Rocky Mountain National Park guide · 1 min read
Enos Mills and the Park's Founding
Enos Mills was only fourteen when he settled near Estes Park, arriving in the early 1880s after a short burst of prospecting on the park's west side had already come and gone.
Over many years he studied the region's landforms, plants and animals, and he turned what he learned into essays and books. He also pressed Congress to protect the country around Longs Peak as a national park.
His campaign succeeded. Rocky Mountain National Park was established on January 26, 1915, when President Woodrow Wilson signed the bill creating it. The new park took in the high country Mills had spent so much of his life exploring and describing.
Longs Peak was more than a symbol for Mills. He made the climb solo on more than 40 occasions. At 14,259 feet, it is the only peak in the park that tops 14,000 feet. The mountain honors Stephen H. Long, whose 1820 expedition followed the Platte River toward the range. Reaching its summit is still a serious undertaking for strong, experienced hikers.
People knew these mountains long before Mills. Native Americans were coming here almost 10,000 years ago, and later the Ute and Arapaho hunted and camped in the area. Settlers arrived in the mid-1800s and had pushed the tribes out by 1878. Joel Estes explored the area in 1859, and his family's homestead became the town of Estes Park, today the gateway on the eastern side.
Gold and silver lured prospectors into the Never Summer Mountains in the 1870s, where they built Lulu City, Dutchtown and Gaskill. By 1883 the boom was over and miners had abandoned their claims. Today the ghost towns of Lulu City and Dutchtown, along with the Moraine Park Museum and Amphitheater, are places where the human story behind the park still surfaces.
