As Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) celebrates its 109th birthday Friday, the park's Artist-In-Residence program returns for the first time in seven years, the National Park Service (NPS) announced Monday.
Rocky Mountain National Park and the Rocky Mountain Conservancy are accepting applications for the program through Feb. 9, 2024.
The artists who are selected will stay at the historic William Allen White Cabin - just one of more than 150 historic structures across the park's property out of the approximately 600 buildings in RMNP.
"Even though this is primarily a wilderness park, there's still a lot of historic and contemporary buildings," Executive Director for the Rocky Mountain Conservancy Estee Rivera said.
The Rocky Mountain Conservancy has been the park's nonprofit partner since 1931, helping to fundraise for youth and environmental programs across the park, endangered species reintroduction and historic structure rehabilitation of places like the William Allen White Cabin.
Rivera said some of the most notable historic structures are the William Allen White Cabin, along with the Holzwarth Historic Site and the Shadow Mountain Lookout.
The William Allen White Cabin was built in 1912.
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A project to preserve the structure that's played host to Nobel Peace Prize recipients when it was occupied by William Allen White and Supreme Court chief justices, among others, is what kept it closed to the public since 2017.
With its reopening this year, it offers the opportunity for program participants to live in a historic structure in Rocky Mountain National Park, Rivera explained.
The first Holzwarth ranch was built a few years later in 1917.
"This time of year in the winter, you can still walk up and check it out. But during the summer, there's a huge, incredible living history component, so there are park staff and park volunteers that can give you a sense of what it might have been like to live there," Rivera said.
The Shadow Mountain Fire Lookout was built in the 1930s, and it's the only remaining fire lookout in RMNP.
"It's truly one of the iconic lookouts in the National Park Service system-wide, not just in this area," Rivera said.
Right now, visitors can hike up to it and look around from the outside.
But in the long-term, the Rocky Mountain Conservancy is working to do additional historic preservation in hopes of it becoming an active fire lookout again in the future.
But that's not all.
"When you think about historic structures, there are of course the iconic, glamorous ones. There's also the area where the gas stations are in the park that are an important historic district," Rivera said.
The Utility Area Historic District includes housing for RMNP employees and their families, maintenance shops and garages and ranger offices, according to the park's office, and Rivera's office, she said.
The Beaver Meadows Visitor Center was also designated as a Historic Landmark in 2001 by the Secretary of the Interior designated, according to the RMNP website.
When the National Historic Preservation Act was passed in 1967, it required the NPS to nominate historic places in its properties like RMNP for preservation.
"In order to be eligible for listing, a building must be significant to our history— in architecture, archaeology, engineering, or culture. Buildings must convey a sense of time and place. Generally, they must also be at least 50 years old," the RMNP explained on its website.
There are ten buildings in RMNP back country that are listed in the National Register of Historic Places, including cabins at:
- Fern Lake
- The Keyhole on Longs Peak (Agnes Vaille Memorial Shelter)
- Willow Park
- Lawn Lake
- Thunder Lake
- Twin Sisters
There are also two trails - the East Inlet and Fern-Odessa Trail - recognized as some of the park's historic structures.
Fern Lake was an early, popular trail in RMNP. Lodge keepers and tourism boosters constructed and maintained the trail before Congress established RMNP in 1915, according to the park's website. The East Inlet Trail maintains similar features to its original Civilian Conservation Corps construction, the RMNP website said.
But there are a number of historic structures lost to time and natural disaster.
At one point, there were more than twice as many buildings in the national park, according to Rivera.
The park lost a number of historic structures in the 2020 East Troublesome Fire, Rivera said.
- Trails and Tack Barn and all its contents
- Grand Lake entrance station office
- The historic Onahu Lodge and Green Mountain cabins
- Harbison Meadows vault toilet facility
- Four bay garage structure at Trail River Ranch and all its historic contents
- The historic Fern Lake Backcountry Patrol Cabin
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The Grand Lake entrance kiosks, main park housing area, Kawuneeche Visitor Center, Trail River Ranch main building and Buckaroo Barn were all spared, according to the park's public affairs officer, Kyle Patterson.
The destruction from the 2020 East Troublesome Fire makes preservation efforts throughout RMNP an even more pressing mission as it enters its 110th year as an official national park.
Part of that effort includes having conversations with Native Americans who are descendants of the first people to inhabit the park dating back to 10,000 BC.
"What are the sites that you would like us to protect others from visiting because these are sacred important sites to you or they have very important resources for your people? And what are the sites that you would love for us to share with others and highlight?" Rivera explained the questions the conservancy asks to begin identifying historic places for conservation.
While places like the William Allen White cabin and the Holzwarth ranch are more easily identifiable as historic structures in RMNP, Rivera said there's things even she may not have seen if someone hadn't pointed it out.
Rivera described experiencing a historical tour of Moraine Park for herself, that many people have visited for the elk rut. There used to be golf courses and swimming pools in Marine Park, and the tour guide was able to point out, "here's the stairway that went up to the hotel.... here's an electrical conductor up in that tree."
"I really recommend people take tours and get a sense of what's sort of behind the scenery that you might not see really pop out at you," she said.
While some native Coloradans may consider RMNP more of a tourist attraction, Rivera said there are a number of day visitors coming up from the Front Range.
The conservancy also funds field trips and bus transportation for any Title One school, with the majority of students blow poverty, across the Front Range to come visit RMNP.
"We want to make it really easy and accessible," Rivera said.
The nonprofit offers scholarships for other adult classes as well. And there's a bus seasonally that comes out of Union Station in downtown Denver and goes to downtown Estes Park where RMNP tours go into the park from there.
Overall, "I hope that folks will add [Rocky Mountain National Park] to their list of 2024 resolutions to come up and visit at some point this year," Rivera said.
