By Cathleen Norman
The catch was good at Taylor Lake, one of the earliest Colorado fishing resorts. Photo courtesy of Denver Public Library, Western History Collection, Z-3110.
The launch of Colorado summer brings an avalanche of outdoor recreation, and one of the favorite sports is fishing. Even in the late 1800s, clusters of cabins beckoned to fishermen and fisherwomen who tossed their line into the silvery waters of Colorado’s lovely lakes and rushing streams. One of the earliest was Ferndale on the South Platte River in Jefferson County, a scattering of log cabins organized by Rocky Mountain News founder William Newton Byer. The narrow gauge train up the Platte Canyon brought summer residents up from Denver, Victorian gentlemen and gentlewomen who lounged on pine-shaded porches and ambled down to the riverbank to try their hand at catching the wily trout.
Colorado’s premier fishing club was undoubtedly the Wigwam Club, upriver from Ferndale on the North Fork of the South Platte River above the crossroads of Deckers. The Wigwam Investment Company incorporated in 1921 to “keep alive the tradition and art of fly fishing and promulgate an interlude of good fellowship.” The club’s mission was to: 1) promote sportsmanship in fishing; 2) build a hatchery for propagation of trout; 3) set an example in complying with game laws; and 4) preserve a stretch of water for sports angling.
Wigwam members were Denver and Colorado Springs movers and shakers who reveled in the hospitality of this “Country Club in the mountains,” earning Wigwam the nickname of the “Millionaires’ Club.” Early members included Denver Post Publisher Fred Bonfils, society architect J. B. Benedict and Spencer Penrose and the Tutt family, who owned and operated Colorado Springs’ famed Broadmoor Hotel. In 1956, President Eisenhower was given an honorary membership.
The lodge at the S Lazy U Trout Ranch west of Creede was expanded from the original homestead cabin. Photo by Cathleen Norman
The earliest Wigwam members rode the train from Denver up Platte Canyon, and then endured a carriage or wagon ride over dirt roads. Colorado Springs members came by automobile over the rough wagon road
A publication poetically described the setting: “Through the pine-clad hills the limpid, sprawling stream of the South Fork of the South Platte River comes winding down a narrow canyon… The part of the stream at Wigwam is always alluring in its onward rush, dashing over rocks, creating pools, and offering a challenge to the fisherman who casts a dry fly upon its waters and witnesses a refusal, a strike and then the thrill of landing a rainbow or a German Brown.”
During the 1920s, the Club typically raised 200,000 trout, which were released into the stream from various rearing ponds when they reached 4 to 7 inches in length. Wigwam members took pride that the rainbow stocked at the Club came from one of the oldest hatcheries in the state, constructed by General William J. Palmer in 1874 to furnish fish for Manitou Park and the Antlers and Broadmoor Hotels.
The Club’s members followed an adopted set of rules governing fishing, believing “trout fishing is not for meat, it’s for fun,” and “true sportsmanship on a stream is more important than just catching fish.” Wigwam clubmen and clubwomen prided themselves as true anglers who consider fly fishing a fine art, carrying out a tradition of fly fishing, trying to prevent the tragic use of hardware, worms, corn, cheese, marshmallows and other forms of bait which deplete the streams of fish.
The Wigwam Club abolished all bait and spinner fishing, encouraging fishermen to be good sports instead of “Fish Hogs.” One slogan of the Club: “Give the trout a fighting chance.” They scorned the unhampered “meat getters” who drove up to fish the river below the Club, unsportsmanlike folks who had almost depleted the streams despite constant stocking.
Fishing clubs flourished elsewhere around Colorado, of course. Taylor Lake in Gunnison County thrived as an early fishing resort in the late 1800s, north from Gunnison, and also accessed on the west side of Cottonwood Pass. It has since developed as Taylor Reservoir, still a fishing magnet with cabins and summer homes.
Northeast of Victor on the slopes of Pikes Peak, Bison Reservoir has supplied the town with municipal water for decades and also provides private fishing privileges to local residents. One old-timer claimed during the 1940s and 1950s, people were buying abandoned miners’ cottages in Victor just to acquire fishing rights at Bison Reservoir. Today, membership at Bison is given only to full-time, year-round Victor residents who pay annual dues and only become members after spending years on a very long waiting list.
In southwestern Colorado, Wagon Wheel Gap on the upper Rio Grande River was a popular fishing resort in the late 1800s, one of the first in this region. The railroad built to serve the silver mining boom of Creede brought summer visitors to this resort on the river about 10 miles below Creede.
West of Creede, the upper Rio Grande and its tributaries have sustained several private fishing clubs. Beginning in the 1930s, people acquired land and water rights, and raised trout for club members’ recreation. These include the S Lazy U Trout Ranch, Hermit Lakes, Pearl Lakes Trout Club and Santa Maria Reservoir.
A fine example, Hermit Lakes operated as an exclusive club “in a little mountain valley on the headwaters of the Rio Grande.” By 1940, Hermit Lakes had more than 250 acres of water along with 5 miles of stream, located on 1,000 acres of privately owned property within the Rio Grande National Forest. Membership was limited to 200 and annual family dues were $35. Members built cabins, and guests could rent a cabin and a boat or brought their own trailer house and boat. The Hermit Lakes organization stocked the lakes with 400,000 trout from a hatchery at Crestone in the San Luis Valley. A private landing strip allowed members to fly to the club in a private airplane.
Closer to Denver, in western Jefferson County, the villages of Idledale and Kittredge flourished as summer fishing havens beside Bear Creek. Once road improvements allowed auto travel up Bear Creek Canyon, a Chicago investor named Starbuck developed a 10-acre tent park along the creek to accommodate auto tourists. By the 1920s, the town had grown into five dance halls, a filling station, several restaurants, and numerous bootleggers and speakeasies. Folks stayed in tiny cabins and enjoyed fishing as well as more vigorous recreation.
Upcreek from Idledale, Charles M. Kittredge, a Denver investor and developer of the Montclair and Park Hill Heights neighborhoods, laid out the townsite of Kittredge in 1925 as a trout fishing resort. He purchased a 300-acre ranch, and organized the Kittredge Land Company. Kittredge promoted real estate sales and cottage construction, built several bridges across the creek, and developed the water system. Scores of cabins and cottages sprang up on the hillside and the village became a delightful summer destination.
Fishing is still a beloved tradition for many families who live in or vacation in Colorado, and many believe that “the rainbow is a fastwater fish and the gamest of all trout.”
