{"id":1360,"date":"2019-02-02T23:41:21","date_gmt":"2019-02-02T23:41:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kurtbusscoloradofreelancewriter.com\/?p=1360"},"modified":"2023-05-16T17:55:10","modified_gmt":"2023-05-16T17:55:10","slug":"ditches-dams-and-master-plans-the-village-is-born-episode-3-of-rocky-mountain-rubber-tramp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kurtbusscoloradofreelancewriter.com\/?p=1360","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Ditches, Dams and Master Plans: The Village is Born&#8221; Episode 3 of The Rocky Mountain Rubber Tramp"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;<em>\u201cThe days are rolling by pretty quickly. Been here a week and I think it\u2019s going to work. I screwed up my back a bit cutting brush and making a couple trips to the slash depot, but it\u2019s 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. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;<em> 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.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">-Journal entry: Tuesday; June 12, 2018; 9:25 am. In my camper,<em> Cochise<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp; The Village of Red Feather Lakes (as it\u2019s\nofficially titled) is like no other town I\u2019ve known.&nbsp; Technically, it isn\u2019t a town, because of its\nsize and lack of services. In legalese, villages are \u201clarger than a hamlet but\nsmaller than a town,\u201d which is generally regarded as having at least 1,000 residents.\nAccording to the last census (2000), the Village of Red Feather Lakes had 525\ninhabitants, and is described as a CDP (census-designated place, aka\nunincorporated). Those must have been some persistent census enumerators\n(that\u2019s what they\u2019re called. I know, because I was one in 1980 when I spent the\nsummer in Colorado Springs, living out of a tent in a KOA campground with a\ncouple of college buddies and some other tribal nomads.) I\u2019ve never seen more\nthan a dozen Red Feather residents at one time, and that was at The Basil \u2013 my\nfavorite watering hole, recently deceased. RIP Basil. And thanks for the\nmemories&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Wikipedia describes Red Feather this way: \u201cLocated in the Rocky Mountains northwest of Fort Collins, this is a rustic mountain village surrounded by the Roosevelt National Forest.\u201d 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 \u201cThe Pooder\u201d. Translated from French for \u201chide the powder\u201d 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). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u00a0 The Poudre is one of the most beautiful rivers in Colorado, coming out of it\u2019s headwaters in Rocky Mountain National Park and carving a gorgeous canyon through sandstone and granite to Fort Collins before making it\u2019s way to the South Platte, then braiding its way east through the sandhill crane\u2019s spring migration rendezvous in the middle of Nebraska and dumping into The Missouri River (aka \u201cMighty Mo\u201d, the longest river in North America at 2,341 miles \u2013 21 miles longer than The Mississippi, aka \u201cBig Muddy\u201d) 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&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;&nbsp; Back to the Village, and it\u2019s humble beginnings. Native Americans, primarily the Utes, had lived in the area for centuries (that\u2019s 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 \u2013 their lodge poles. The first whites were trappers and hunters collectively known as Mountain Men of the<em> Jeremiah Johnson<\/em> persuasion (quite possibly the best movie of its kind.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp; When settlers came to the country and started\nbuilding homesteads (that\u2019s what made them settlers), they were initially drawn\nto the verdant expanses of relatively level soil in the big valleys of the\nnumerous creeks and plentiful natural springs. They raised cattle, fattening\nthem on open range grazing and selling the beef to the growing population\nbelow, in Denver, Fort Collins and Greeley. They also cut timber and hauled it\ndown to the growing cities, expanding trails to roads, with difficulty. \u201cTie\nhacks\u201d did much of the dirty work, providing timber for the ties of the Transcontinental\nRailroad and its many spurs and iron-horse tributaries. Brutal work (that\u2019s\nwhat made them brutes).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp; By the 1870s enough settlers had populated\nthe area for the government to conduct an official survey, in 1879, which\nshowed only one lake, now known as Creedmore Lake. In 1886 gold was discovered\nand the camp of Manhattan (the wicked road\u2019s namesake) formed, but the strike\nplayed out and in a few years the mining town that peaked with a population of\nabout 300 became a ghost town, it\u2019s simple reminders now being overtaken by\nnature. What was then, and is now, most precious and plentiful is water &#8211; fresh,\nclear snowmelt-fed streams and ancient springs popping out of the ground and\nubiquitous rock formations. Liquid gold to a dry frontier, and the greatest\nexpenditure of manufactured capital and human labor went into ditch digging and\ndam building, filling the valley lowlands with this vital natural resource, and\ngiving the community it\u2019s initial name of Westlake. What would eventually\nbecome the Village of Red Feather Lakes was now on the map.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp; Water continued to be the driving force\nbehind development in the area, and ditches were dug and lakes were made, with\nvarious Fort Collins and Denver area businessmen looking to strike it rich. The\nlocals discovered that native cutthroat trout (Colorado\u2019s state fish) and stocked\nbrookies, browns and bows (rainbows from local hatcheries) loved all this\nexpansion of water from creeks to reservoirs, and they got nice and fat in the\nprocess. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp; Soon there was a thrifty trade of selling fish\nto fancy seafood restaurants in Denver, which got a big boost when President\nTheodore \u201cTeddy\u201d Roosevelt (the champion of our National Forests and Parks and\noften referred to as the \u201cconservationist president\u201d) ordered a large quantity\nfor visiting diplomats following the Russian-Japanese War. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp; (The designation of National Forest and Park\nstatus was instrumental in preserving the area to appear as what it is today.\nIt kept the tall, straight timber of lodgepole and ponderosa pine from falling\nunder the saws of greedy stump-grubbing hacks who would be more than happy to\nfeed the pasty jowls of the Denver area developers and help line their pockets\nwith pitch-pocked profits. But, again, I digress.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp; 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, <em>\u201cBully!<\/em>\u201d, which means <em>\u201cThanks for the fish!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u00a0 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\u2019s 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\u2019t going to cotton for a bunch of Colorado bankers and businessmen with Eastern profiteers commandeer water they considered theirs. They simply weren\u2019t amused. Wyoming ranchers can be funny that way &#8211; just not amused. Best not to mess with them, I\u2019ve found. But, yet again, I digress&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp; Colorado became a state in 1876, one hundred\nyears after our country became a nation, which is why our state motto is \u201cThe\nCentennial State.\u201d Isn\u2019t that clever? Yeah&#8230;whatever. The relevance of that\ntrivial silliness is that the issue eventually wound its way to the U.S.\nSupreme Court, which favored on the side of the Wyoming ranchers in 1921 citing\nthe doctrine of \u201cprior appropriation\u201d, which means \u201cfirst come, first served\u201d\nin a \u201cpossession is nine-tenths of the law\u201d kind of way. It didn\u2019t hurt that\nthe USSC Justice who wrote the opinion had been a Wyoming politician and\nattorney general, but it\u2019s still just not a good idea to piss off Wyoming cowboys\nand stockmen. I don\u2019t think that\u2019ll ever change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp; So, with water-stealing off the table, some industrious\nDenver businessmen and bankers came up with a new plan. The area was just too\nalluring to not try to make a profit, somehow. Laissez-faire capitalism was\nroaring in the 1920s. With dozens of reservoirs brimming with trout already\nestablished, and automobiles making easier access to the region\u2019s natural\nbeauty and mild summer climate, the Red Feather Mountain Lakes Association was\nformed in 1923 and authorized to \u201cacquire, lease, exchange, subdivide, manage\nland and build a resort.\u201d Cha-ching!&nbsp; &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp; Aside from dividing thousands of acres of\ncheaply acquired land into nearly two thousand mostly one-eighth acre lots and\nbuilding cabins on over 100 of them, the master plan included an 18-hole golf\ncourse, tennis courts, rodeo grounds, a ranch school, rifle range, hotels and\nother recreational facilities. Even a fox farm, that initially brought in\ntwenty pairs of silver fox (with the intent of growing to one hundred pair and\nbeyond) and a manager from New York, who lived in a log cabin structure called\nthe Fox House which had a cupola with windows on top so he and tourists could\nlook at the animals in their pens. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp; The foxes flourished in their mountain surrounds. I\u2019ve seen early film of the farm in its heyday. Hundreds of these beautiful creatures packed <em>en masse <\/em>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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp; But, as the saying goes, the best-laid plans\nof mice and men often go awry, and the grand plan of the association fell well\nshort of it\u2019s mark. The 18-hole golf course became 9-holes, with its most\ninfamous tee shot coming off one of the many castellated rock formations. The\nseveral hotels planned became just one being built. Most of the other\nattractions withered when the 20s roared into the stock market crash and\nconsequent Great Depression. Zipping up to a mountain resort was no longer in\nfashion, and the cabins became empty \u2013 although many have been resuscitated and\nstill exist today, testaments to ambitious intentions and the resiliency of a\ngood log structure. I want one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp; Well, dear reader, I should bring this\nepisode to a close. The human attention span grows shorter in these modern\ntimes, and I am a part of the mix. This damn digital technology has clipped our\nwillingness to listen for much longer than a snippet or two. More\u2019s the pity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp; One question that I had, and perhaps you do\nto, is: Where did the Village\u2019s name come from, and what the heck is Red\nFeather? Well, after consulting said digital technology, I feel enabled to\nanswer that. Stay with me, I implore, we\u2019re almost there: &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;\n\u201cThe name \u2018Red Feather\u2019 made its first appearance when the Red Feather\nMountain Lakes Association was formed with the objective of developing\nrecreational homes (cabins) on 4,320 acres. The name was stimulated by Princess\nTsianina Redfeather, a native American girl who was touring in concert with the\ncomposer Charles Wakefield Cadman. Purportedly, the namesake was Princes\nRedfeather&#8217;s grandfather, Chief Redfeather, whose grave was supposed to be in\nthe area.\u201d (Wikipedia) <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp; That\u2019s her picture at the beginning of this\npost. She\u2019s beautiful, I think. I would have liked to have met her, and heard\nher sing. She had a good heart, too. You can find out more about her and the\nVillage at <a href=\"https:\/\/redfeatherhistoricalsociety.org\/local-histories\/red-feather-lakes-history\/princess-red-feather\/\">https:\/\/redfeatherhistoricalsociety.org\/local-histories\/red-feather-lakes-history\/princess-red-feather\/<\/a>\nOr, you can go online, book a camping spot at Dowdy Lake or West Lake\ncampgrounds, rent a cabin or boondock at the many primitive camp spots dotting\nthe public lands. You won\u2019t want to leave&#8230;until winter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;\u201cThe days are rolling by pretty quickly. Been here a week and I think it\u2019s going to work. I screwed up my back a bit cutting brush and making a couple trips to the slash depot, but it\u2019s nice to clear the perimeter so I can see any approachment. Rambeaux loves it up here, too. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":1361,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[240],"tags":[104,101,75,102,103],"class_list":["post-1360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rocky-mountain-rubber-tramp","tag-larimer-county-colorado","tag-princess-red-feather","tag-red-feather-lakes","tag-teddy-roosevelt","tag-trout"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>&quot;Ditches, Dams and Master Plans: The Village is Born&quot; Episode 3 of The Rocky Mountain Rubber Tramp - Kurt Buss<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/kurtbusscoloradofreelancewriter.com\/?p=1360\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"&quot;Ditches, Dams and Master Plans: The Village is Born&quot; Episode 3 of The Rocky Mountain Rubber Tramp - Kurt Buss\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&nbsp;\u201cThe days are rolling by pretty quickly. Been here a week and I think it\u2019s going to work. I screwed up my back a bit cutting brush and making a couple trips to the slash depot, but it\u2019s nice to clear the perimeter so I can see any approachment. Rambeaux loves it up here, too. 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Been here a week and I think it\u2019s going to work. I screwed up my back a bit cutting brush and making a couple trips to the slash depot, but it\u2019s nice to clear the perimeter so I can see any approachment. Rambeaux loves it up here, too. 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