Enos Mills, whose prophetic vision and crusading spirit were a main factor in preserving the scenic beauty of America, and whose trail schools, books and lectures taught many thousands to love the forests and to understand and protect wild life, was one of the most vivid and picturesque personalities whose name is connected with the history of the Rocky Mountains.  Although he was born on the flats of Kansas, he loved the mountains before he saw them, for his mother had fired his imagination with stories of the tall pines, sparkling streams and brilliant flowers of Colorado.  At fourteen he set forth on his own, and two years later had built a log cabin at the foot of Longs Peak.  He landed in Colorado in 1884, in time to know the frontier.  Those were great days, with old prospectors, trappers, cowboys and Indians.  Often he worked in new, rich mining camps full of red blood and excitement and famous characters from every mining region of the earth.

    But he was ever interested in nature, and months out of every year were spent in his cabin at Longs Peak.  Alone and unarmed he watched the ways of the beaver and the bear, camping on their trail for days, or weeks if need be, to learn more intimately their life habits and characteristic actions.  He was ever studying birds, trees, flowers and insects, their interrelation and interdependence on one another.  While guiding on Longs Peak he imparted this information in a way to enthuse others to follow a nature hobby, and to fill their outdoor hours with observations that were both entertaining and intellectually stimulating.

    Enos Mills was the first and most famous Nature Guide.  He demonstrated that the average individual could be interested iin stories of the trees, the rock formations, the work of glaciers in creating soil and scenery, as well as the domestic histories of wild animals, when these facts were tied up with life.  He trained many nature guides, and his books will ever be valuable sources of information on natural history and the scenic wonderlands of Colorado.  A lifetime of camping and tramping, winter and summer, over the mountains and plains, gave him thrilling and often hazardous experiences.  Says Walter Prichard Eaton:

    "He has written so clearly, so simply, so vividly, because out off intimate knowledge and deep affection, of the snoww slides, the timberline trees, the chipmunks at his cabin door, the wild life and wilder scenery of the high Rockies, that his work hass a perpetual fascination.  He has helped to interpret the Rockies to us, and there is no one who has sensed at alll the infinite allure of that wonderland which lies up the slopes of Great Divide, but feels himself a debtor to Enos Mills."

    It was perhaps natural that this great lover of the mountains should have become the champion of Rocky Mountain National Park and of all the beautiful natural reserves throughout the country.  He awakened in people an appreciation for the scenery in their own state, and the importance of saving it from commercialism.  But Colorado was especially rich in scenic resources, and to save some of this in a national park occupied his best efforts for seven years, lecturing throughout the East, lobbying at Washington, writing thousands of letters tooutdoor people and organizations, and visiting editors of newspapers and magazines.  Practically single-handed he brought it about, for the other forces which contributed to the victory were interested through his efforts.

    Said Arthur Chapman: "His writings have done more to establish Colorado as a public playground than all the tons of railroad resort literature ever published.  If the state had capitalized Enos Mills it would have realized many hundred percent on its investment.  Yet there is not a note in his work that does not ring true.  He has written spontaneously of the things which other men might have seen but could not."  And a friend has said:

    "His work means far more than the work of men after whom many of our mountain peaks have been named.  Some of these men like Zebulon Pike, discovered the bodies of our mountains.  Mills discovered their souls.  In the sordid struggle of commericalism largely to enrich themselves, men have discovered their mineral wealth.  Mills discovered there a far greater wealth -- one that may be shared with all mankind."

    Mills was a pioneer -- he sought the untrodden path.  His love of adventure has been equaled only by intrepid explorers who penetrate jungles and frozen steepes for the sole purpose of discovery.  What he recounts, however, is not so much a record of the number of high peaks climbed, as an exuberation of enthusiasm for silent forest aisles, dark shadowed canyons, and peaceful lakes, and the deep feelings stirred by the solitaire's song or the miniature jewels of alpine flowers. Many have followed in his footsteps because of his helpful and hopeful attitude toward the out-of-doors -- removing it of superstitions and dread, and fear of wild animals, altitude and weather.  He says:

    "I wish everyone could have a night by a camp-fire -- by Mother Nature's old hearthstone.  When one sits in the forest within the camp-fire's magic tent of light, amid the silent, sculptured trees, there go thrilling through one's blood all the trials and triumphs of our race.  A camp-fire in the forest is the most enchanting place on life's highway by which to have a lodging for the night."

    He was essentially a humanitarian, ever thinking of the beneficial influences of nature and wishing these might be more generally enjoyed.  He says:

    "He who feels the spell of the wild, the rhythmic melody of falling water, the echoes among the crags, the bird-songs, the wind in the pines and the endless beat of waves upon the shore, is in tune with the univers, he will know what human brotherhood means."

    "Natural is universal and the supreme triump of parks is humanity.  In nature's ennobling and boundless scenes prejudice, caste and creed are forgotten.  Sometime it may be that an immortal pine will be the flag of a united and peaceful world."

    "Play is the nearest approach to the magic fountain of youth.  The wilderness still is the supreme place to rest and play.  It is doubtful if any other influence is so generally and lastingly beneficial as the preservation of our primeval beauty in National Parks where people and nature ever are young."
 

Copyright 2004, Enos Mills Cabin
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