fishing in this Paradise,
roamed over by big game, crossed by sparkling streams, alive with
trout. Kit Carson was the first white man to look down upon its
beautiful valleys. Others soon followed: Joel Estes, for whom the Park
was eventually named; "Rocky Mountain Jim," a two-gun man, living alone
with his dogs, looking like a bearded, unkempt pirate, taciturn, yet
not without charm, as later events proved, unmolesting and unmolested,
enveloped in a haze of respected mystery. There was also that noted
lady globe-trotter, Miss Isabella Bird, an Englishwoman of undoubted
refinement, highly educated--whose volume, "A Lady's Life in the Rocky
Mountains," is one of the earliest and most picturesque accounts of
that time--upon whom "Rocky Mountain Jim" exerted his blandishments.
Some sort of romance existed between them, how serious no one knows,
for the tragic shooting of Jim, by an irate pioneer father, cut short
its development.

In the early sixties, an English nobleman and sportsman, the Earl of
Dunraven, attracted by the wealth of game in the region, attempted to
make it into a private hunting park or preserve. He took up all the
acreage which he could legitimately acquire in his own name, then took
up fraudulent claims in the names of his tenants. But the hardy
pioneers, who were coming into the country in ever-increasing numbers,
rightly doubting the validity of his own ownership of so many thousands
of acres, homesteaded land to their liking and built their log cabins
upon it. Lord Dunraven tried to scare them off, but they would not be
bluffed, and in the contest which followed, he lost out and departed
from the region. Although his coming to the Park contributed much to
its romantic history, in his "Memoirs"--two thick, heavy volumes,
published a few years ago--he devotes only half a page to his Estes
Park experiences. Whether this is because he considered them
negligible or unworthy, would be interesting to know.

The old Dunraven Lodge was the first hostelry in the region, and about
the great fireplace in its spacious, trophy-hung lobby gathered many of
the political and artistic celebrities of that day. The fame of the
mountain beauty spot spread--visitors came. The settlers added "spare
rooms" to their log cabins, and during the summer and early fall "took
in boarders," thus helping to eke out their living expenses and, what
was even more far-reaching perhaps, the outer world was thus "fetched
in"