By Cathleen Norman
Generations of vacationers have stayed at Tiny Town Cottages, just one of several cabin courts still operating in Estes Park.
Ah, summertime in the Rockies. The forest beckons; streams and lakes await, as do mountain meadows and hiking trails. A cabin in the woods offers a perfect site to enjoy nature and all kinds of outdoor recreation, antidote to workweek stress and escape from daily life of the city and suburbs.
During the early 20th century, Americans became infatuated with the outdoors – hiking, camping, fishing, hunting and all-around health and fitness. President Theodore Roosevelt led the crusade with gusto, championing National Parks, especially Out West. Not everyone wanted to sleep in a tent or slumber under starry skies, however.
In the 1890s, some of Colorado’s first summer cabins sprang up in South Platte River Canyon southwest of Denver. Seasonal residents rode the Denver, South Park & Pacific train up from the city to cabin villages along the river: Ferndale, Buffalo Creek, Pine Grove and others. Elsewhere in Colorado, rural travelers stayed overnight at ranches, where owners generated income by renting crude, cowboy cabins to fishermen and other adventurers.
Lake City, in southwestern Colorado, has several vintage tourist cabin courts, such as the Alpine Village. Photos by Cathleen Norman
Soon, the taste for a cabin in the pines took hold. In the days before air conditioning, city folks longed for a vacation in the cool, forested mountains. The summer cabin movement was spearheaded by businessmen who promoted the outdoorsy experience to urban Denverites and to folks from the Sweat Belt states of Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas. “Cool Colorado” became their marketing emblem.
By the 1920s, many American households owned an automobile, so families could easily visit once-remote places. Modestly middle-class vacationers rented a summer cabin for a week. But many wanted their own mountain home, even if it was a three-room cabin with primitive amenities: an outhouse and water that came from a well or from the pump beside the back door. “Roughing it” was part of the charm.
The Denver Mountain Parks system, brainchild of the Denver Chamber of Commerce and Denver Real Estate Exchange, capitalized on the mountain cabin trend. The mountain parks enticed picnickers and sightseers, a captivated market for purchasing a mountain home.
Investors and promoters quickly profited by subdividing cheap land into crazy-shaped, cabin-sized lots then erecting quaint, primitive dwellings from native materials – felled logs, granite rocks, river stones and clapboards, window shutters and wood shingles from the local sawmill. Families christened their beloved cabins with names like Rest Awhile, Idle Hours, Happy Day, Edelweiss or Chickadee, prominently posted on the property or above the front door.
Cabin life was simple. Can you imagine? No TV, no cable, no video games: recreation consisted of ceaseless outdoor activities and rainy day games of Canasta, Hand & Foot and Scrabble, or reading a Louis L’Amour novel out on the perpetual sleeping porch. Perhaps the evening ended with singing around a backyard campfire.
The summer cabin craze skyrocketed in the 1920s west of Denver. Developers eagerly subdivided all over Jefferson County’s western mountains. The boom produced more than 20 developments each with dozens of tiny cabins built upon tiny lots that slanted uphill or sloped downhill along Bear Creek, up Coal Creek Canyon, atop Lookout Mountain, in hidden enclaves like mysterious Sphinx Park with its enormous boulders. Entire townsites developed as well: Indian Hills, Kittredge and Idledale, all west of Morrison.
Meanwhile, the canyon above Evergreen became an exclusive neighborhood for auto dealers and other captains of commerce from Kansas and Nebraska. They erected elaborate large houses of log and stone harvested from the property, built beside the sparkling waters of Bear Creek. Keys-on-the-Green Tavern, man-made Evergreen Lake and a small golf course provided recreation, as did fox trotting and jitterbugging to nationally known musicians playing at the legendary Troutdale-in-the-Pines Lodge in Upper Bear Creek (now demolished). Evergreen itself expanded rapidly with scores of smaller cottages and cabins for middle-class summer folks.
Up Ute Pass, west of Colorado Springs, the villages of Cascade, Green Mountain Falls, Chipeta Park and Woodland Park sprouted with scores of quaint cabins. Hiking, horseback riding, trout fishing, bird watching and front-porch lounging filled up the lazy summer days. Community clubhouses provided indoor fun like pancake breakfasts, potluck dinners, old-timey tunes, square dancing and bingo. Each village had at least one church.
In mining towns like Nederland, Creede, Ouray and Tincup, summer cabins crept into empty lots beside mining-era buildings. The haunting landscapes and ghost-town mystique helped these busted mining towns revive themselves as tourist destinations. Gold panning, mine tours and vigorous events like Donkey Derby Days and Miners Picnics enticed visitors to buy local real estate and lengthen their vacation to all summer long.
By the 1930s, commercial cabin courts accommodated auto tourists venturing to Colorado’s Western Slope. Walden, South Fork, Lake City and Gunnison County had rustic tourist courts: 10 or so one-room dwellings clustered around a shared shower house, each cabin distinguished by a tiny porch, view-framing windows, shutters with pine-tree and moose cutouts and labeled with an adorable name.
Estes Park, a town whose entire history has been touristic, flourished as the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park. It expanded with scores and scores of picturesque cabins, both family-owned and groupings of single-room commercial lodgings. On the west side of the National Park, the town of Grand Lake likewise filled with rustic log dwellings ranging from one-room to enormous. There, the handiwork of local craftsman applied intricate branch and twig work adorning porches, balconies and other architectural features.
After World War II, mountain cabins took a new turn as a host of handy carpenter-craftsmen built their own family cabins from scratch, projects highlighted in Sunset Magazine, Better Homes and Gardens and Popular Mechanic. The A-frame – the ultimate build-it-yourself project – made its debut in the 1960s.
Today, tourists’ taste in summer lodgings has changed. Most visitors prefer modern amenities instead of cramped and musty cabins. Meanwhile, many old family cabins have evolved into year-round residences with insulation added, foundations shored up, porches enclosed and enlarged by additions of various vintages.
Yet, a few neighborhoods remain the same, like mine here in Palmer Lake where many houses are still summer-only. And, my summer neighbors are back now, returning to houses several generations in the same families. They’re opening window shutters, airing out rooms, hanging up the hummingbird feeders and settling in on the front porch for a game of cards or a cocktail or two, just like their parents and grand-parents did so many years ago.
Sign post in a summer neighborhood
