughter] not surprisingly, the largest contingent of outside visitors came from denver, but the other towns across the range were represented. The people of denver, the day had begun early with a 7 30 a. M. Rendezvous at the Majestic Building at 16th and broadway, not far from here, the headquarters of the Denver Motor Club and a city landmark. There the club members queued up for an automobile procession to the park, shiny new package caring governor carlson constant taylor, assistant secretary of the interior, the young deputy albright and other notables. Additional automobiles adjoined along the way, including a number of big red Stanley Mountain wagons, whose introduction on the mountain roads of colorado seven years earlier in 1908 had done much to improve the transportation of tourists to and from the park and other mountain towns. The vehicle attracting the most attention however was a car belonging to George E Turner of the turner moving and Storage Company here in denver. It had eight builtin organ that regaled spectators with music along the way. [laughter] though the speakers of the day would talk of colorado and the nation local competition in the air, not wanting to be outdone by others poised to declare themselves to the gateway of Rocky Mountain National Park. They urged readers to put banners on their automobiles and get an early start. It is evident to denver that fort collins is on the job and that the National Park is not owned by denver. [laughter] fort collins needed little encouragement. Despite the fact the dedication ceremonies conflicted with the closing of the county fair some 400 people, including top city officials made the trip. 200 more came up by automobile caravan from loveland. To the knowledgeable observer, the presence of so many automobiles in Horseshoe Park was an instructive reminder of the way in which the automobile and automobile and had revolutionized tourism and would in the years that followed to find the experience of many if not most park visitors. Once a place for the rich plaything for the rich, automobiles had decreased in costs and improved in size and comfort, making possible a new kind of leisurely and flexible travel experience. Automobiles encouraged individualize relationships with place, introduced in National Parks has early as 1908, automobiles not only quickly democratized park access, that became the chief means by which Many Americans would come to experience and understand nature and the wilderness. By 1915, motorists in their clubs were well on their way to becoming a powerful force in National Park affairs, including Rocky Mountain. In the years that followed these motorist and their automobiles would influence the way in which the nations parks always struggled to reconcile use and privatization, develop their infrastructures. Rocky Mountain National park was a carpark from the very beginning. It has significantly impacted the way to gateway town has contacted the business of tourism ever sense. The newly arrived were greeted by ladies from the womens club, whose members to distribute buttons as souvenirs and provided picnic style boxed lunches and hot coffee. Their husbands, members of the protective and improvement association, a group of local boosters, handed out ice cream cones to the children. The coffee was particularly welcome as the day was cool. Serenading close by was the 25 piece fort collins concert band. It had arrived in the park the day before and spent the night in the village. Robert sterling yard who had been persuaded to give up his editorship of the newark held to publicize the park circulated frequently among the crowd. Remember those photographs you just saw. Particular visible with a newsreel cameramen from cafe studios pathe studios who would film so they could be shown throughout the nation. I have looked throughout for those films. They are not here in denver. They are not in the National Park archives in maryland. I suspect that because they were fragile, they have long since disintegrated unfortunately. Some visitors that day before and after the ceremonies strolled further up the road, past the newly opened large, to inspect progress on the road built up and over the continental divide, the grand lake, and middle park. Begun by convict labor, the road is only covered three miles and five switchbacks. Progress approved slow and its completion would take another five years. It was well worth the wait. Early drivers pronounced the expense breathtaking and perhaps a bit harrowing. A trip over this wonderful highway remarked one will bring many closer to heaven than most mortals ever get here on earth. [laughter] here is an early photograph of a car descending fall river road. It is still open and it is every bit as harrowing, scary, and breathtaking as it was in the early 1920s. At the appointed hour of 2 00 p. M. , the band from fort collins struck up the battle hymn of the republic and the ceremonies began on a small knoll that is now the long lake trailhead. As you have seen, suspended the between too tall pines was a banner proclaiming the occasion and the date. A fortunate few were able to find seats on the platform reserved for dignitaries and special guests, but most people start. Enos mills presided over the days event. Here is one of the few photographs we have of enos mills in that role. The crowd patriotically joined and in the second and third verses that had been conveniently printed in the days program. Followed, congratulatory letters including one from president wilson regretting his absence, and the number of speeches focusing on parks. Secretary mather who within a year would become the first director of the newly created National Park service, congratulated the people of colorado on a work well begun, and briefly outlined the government cost plans the governments plans for the new part. He also expressed hope that Rocky Mountain National Park would help increase the number of tourists in a realization of the wonders of their own land. As he spoke, there was a deluge of rain. Fortune, however, smiled because he was colorado, and why the time the next speaker, the colorado governor, had finished his five minutes, the rain had stopped, the clouds had parted. A reporter for the Rocky Mountains news put it the splendor across the newly laid snow on longs peak. The program of the day made available in advance listed the names of nine speakers, each to be limited strictly to five minutes. Of the nine, only one declined, 64yearold leland oscar stanley, steam car pioneer and builder owner of estes parks largest and most fashionable hotel, a man who during the previous decade had built an expanded the infrastructure of the New Buildings of estes park. When his turn arrived, the selfeffacing mr. Stanley quietly told mills to take a bow for him, and mills did as he was told and received a round of applause. Stanley would later be captured in what became one of the iconic photographs of the day clutching a small american flag. Mr. Stanley was always impeccably dressed, but the day and hour belonged to enos mills. Standing at the very apex of his career was his finest hour standing at the very epoch of his career, it was his finest hour. He told the crowd he lived to see the realization of a great dream come true. It means great things for colorado and the nation. Achieving that dream had been exhausting. It was, mills would later admit, the most strenuous and gross but telling occupation he ever followed. There was great satisfaction, too, and as he stood there and listened to others talk about the new park and promise, his thoughts must have wondered back wandered back on the long and difficult journey that has brought him to this time and this place. That journey began in a plain, white farmhouse, amid the rolling countryside of eastern kansas where enos a. Mills was born on april 20 2, 1870. His childhood was a difficult one, marred by a weak constitution and digestive problems. The Family Doctor was consulted. His suggestion for a restorative was a regimen of mountain air. This brought mills at the tender age of 14 to estes park and the home of his fathers cousin, and itinerant preacher for the united regimen united brethren who ran a small resort at the foot of the great peak. The reverend lamb and his wife provided stability and oversight. From the time of his arrival on, young mills was pretty much on his own. Whatever he would achieve in the way of education and career would be largely up to him. Here is a photograph of the farmhouse as it looked five or six years ago when i visited close up as opposed to from a distance. Here is a picture of enos mills and his family. Enos is at the left of the top row. It was taken about the time he left to come to colorado and break up the family circle. Here is a photograph of the longs peak house. The Main Building was very small. Finally, a photo of lamb and his wife. To a teenage boy, particularly one with an active imagination and an inclination toward nature and the outofdoors, the mountain world of the lambs was all that one wished. The next year, 1885, at the age of 15, mills made his first attempt of longs peak, a feat he would attempt every season of the year both on his own and guiding for others. Here is a wonderful photograph of mills taking that first climb of longs peak. Look how young he was. Look also at the period garb of people going up. He is probably going up the home stretch, and he is poised there with his stick. Here is a winter photograph of mills as a guide. Notice he is standing right at the edge. The people he is guiding our clutching the side of the wall. I dont blame them for that a bit. Heres a picture of his homestead cabin. You can see how small that was. One with mills in the doorway and another showing a closeup of that cabin. Finding summer employment in estes park then, as now, was easy. In winter, however, it was another story. By 1887, at 17 mills was spending winter months in butte, montana, working at the famous anaconda copper mine. Determined to make a go of it despite his age and size, mills quickly rose through the ranks from tool boy to minor compressor, night foreman, and finally to plant engineer. Youd also offered in its Carnegie Library the opportunity for self education and mills made the most of it butte also offered. He read widely and well. He began with the classics. Over the years mills reading would become more specialized. Mills valued books greatly and in time would amass in his cabinet at longs peak inn a personal library worthy of any collegian. The winner of winter of 1889 proved a turning point. Having made his way to San Francisco because an underground fire had closed down the anaconda mind, mills was aimlessly wandering the beach at golden state park when he came upon a group of people huddled around a small, graybearded man who was explaining the significance of the plants that he held in his hand. Mills joined them and listen. After the others had left, mills stayed behind to post some questions of his own to the stranger. That man, it turned out, was Scottish American naturalist john muir. At 51, the patron saint of american conservation who had recently launched his campaign to preserve the magnificent valley of yosemite river with a National Park. Here is a photograph of your of muir. Muir challenged mills on the subject of vocation. His questions and observations had the effect over time of transforming mills somewhat aimless and undirected appreciation of nature into a passion and commitment of wilderness preservation. You have helped me more than all the others, mills would write muir in january 1913 in the midst of the campaign for rocky mount to National Park. But for you, i might never have done anything. Later, mills would go even further. I own everything to muir. If it had not been for him, i would have been a mere gypsy. Muir became mills role model. What he had done for yosemite and valleys of california, mills planned to do for his beloved rockies of colorado. The meeting with muir ushered in a decade of travel that sent mills not only to california but nevada alaska, and the midwest and also led to other new initiatives. In the fall of 1893, mills made his first speech on forestry in kansas city and somewhat later began writing articles for newspapers and magazines about estes park and the scenery of colorado, often illustrated with his own autographs. He also wrote out among local managers and results, talking to oldtimers, collecting bits of local history that he would weave into his first book, the story of estes park. Heres a photograph of mills at the age of 25, teen of years after that first speech on your street in kansas city. The winter of 1901, 1902 was the last in butte. The following summer mills fulfilled a lifelong dream by purchasing longs peak house from the lambs, changing the name to longs peak inn. He set about expanding and enlarging the small resort. The main lodge and its recently enlarged dining room burned to the ground in 1906, mills was back a month later using the opportunity to rebuild the inn to his own unique specifications. Mills gave the new longs peak inn a unique appearance and atmosphere. Within a few short years, thanks to mills parents and its innkeeper, longs peak inn became known throughout the nation. The values and beliefs of enos mills would in time a tract is paying guests some of the bestknown and most influential men and women of the day. Here are some early photographs. This one has up easily been hand colored. This is what arose in place of longs peak house after that fire. Heres an example of mills use of natural woods to rebuild the hotel. A picture of the rustic stairway for which in later years mills would use in the evening to come down and stand and give after dinner lectures to his guests. Another photograph of mills as mountaineer. Mills and his colleague, the famed duo that now sit up and our park, a cabin at longs peak inn, a wonderful photograph with longs peak behind. This is the postcard mills published and gave to his guests. Here is mills and a friend, a chipmunk. Mills would probably have remained little more than a local and regional celebrity had it not been for two events that together with his expanded writings provided him with an audience, reputation, and influence needed to achieve larger goals. The first occurred in 1902 when he was appointed colorados official pseudoobservers. For the next three winters, mills traversed the high country recording the depth of the snow pack at the heads of streams and rivers compiling anticipate compiling essential information about anticipated spring runoff that the ranchers and farmers below needed to know. It was a romantic yet lonely calling, but one that caught the public imagination. Denver came to refer to mills as the snowman, publishing articles about his winter experiences in high and remote places. The resulting publicity gave mills precisely the kind of disarming and engaging persona of which reputations are eventually made. The second reputationenhancing assignment began in january of 1907 windmills went to work as a salaried lecturer when mills went to work as a salaried lecturer for a service about two years old. The agency was looking to consolidate and extend its role and influence. They sent mills on a nationwide campaign to publicize the needs of wide use wise use conservation, which meant allowing mining, tempering grazing, and recreation within the nations forest preserves under a formula of Scientific Management that made for healthy, regenerating forests. Though mills would later repudiate the Forest Service and its motives and missions, in 1907, he was comfortable enough with the program of wise use to become the perfect advocate. Conservation, he assured his audience, does not mean locking up natural resources, a message which resonated well among those who saw American Progress and prosperity as synonymous with the ability to make ever larger use of the nations natural resources. Heres a photograph of mills as lecturer. You can see all the props he took along with him boarding the train for one of his national trips. The appointment as Forest Service lecturer elevated mills platform from a regional to national one and allow him to finetune his growing preoccupation with conservation and the recreational and aesthetic uses of nature. For the next two years, mills took his message to the nation. Well received wherever he went between october 1908 and may of 1909 alone mills made some 140 appearances in 36 states speaking to educational and civic groups of every kind on the practicality and poetry of four street and the biblical and moral value of getting out of doors to enjoy the smell of nature, often weaving and anecdotes about his own experience to make a point. His most frequent lecture title was, our friends, the trees. There is a copy of the program. Today, that county only has about 6000 residents. Probably back then, there were probably no more than 1800 residents. You can see at the bottom, a collection will be taken to help pay for the hall. Just in a plane, brown suit, mills seemed unpretentious to the core. To his audience, he appeared as a happy, enthusiastic, downtoearth, plain speaking men of the west man of the west. It was a formula that works to perfection. Mills gave much the same persona in his published items. By now, mills was making a name for himself as an author by publishing essays on nature in such a national circulating magazines as the saturday evening post, atlantic monthly, and american boys. Mills would later bring these together and popular anthologies beginning in 1909. He dedicated his first volume to john mealer john muir. A dozen more books, mostly mixing topical essays with personal experiences, would follow the next decade and a half. All of them sold well, further solidifying his reputation. In may 1909, mills career took yet another turn. He was informed that his services at a lecturer as a lecturer were no longer needed because the Forest Services had decided to change the nature and direction of its Educational Outreach efforts. In truth, it did not matter, but by this day, mills had embarked on a larger preoccupation, the creation of a National Park in the estes park region. The immediate germ of the park idea, as it came to be called, could be traced back a year earlier to the spring of 1908 and a suggestion made at the meeting of the estes Park Improvement association, a group of local boosters, whose major contribution to date had been the Successful Campaign to build a fish asterisk hatchery on a river to the years before. If you want to attract tourists the audience was told, you should attract the establish a gaming refuge where tourists can come to feed the wildlife. He produced a map covering 4 townships, an area over 1000 square miles extending about 42 miles east to west with a river of the north along the foothills through estes park and west. Mills did not attend that meeting, but the proposition struck a chord. Accordingly, he wrote wheeler who was then headquartered in fort collins to inquire where the boundaries of such a reserve might be located. There the matter largely rested until the june 1909 meeting of the estes park protective and improvement association, which appointed a committee of two consisting of mills and stanley to study the idea further. From that point onward mills more or less took things into his own hands. Within days of the associations september meeting at which the membership voted unanimously in favor of the creation of the estes Park National preserve, mills published a call of his own, calling attention to the beauty and grandeur to be found around his park. The area was losing its wild charms. Extensive areas of primeval forest had been used and missed used. Sawmills are humming and cattles trimming the wild garden. The once numerous game had been hunted out of existence. If these scenes are to be permanently use preserved it will be necessary to protect them within a National Park. Through all of mills initial enthusiasm, the next three years brought little actual progress. Mills saw support among fellow preservationists and an increasing number of individuals and organizations, but for a surprisingly long time plans for the park remain nebulous. Necessary but vexing questions about boundaries and acreage and private in holdings remain fuzzy and unanswered. There was also pushed back. Locally, that came from those that cited the fact that the federal government already owned 15 million acres of land in the state of colorado on which no state taxes were being paid. And it came nationally from those who argued that no new National Park could be created until the federal government had put in place some kind of administrative structure or agency to manage and oversee those that already existed. As supporters soon discovered the major challenges were technical and political. They required above all the establishment of an Effective Coalition of local, regional and National Advocacy groups. The influential american civic association, the porter of state and National Parks, and its president horace mcfarland, came on board early. The organization had been formed at mills urging in april 1912 along the lines of john muirs sierra club, made up of a group of denver outdoor enthusiasts. The initial membership of the Colorado Mountain club consisted of only 25. Interestingly enough, among those 25 for two future superintendence of rocky mount to National Park among those 25 were two future superintendents of Rocky Mountain National Park. Of equal importance in the early years and, indeed, throughout the campaign was the head of the Denver Chamber of commerce which formed a National Park committee for the purposes of coalescing support among the denver business community. Other groups came on board as well as including the National Federation of womens clubs and its colorado chapter, the daughters of the american revolution, the Colorado Legislature and the colorado delegation in washington, state democratic and republican organizations, and local business and civic groups in boulder, larimer, and grant counties. With some exceptions, they were friendly and supportive from the beginning. So, too, was mills old friend john muir. Im heartily with you for a plan for a National Park in colorado. I will call the attention of the sierra club to the proposed park. Nowhere was mills more role mills role more critical and club sues Educational Committee chair was marybelle king sherman, the wife of a prominent newspaper men who had spent several summers at millslongs peak inn and who would eventually buy a cottage of her own across the road. Without her involvement, its fair to say the Colorado Mountain club would not have been founded, and the voices of american women would not have become so vigorously engaged in support of a new park. There were others who helped and helped mightily. Of these, no one was more important than denver lawyer James Grafton rogers who willingly and tirelessly devoted his considerable legal and political talents to the cause and like mills, remained at the center of things from start to finish. A graduate of El University rogers, then not yet 30 years of age, was practicing law in denver with the sun of the colorado governor, a man who soon be elected senator of the state of colorado. It was jim rogers, who having thoroughly researched legislation and had created previous National Parks, patiently drafted and redrafted the necessary legislation for the new park and remained a guiding and common force throughout the Park Campaign, a frustrating seven years in which emotion and tempers frequently ran high. Rogers proved that using the expertise of the Colorado Mountain club members to clarify many of the troublesome logistical questions about the new park and its boundaries. As plants began to crystallize, so did further opposition as plans began to crystallize. As might be expected, the opposition came from mining, grazing, timber, and water interests, which argued against the amount of public land available for commercial use. In the estes park region the only major objection came, interestingly enough, from a small but very vocal group of mills neighbors, the socalled frontpage settlors leak, which thought they saw in mills front park advocacy, a threat to their own property the socalled frontpage settlors league. They grew concerned about the power their neighbor would be able to wield over them. Tleknown beyond the valley itself, they were as protracted and he did as they were petty. One noted if this here was kentucky, there would not be enough of you folks left to tell the tale. There was trouble on other fronts as well. One was the Forest Service. Mills came to believe that when it came to propose new parks the position of the Forest Service, henry graves was anything but clear. The Forest Service was guilty of foot dragging and offering support. Mills vehemently charged his old employer with being an active and covert opponent out to delay, sabotage, and if at all possible kill the estes park project. Scratch any old Forest Service man, mills wrote to his friend and confidant and you will find a charter who is opposed to all National Parks. Breaking what seemed to be an endless logjam of delay was a september 1912 visit to the estes park region of robert marshall, the chief geographer of the United States geological survey. He had been sent west by the secretary of the interior with verbal instructions. Fischer told him to go out and do what he could and then tell him about it. Marshall and his party, which included two survey assistance spent six days inspecting the region and meeting with a variety of individuals. One of those that marshall sought out was jim rogers. Marshall suggested that rogers and his fellow Colorado Mountain club members begin to find names placed on the as yet peaks in the region as a way of strengthening their case for a new park. The result of this this resulted in the nomenclature of a committee which did of years later sponsored the visit of free arapahoe of wyomings reservation to identify the names their ancestors had originally placed on local landforms. As a result of their trip, some 36 landforms now bear authentic native american names. Heres a photograph of the elderly arapahoe, their younger entrepreneur their younger interpreter, along with enos mills, the most famous guide in the region, and on the righthand side, oliver told, a recent graduate of williams college, who kept notes on the trip, which he finally published in 1962, some 48 years later which provide now a very important source of information about that event back in 1914. After Marshall Posta Proctor hopes ran high. Park supporters were not disappointed. They would order to eliminate as much as possible private land to reduce the size of the original proposal to some 700 square miles. Robert marshall also gave the new park its name Rocky Mountain National Park. Estes National Park, he argued, is simply to parochial. A National Park should bear a name of broader significance. Seen in retrospect, it was marshalls report more than any other single factor that reinvigorated the campaign and propelled it forward. Difficulties still lay ahead in the form of compromise and political haggling testing of years of them, in fact, but colorado at last have the outlines of international report. The marshall report was in fact have a tactical document. It waxed eloquently about the region, calling it as beautiful as any he found in the United States or, indeed, the world. It also stressed the stability of the touring public, but marshall was careful to note that with the proposed park came no welldeveloped mines, but he did indicate that the development of water power and grazing of animals could be permitted under lease. In so doing marshall was, of course, placating those who argued that the new park would lock up valuable and needed resources. This tactic of declaring proposed National Parks as resourcepoor is not new. Though it may seem odd to us today, the fact is that yellowstone, yosemite, and glacier were only allowed to become National Parks because their proponents made the case that they did not contain resources that would interfere with the Economic Development of the american west. In fact, the establishment of yellowstone, our first National Park in 1872, could not occur until it had been deemed worthless for anything other than tourism. It would not be until the 1930s, in fact, that congress would recognize wilderness preservation as a primary justification for establishing National Parks, something we pretty much take for granted today. With the marshall report in hand, jim rogers went to work, grasping the first park built. It was introduced in the house of representatives on february 6, 1913, and into the senate the following day. Interestingly enough, it contained the same kind of utilitarian provisions that we have seen before, allowing for timbering, mining, and grazing. These had been deliberately thrown in by rogers as window dressing under the assumption the rogers report was correct and there were hardly any resources worth noting unmarketable in the region. Though rogers was confident that the legislation would pass without a hitch the bill died quickly without even being reported out of committee. In the end, it would take three separate park bills and five major revisions, all overseen by the patient and longsuffering James Grafton rogers. Before it was over, the area of the proposed park had been whittled down till further to 358. 5 square miles, far less even than the 300 square miles proposed by marshall and the 1000 square miles that mills and wheeler had originally discussed. As the process dragged on and dragged on slowly, tempers began to flare. The ever suspicious mills, who was a man of extreme sensitivity, now down reason to believe that not only was the park being secretly opposed by the Forest Service, but the jim rogers himself was dragging his feet and selling out by making too many concessions and compromises. Mills complained about rogers secretly of an openly to rogers himself. I can no longer remain silent while the president of the Colorado Mountain club exhibits the Forest Service on one shoulder and the park on the other. Rogers warned the Chamber Secretary that mills seems suspicious of everyones motives but his own. Looking back on these events half a century later in 1955, jim rogers would be most forgiven. He would recall mills fiery personality and small ball figure and then generously add that his admiration and even affection for him have not faded. Though rogers and others found mills behavior and outbursts increasingly disturbing and out of productive, it did not diminish his importance as spokesman for the park. A final park bill was introduced in both houses on june 20 9, 1914, thanks to the skillful handling of colorado senator charles thomas, the bill rather quickly made its way into the senate and october 9 1914, referred its version to the House Committee on public land. When that Committee Held its hearings on to simmer 23, mills was introduced by colorado representative Edward Taylor as, one of the most noted Naturalist Travelers and lecturers of this country who has made a great study of this question and has written for a great many years on parks and knows every foot of it and is probably Better Qualified to speak on this park than anyone. In the testimony that followed, mills proved himself fully equal to the task. Interestingly enough, in responding to questioning, mills followed the marshall line and cleverly turned the Economic Development argument on its head. He said switzerland gets between 2000 and 10,000 per square mile thickly because they have developed it. The two public sessions on the committee of public lands was the last and final steps of the long and torturous Park Campaign. Formerly reported out of committee, Edward Taylor raised the bill to have it placed on the whole house calendar for passage under suspension of the rules six days later on january 18, the earliest possible date. On the 18th, though, the legally required quorum was not present and a quorum call would have killed the legislation. House speaker champ clark to allowed taylor to called the slightly amended version of the bill. After 40 minutes of debate during which everything still hung in the balance, the final park bill passed almost unanimously by voice vote. A week later on january 26, president wilson signed the legislation into law. It included 10,000 in annual funding for the new park. How generous. Looking back on the Park Campaign with the addition of a full century, we can only wonder about the complexity of it all, at the vision, courage and stubborn insistence of men like James Grafton rogers and enos mills, who at great personal cost saw the project through to a successful conclusion. Who deserves the title father of Rocky Mountain National Park . My friend and longtime park historian told me any times that it was the steadfast and critically astute rogers that was most disturbing deserving of the title. In the end it was rogers who was most honest about the personal cost. Mills said the campaign was both strenuous and growth compelling. Rogers, on the other hand, called it the most strenuous struggle he was ever connected with. James grafton rogers, i should add, would go on to a distinguished career. Clearly, without James Grafton rogers and his Legal Expertise supporters, and his professional, political, and social friends the road to success might have been longer still. By august 1914, germany, france and Great Britain were at war and the United States had declared its neutrality. Brought from the realities of that conflagration, and moved the nation closer. Had the park bill remained stalled in congress for a year or two more, the nation and its government would no doubt have in fully august on had then fully focused on things other than the creation of National Parks. The case for mills is equally strong. It was mills who first and last cultivated and arrest the park dream. It could be argued that it was mills who gave rogers and the Colorado Mountain club and the civic association, muir and the sierra club, marybelle king sherman, George Horace lorimer and the saturday evening post, the Denver Chamber of commerce and a lengthy list of magazine and newspaper editors and writers more reason the story is more complex and invited us to take a still larger and wider look. They asked us to consider the strong thread of economic selfinterest and promotion that lay behind it in the form of individual chambers of commerce, conglomerations of real estate developers, park officials and politicians, all of whom saw in the park idea and opportunity to further economic growth. As jerry frank has recently written, the geographic economic, and political nature of denver was a crucial importance. The region, though beautiful in its own right, lacked the sort of geological and cultural curiosity requisite of our longest standing parks. The idea of a park nestled at the foot of longs peak was attractive because it held the promise of drawing tourists, generating revenue and providing rest and relaxation to a growing middle class of urbanites eager to momentarily escape the whir of the city. Perhaps frank is right that the real father of Rocky Mountain National Park is to be found in the economic and social forces of the time. But the claims of earl atkins on behalf of James Grafton rogers and patricia as you on behalf of enos mills are surely as strong. In the end, it scarcely matters. What really matters in this centennial year is not the past of rocky mount and National Park but its present and its future, and it is precisely in the present and laying the groundwork for that future that all of us in this room tonight have a critically Important Role to play. Americas National Parks are no more destined for perpetuity than anything else in this constantly changing and very fragile world of ours. They can all too easily, as we have seen in recent years, become the pond upon pawn in someone elses political agenda. In a very real sense, this National Treasure is very much in our own hands. As we conclude, let me pictorially remind you of this legacy, by showing scenes of rocky mount and National Park, which i know many of you are a million with, scenes which no matter how often seen still inspire awe and wonder at the immensity and beauty of it all. A gift from the past, our gift to the future. Loch vale. There may come the most visited lake in Rocky Mountain National Park and the most crowded Forest Canyon to this day, the wildest area of Rocky Mountain National Park, seen from trail ridge road. Mills lake, named after enos mills, of course. Lovely moraine park slowly winding its way through the meadow. The outlook of lake haiyaha. Sprague lake. The keyhole on longs peak. Right below the keyhole is the agnes bail shelter cabin, in memory of a Colorado Club member who lost her life while making the first ascent of the east face. The pool on the furniture to such rail the pool on the firmodessa trail. Money range. Chasm lake. Fall river and Horseshoe Park in winter. Our rocky mount to National Park is as beautiful in winter as it is in summer and fall. Then we have our pain should patron saint, the big one sheet, and the elk. What would we do without our elk . As you know, by 1900, all the elk in the estes park region have been hunted out of existence, and they had to be brought back by rail car from the yellowstone region of wyoming and introduced to this National Park. The only person who objected was stanley, who wrote a very famous letter who said, from what i hear about elk and their propensity to propagate, we will have to get Teddy Roosevelt and his gun up there pretty soon. He was damn near right. The elk were leaving the park in winter and summer some years later. Finally, this wonderful cover from Union Pacific railroad advertising sometime in the 19 20s the beauty of Rocky Mountain National Park in estes park, colorado. A western writer called National Parks the best idea we ever had. He was correct. With that fact in mind, let all of us make the celebratory centennial year a year of personal and collective rededication. Let it eat a year in which we affirm that only the National Park idea when our own responsibility is presentday stewards and colorado once coloradoans will help preserve this extremely special place called Rocky Mountain National Park. Let us do so that 100 years hence, it will be set of us that we in our time helped to conserve the scenery and historic objects by such means as will leave them in a paired unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations. In less lofty terms, that we in our lifetime help to cure enos mills great dream and successfully and faithfully passed that dream forward into the hands of those who we will never know. Thank you very much. [applause] now i would be happy to respond to questions. You have been a great audience. My goodness. Teaching at university all those years, my students, 50 minutes and they start squirming, and of course, they all wear baseball hats so you cannot see their aces. Their faces. If you have a couple questions, we have time for that, and then i will make a few announcements. Are there any questions . If so, we will bring the microphone to you. How large is the park today . Professor pickering its about 425 square miles. It has gotten larger, but it is not that 1000 that enos originally hoped for. Could you imagine the size of that park . 1000 square miles . My goodness me. You got to think this you start big. Was there a private cabin at the park at this point in time . Professor pickering their still are private holdings, and the legislation makes it clear that those holdings will stay in the family as long as they desired it. The National Park, when these places are for sale, obviously moved in and try to acquire them. The rocky mount and conservancy whose board i sit on, one of the things were working on now is to try to acquire the cottages at the rim of Horseshoe Park for the National Park service. Its one of the largest, last in holdings of private cabins in the park. Other questions . Michael, we will bring that microphone over to you. You talk about the bigger footprints mills wanted for the park. Was it down through indian peak . What was the area he wanted to include . Professor pickering it was all the way from north to south. I remember the comment of one paper enos mills has gone park mad. [laughter] anything else overhear . Anyone else on this side . Dr. Jim pickering, lets give him a round of applause. [applause] we are so happy to have him here to end our lecturing season. If you still have more questions, he is happy to stick around. Please come up to the stage. Also, if you have not seen our small Rocky Mountain National Park exhibit up on the second floor, we are open until 9 00 this evening so you can go up and see that. Please take some cookies home with you if you still have not got any of that, and again, if you have questions, we are around and we look forward to seeing you this summer and or this fall. Have a great evening. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2015] announcer the cspan cities store is partnering with our cable affiliate as we travel across the United States. Join us and Cox Communications this week and is about the history and literary life of omaha, nebraska, and one of the first advocacy groups fighting for racial equality. Omaha had a reputation among the Africanamerican Community as a city that when you came in if you were black, you needed to keep your head down and be aware that you were not going to be served in restaurants and stay in hotels. When the to forest club when the de porres club in fact, they use the Term National justice because civil rights was not even in the lexicon at that time the idea of civil rights was so far removed from the idea of the Greater Community of omaha or the United States that they were kind of operating in a vacuum. I always say they were operating without a net. There were not those support groups. There were not the prior experiences of other groups to challenge Racial Discrimination and segregation. Announcer we look back at the Union Pacific and how the construction of Union Station health omahas economy. Union pacific is one of the premier Railroad Companies of america. It was founded in 1862 with the Pacific Railway act signed into law by abraham lincoln. It combined several Railroad Companies to make Union Pacific, and they were charged with building the Transcontinental Railroad that would connect the east and west coast. They started here. Central pacific started on the west coast and was moving east. They met up in utah. Thats really what propels us even farther. We become that point of moving west, one of the gateways to the west. Announcer see all of our programs from omaha throughout the day on cspan2, and sunday on cspan3 on American History tv. Lucy hayes was the first first lady to earn a college degree. During the civil war soldiers serving under her husband called her the mother of the regiment. Opposing slavery, she influences her husband to switch from the whig party to the antislavery republican party. This sunday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspans original series, first ladies influence an image, examining the women who fill the position of first lady and their influence on the president he from Martha Washington to michelle obama. American history tv on cspan3. The 14th amendment granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States and was ratified on july 9, 1868. Coming up next, a discussion about how the end of the civil war led to that amendment and eventually, the 15th amendment they gave africanamerican males the right to vote. Panelists the africanamerican civil war and museum hosted this 35 minutes event. Frank my name is frank smith and i am the director of the museum. For this purpose this weekend i am the host of the grand review