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6/6/2007
http://www.grandlakelodge.com/history.html
Improved transportation enabled Grand Lake to expand as a recreation outpost. In 1905, the Moffat Line, which crossed over Rollins Pass, brought the railroad to Granby. From there, stage and horse-drawn busses ferried tourists over rough roads to Grand Lake. Work on the Grand Ditch, 15 miles of canals carrying water to the Eastern Slope, increased the need for developed roads around Grand Lake. With the creation of Rocky Mountain National Park, the idea of a road connecting Grand Lake and Estes Park began to be taken seriously. Fall River Road, from Estes Park to Fall River Pass, was finished by 1917, but 20 miles to Grand Lake by horseback and rutted road remained. The State Highway Dept. instructed Grand County Engineer and Surveyor, Frank I. Huntington, to design a safe, linking route. By late 1918, Huntington's new road neared completion, except for a difficult portion from Milner Pass to Fall River Pass. A burst of entrepreneurial opportunism in the region followed, attracting wealthy Denver financiers. Huntington, with assistance from Al House, accepted an offer to survey and build a resort lodge close to the entrance of the Nat'l Park. This resort, the Grand Lake Lodge, was the brain child of tourism pioneer Roe Emery.
Roe Emery, later to be hailed ìThe Father of Colorado Tourism," envisioned an easy, affordable, and breath-taking Circle Tour of the central Colorado Rockies. At the Union Pacific and Burlington Railheads in Denver, Greeley, and Lyons, tourists in volume from the Midwest and "Back East," would be transported by bus to Roe Emery's Estes Park Chalet, where they would dine and sleep. The following day, the bus would climb the steep switchbacks of scenic Rocky Mountain Nat'l Park, cross over the ìTop of the World,î and head down to the Grand Lake Lodge for the night. After breakfast and taking in the view from the Lodge's porch, the bus would travel through Middle Park, over the Continental Divide at Berthoud Pass, and descend to Idaho Springs. The Hot Springs Hotel, also owned by Emery, would be the final night's stop before the tourists' return to the Mile High City.
Having experience with tourist accommodations and ìtransportation by rubber" in Glacier and Yellowstone Nat'l Parks, Emery looked to both profit from and assist the fledgling Rocky Mountain National Park. In 1917, however, his Rocky Mountain Parks Transportation Company was financially strained and kept him from building the Lodge, the last property needed to connect his mountain empire. He eventually secured financing from a wealthy friend, A.D. Lewis, and, with Park Service permission, construction on the Grand Lake Lodge finally began in April 1919.
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