LONGS PEAK INN

In 1901 Enos bought the Lamb Ranch from his cousin, Carlisle Lamb, and in 1904 changed the name to Longs Peak Inn.  He guided people up Longs Peak and the surrounding area on Nature Walks.  Though these became quite popular he preferred small groups with children because they were, and still are, so naturally open to new ideas.  Unlike most hotels, he focused his guests' attention on the natural world around them.  Sitting at the base of Long's Peak, in the heart of the Rockies, he did not want them distracted with the trappings of society from nature. In the lobby of the Inn he did not allow smoking, drinking, card playing, or music.  (What one did in one's room was one's own business.)  A hotel with all these amenities could be had anywhere, including several in Estes Park.  Those with an adventurous spirit flocked in greater numbers each year.  He did not deny them modern conveniences.  Modern amenities such as steam heat, electricity, plumbing, comfortable beds, flannel sheets and thick towels were enjoyed.  Longs Peak Inn had three telephones: one at the main desk and two in Enos' office.  At one time, the best three restaurants in Colorado were the Brown Palace, the Broadmore, and Longs Peak Inn.  It was important to Enos to provide comfort to people so they could concentrate on the natural surroundings.

In the spring of 1906 the main building of the Inn burned to the ground.  Enos was on a speaking engagement and hurried back to begin rebuilding.  No blueprints were made, it was a truly organic effort.  The main lodge and forthcoming cabins were built from firekilled timbers from an old forest fire in the region.  The kitchen and dining room were ready to serve guests by July 4th the year that it burnt.  Every summer improvements were made, with forest influences in his architecture.  He designed all the furniture and buildings, and hired builders to construct them.  As the Inn grew he added a Nature Room with a special container that held a tundra environment with growing Alpine flowers for the people who could not walk up to the tundra.  After 1906 his writing and speaking engagements took up more time, and he trained other Nature Guides for his Trail School where the emphasis was not on classifications and names, but on each unique aspect of nature.  No matter how many times one walked the same path, there was always something new to see, as nature is continually changing.  Enos' methods of nature guiding later became the basis for the modern field of interpretation in the National Park Service. 

COLORADO SNOW OBSERVER

In 1904, when Enos visited a friend, L. G. Carpenter, in Telluride, Colorado, he was offered a job to go to the high altitude regions of the Rockies to measure snow depth.  Enos immediately took up the job, and held the job for two years as the Colorado Snow Observer for the Department of Agriculture.  He measured wind speeds, snow depths, and other scientific variables in the mountains.  He used snowshoes and skis to make his way through the mountains in the winter with this job.  This was one of two jobs he held with the government.  The other job, another specially created for him, as he would not take a normal governement occupation, was as Government Lecturer on Forestry.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK

In 1909, Enos moved from his homestead cabin to Longs Peak Inn, into a larger, more modern cabin when he began working to get Rocky Mountain National Park established. In combination with running the Inn during the summer, and his speaking and writing engagements around the country, he needed to be closer to the telephone at all times.  During the winters from 1909 until his death in 1922 he traveled around the country giving lectures and talking to people about the reasons why it was so important to set natural areas aside and save them for the generations to come.  His experience as a miner in his youth, and his experiences in the wilderness gave his topics a balanced perspective on conservation and a population's need for natural resources, and he was able to appeal to businessmen and many public orginizations.  Rocky Mountain National Park was created by an Act of Congress in January, 1915.  The Denver Post dubbed him "The Father of Rocky Mountain National Park."

WRITING 

Enos kept journals of his travels and experiences.  He began giving public addresses in 1891.  He would continue giving speeches until his death.  His evening talks at Longs Peak Inn by a campfire or by the lobby's fireplace were often the close of the day's exciting events for the visiting public.  For many years he attempted to get published, and when he finally was, his writing career flourished.  He wrote of his adventures and observations in a plain, poetic manner so that it would engage those who read it rather than bore them with unecessary details. Magazines such as Country Life, Saturday Evening Post, Counry Gentleman, Outlook, Chums, Munsey's, Cosmopolitan, McClure's, Sunset, and Atlantic Monthly published his articles. Many of these magazine articles were put into book form.  In 1909 his first major book, Wild Life on the Rockies, launched him into the national eye. Enos wrote more than 18 books, all of which are nonfiction.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Enos began taking pictures around 1890.  He used an Eastman Kodak Pocket Camera.  We assume he lost more than one camera in his many outings.  He took over 15,000 photographs.  Many of these photographs illustrated his articles and books, and he sold prints of them at the gift store at Longs Peak Inn. 

ESTHER BURNELL MILLS AND DAUGHTER ENDA

Esther Burnell came to Estes Park with her sister, Elizabeth, in 1916 for a two week vacation.  Elizabeth had a job as a teacher she wished to return to, but Esther had had enough of corporate life as an interior designer in Cleveland.  Esther decided that she would homestead, despite her family's and friends' protests.  Elizabeth was very supportive of Esther's endeavor.  Esther homesteaded four miles west of Estes Park, and in the spring of 1917, she took a moonlit walk across the Continental Divide on snowshoes over to Grand Lake to visit friends.  She made the trip in one night, a trip unheard of, even by Enos' standards.  This caught Enos' attention, and he courted her.  During the summer of 1917, Esther became his personal secretary, and when Elizabeth visited for the summer, both sisters were trained as Nature Guides for Long's Peak Inn.  Esther became the first female Nature Guide licensed by the National Park Service.

In August of 1918, Enos and Esther were married in the doorway of his homestead cabin, across the road from Long's Peak Inn, with Elizabeth and another friend were witnesses.  It was a fast, private ceremony, as the press was already on their way to get news of the event!  In April of 1919, five days after Enos' birthday, their daughter (their only child), was born.  She was named Enda, after family friend Edna Ferber, though the spelling was changed.  Enos was thrilled to be a father and husband, and even though matters of conservation efforts elsewhere in the county vied for his attention, he spent as much time as he could with his family.

THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN TRANSPORTATION MONOPOLY

In 1918, the two-year-old National Park Service, which Enos had been a part of creating, granted one transportation company ingress and egress through Rocky Mountain National Park.  This impinged the rights of anyone with a car, including hotels, in the area, and many of the homesteaders who had been included in the borders of the National Park.  The Rocky Mountain Transportation Company maintained a monopoly on the public roads inside the national park until 1927.  No other company, nor could any hotel transportation service, could use their vehicles inside the park.  Very few people owned their own vehicles in those days, so hotels in the area, like Longs Peak Inn, the Stanley Hotel, and other establishments with their own small fleets of cars, offered transport into the park as part of their services to the visiting public.  By 1915, over 250,000 people were visiting the area.  Enos, with the support of a few businessmen like F. O. Stanley of the Stanley Hotel, fought the monopoly, and this would consume his political efforts until his death.  After he died his widow Esther, her sister Elizabeth, and F. O. Stanley, carried on the fight until the monopoly was quashed in 1927.

Enos died suddenly at the age of 52 in September, 1922.  A number of factors contributed to his death.   Esther died in 1964, having never remarried.  She sold Longs Peak Inn in 1946.  The original main lodge burnt in 1949, and has since gone through a number of owners. 

Copyright 2004 by Enos Mills Cabin
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