“The days are rolling by pretty quickly. Been here a week and I think it’s going to work. I screwed up my back a bit cutting brush and making a couple trips to the slash depot, but it’s nice to clear the perimeter so I can see any approachment. Rambeaux loves it up here, too. Very peaceful when the wind blows through the tree tops.
Getting ready to head into the Village so I can get on a computer and use my phone at the library. 24/7 Wi-Fi there. No cell phone service up here. Damn.”
-Journal entry: Tuesday; June 12, 2018; 9:25 am. In my camper, Cochise.
The Village of Red Feather Lakes (as it’s officially titled) is like no other town I’ve known. Technically, it isn’t a town, because of its size and lack of services. In legalese, villages are “larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town,” which is generally regarded as having at least 1,000 residents. According to the last census (2000), the Village of Red Feather Lakes had 525 inhabitants, and is described as a CDP (census-designated place, aka unincorporated). Those must have been some persistent census enumerators (that’s what they’re called. I know, because I was one in 1980 when I spent the summer in Colorado Springs, living out of a tent in a KOA campground with a couple of college buddies and some other tribal nomads.) I’ve never seen more than a dozen Red Feather residents at one time, and that was at The Basil – my favorite watering hole, recently deceased. RIP Basil. And thanks for the memories…
Wikipedia describes Red Feather this way: “Located in the Rocky Mountains northwest of Fort Collins, this is a rustic mountain village surrounded by the Roosevelt National Forest.” Rustic it is, but not to be confused with the unincorporated community called Rustic, which is 11 miles from the Village, down a treacherous, unforgiving hairpin switchback gravel pathway called Manhattan Road. That Rustic is on the bank of the Cache la Poudre River (aka “The Pooder”. Translated from French for “hide the powder” because early French-Canadian trappers caught in a snowstorm in 1820 had to cache their gunpowder in caves and recesses along the riverbank cliffs to keep it from getting wet).
The Poudre is one of the most beautiful rivers in Colorado, coming out of it’s headwaters in Rocky Mountain National Park and carving a gorgeous canyon through sandstone and granite to Fort Collins before making it’s way to the South Platte, then braiding its way east through the sandhill crane’s spring migration rendezvous in the middle of Nebraska and dumping into The Missouri River (aka “Mighty Mo”, the longest river in North America at 2,341 miles – 21 miles longer than The Mississippi, aka “Big Muddy”) between Omaha and Council Bluffs, Iowa, separating the rich, fertile fields of the Midwest farmlands from the impoverished, arid grasslands of the Western Plains. Roll on Mighty Mo, into the Big Muddy and down to the delta in the Gulf of Mexico. But, sorry, I digress…
Back to the Village, and it’s humble beginnings. Native Americans, primarily the Utes, had lived in the area for centuries (that’s what made them native). Plains Indians, predominantly the Shoshoni, Cheyenne and Arapahoe, would come into the mountains for the abundance of tall, straight lodgepole pines, which they coveted as structure for their buffalo hide tipis – their lodge poles. The first whites were trappers and hunters collectively known as Mountain Men of the Jeremiah Johnson persuasion (quite possibly the best movie of its kind.)
When settlers came to the country and started building homesteads (that’s what made them settlers), they were initially drawn to the verdant expanses of relatively level soil in the big valleys of the numerous creeks and plentiful natural springs. They raised cattle, fattening them on open range grazing and selling the beef to the growing population below, in Denver, Fort Collins and Greeley. They also cut timber and hauled it down to the growing cities, expanding trails to roads, with difficulty. “Tie hacks” did much of the dirty work, providing timber for the ties of the Transcontinental Railroad and its many spurs and iron-horse tributaries. Brutal work (that’s what made them brutes).
By the 1870s enough settlers had populated the area for the government to conduct an official survey, in 1879, which showed only one lake, now known as Creedmore Lake. In 1886 gold was discovered and the camp of Manhattan (the wicked road’s namesake) formed, but the strike played out and in a few years the mining town that peaked with a population of about 300 became a ghost town, it’s simple reminders now being overtaken by nature. What was then, and is now, most precious and plentiful is water – fresh, clear snowmelt-fed streams and ancient springs popping out of the ground and ubiquitous rock formations. Liquid gold to a dry frontier, and the greatest expenditure of manufactured capital and human labor went into ditch digging and dam building, filling the valley lowlands with this vital natural resource, and giving the community it’s initial name of Westlake. What would eventually become the Village of Red Feather Lakes was now on the map.
Water continued to be the driving force behind development in the area, and ditches were dug and lakes were made, with various Fort Collins and Denver area businessmen looking to strike it rich. The locals discovered that native cutthroat trout (Colorado’s state fish) and stocked brookies, browns and bows (rainbows from local hatcheries) loved all this expansion of water from creeks to reservoirs, and they got nice and fat in the process.
Soon there was a thrifty trade of selling fish to fancy seafood restaurants in Denver, which got a big boost when President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt (the champion of our National Forests and Parks and often referred to as the “conservationist president”) ordered a large quantity for visiting diplomats following the Russian-Japanese War.
(The designation of National Forest and Park status was instrumental in preserving the area to appear as what it is today. It kept the tall, straight timber of lodgepole and ponderosa pine from falling under the saws of greedy stump-grubbing hacks who would be more than happy to feed the pasty jowls of the Denver area developers and help line their pockets with pitch-pocked profits. But, again, I digress.)
The trout were harvested, cleaned and packed on ice, with a man accompanying the train all the way to Washington D.C. keeping them from spoiling. Teddy said, “Bully!”, which means “Thanks for the fish!”
Not everyone was quite so enthusiastic about all the ditch digging, stream damming and profiting going on by rerouting mountain creeks to reservoirs and then into the river and down the mountain to Colorado’s Front Range cities. Wyoming ranchers had long been relying on water from the north-flowing Laramie River to sustain their livelihood, and when a bunch of investors from St. Louis and beyond teamed up with local bankers and developers to form the Laramie-Poudre Reservoirs and Irrigation Company and started diverting water in earnest, well, they got a little pissed. The cowboys and stockmen weren’t going to cotton for a bunch of Colorado bankers and businessmen with Eastern profiteers commandeer water they considered theirs. They simply weren’t amused. Wyoming ranchers can be funny that way – just not amused. Best not to mess with them, I’ve found. But, yet again, I digress…
Colorado became a state in 1876, one hundred years after our country became a nation, which is why our state motto is “The Centennial State.” Isn’t that clever? Yeah…whatever. The relevance of that trivial silliness is that the issue eventually wound its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which favored on the side of the Wyoming ranchers in 1921 citing the doctrine of “prior appropriation”, which means “first come, first served” in a “possession is nine-tenths of the law” kind of way. It didn’t hurt that the USSC Justice who wrote the opinion had been a Wyoming politician and attorney general, but it’s still just not a good idea to piss off Wyoming cowboys and stockmen. I don’t think that’ll ever change.
So, with water-stealing off the table, some industrious Denver businessmen and bankers came up with a new plan. The area was just too alluring to not try to make a profit, somehow. Laissez-faire capitalism was roaring in the 1920s. With dozens of reservoirs brimming with trout already established, and automobiles making easier access to the region’s natural beauty and mild summer climate, the Red Feather Mountain Lakes Association was formed in 1923 and authorized to “acquire, lease, exchange, subdivide, manage land and build a resort.” Cha-ching!
Aside from dividing thousands of acres of cheaply acquired land into nearly two thousand mostly one-eighth acre lots and building cabins on over 100 of them, the master plan included an 18-hole golf course, tennis courts, rodeo grounds, a ranch school, rifle range, hotels and other recreational facilities. Even a fox farm, that initially brought in twenty pairs of silver fox (with the intent of growing to one hundred pair and beyond) and a manager from New York, who lived in a log cabin structure called the Fox House which had a cupola with windows on top so he and tourists could look at the animals in their pens.
The foxes flourished in their mountain surrounds. I’ve seen early film of the farm in its heyday. Hundreds of these beautiful creatures packed en masse in the fenced enclosure, appearing to be one huge undulating river of rich, soft fur. Of course, the film stopped before the foxes were slaughtered and had their hides ripped off for the adornment of the fashion trends and the lifestyles of the rich and famous during the Jazz Age. As stated in the previous episode, this area is tough on canines.
But, as the saying goes, the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry, and the grand plan of the association fell well short of it’s mark. The 18-hole golf course became 9-holes, with its most infamous tee shot coming off one of the many castellated rock formations. The several hotels planned became just one being built. Most of the other attractions withered when the 20s roared into the stock market crash and consequent Great Depression. Zipping up to a mountain resort was no longer in fashion, and the cabins became empty – although many have been resuscitated and still exist today, testaments to ambitious intentions and the resiliency of a good log structure. I want one.
Well, dear reader, I should bring this episode to a close. The human attention span grows shorter in these modern times, and I am a part of the mix. This damn digital technology has clipped our willingness to listen for much longer than a snippet or two. More’s the pity.
One question that I had, and perhaps you do to, is: Where did the Village’s name come from, and what the heck is Red Feather? Well, after consulting said digital technology, I feel enabled to answer that. Stay with me, I implore, we’re almost there:
“The name ‘Red Feather’ made its first appearance when the Red Feather Mountain Lakes Association was formed with the objective of developing recreational homes (cabins) on 4,320 acres. The name was stimulated by Princess Tsianina Redfeather, a native American girl who was touring in concert with the composer Charles Wakefield Cadman. Purportedly, the namesake was Princes Redfeather’s grandfather, Chief Redfeather, whose grave was supposed to be in the area.” (Wikipedia)
That’s her picture at the beginning of this post. She’s beautiful, I think. I would have liked to have met her, and heard her sing. She had a good heart, too. You can find out more about her and the Village at https://redfeatherhistoricalsociety.org/local-histories/red-feather-lakes-history/princess-red-feather/ Or, you can go online, book a camping spot at Dowdy Lake or West Lake campgrounds, rent a cabin or boondock at the many primitive camp spots dotting the public lands. You won’t want to leave…until winter.
