Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 146, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 June 1915 — Newest National Playground [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Newest National Playground

THE latest addition to our family of national playgrounds is the Rocky Mountain National park of Colorado. It is the thirteenth in number and the fourth in size, embracing 280,000 acres. After • long controversy and hard-fought battle as to the proper boundaries, congress has passed a bill and President Wilson has signed it, creating the park. The state of Colorado rejoices and the people of the United SUtes, who know anything about the glory of western mountain peak and valley, rejoice. For all time this beautiful, lofty region is dedicated to the people, says James Hamilton Byrd in Grit It is full time that Colorado, truly the mountain state of America, should be distinguished with a great national park. There are more than a hundred mountain peaks in this great backbone of the United States which are above 14,000 feet in height, while in all the other states combined there are less than a score of mountains of such commanding altitudes, so that it Is altogether fitting that the portion of the great continental divide which traverses Colorado, and where the raindrops from the descending storm find their way, part of them to the Atlantic and part of them to the Pacific, should be set aside as a national playground. The campaigif that has been waged during the past five or six years to obtain the creation of this park was in the hands of Representative E. W. Taylor of Denver. Mr. Taylor’s speech on the floor of the house in favor of the Rocky Mountain National park would lead one to believe that for beauty, grandeur and absolutely unrivaled magnificence

there is nothing else in the United States than Colorado, and especially Ihe Rocky Mountain park region. However, except as comparisons where different portions of the United States are concerned are sometimes dangerous, it would be difficult to overestimate the glory and sublime grandeur of the Colorado Continental Divide, While of this region the new park area is more than representative. Long’s Peak a Feature. Long’s peak, a wonderful feature of the park, is a second Mont Blanc, rearing its splintered horn 14,255 feet above sea level.- From its height the traveler’s eye with a single sweep may take in through the clear atmosphere a distance of 300 miles—-that distance to the west, north and south being made up of scores of mountains, ten, eleven,<.twelve and thirteen thousand feet in height, dominated by Gray’s peak and the great mass of Pike's peak, both over 14,000 feet in height. Long’s peak is 145 feet higher than the famous Pike’s peak, and has been termed “a jewel set in the crest of the Rockies.” The Roeky Mountain park region is no uninhabited wilderness. Even with the first year of its existence it will vie with the renowned Yellowstone park in popular favor, for already its beauties are enjoyed annually by thousands of visitors. Last summer 20,250 people visited the Yellowstone, but at the samel time over 50,000. people camped ana dwelt among the mountains and valleys of the Rocky Mountain park. Gjf.the new park region the moving ipirit for the past half-dozen years las been a small, slight, wiry, mountain-loving man (With a shock of red hair and a mouth Jlke a steel trap, Enos A. Mills, the and writer. In season and out he his fought for the park, stubbornly and even viciously and always confident of ultimate victory in the btace off «t times apparently insur-

mountable difficulties and controversies. The Rocky Mountain park will be a money maker for the state of Colorado and for the United States. It rivals Switzerland, and with the other national parks it will be the means of keeping in America a great deal of good American coin that heretofore has annually been dropped into the ample pockets of Alpine scenery capitalists. The European war will result in turning westward during the coming seasons many thousands of tourists, and once they have “seen America first” they will be inclined to see it first, last and all the time. The outbreak of hostilities in Europe last summer and the stranding of thousands of American travelers in European countries brought home to us the astounding fact that fully $500,000,000 has been spent abroad every year by sightseers and tourists. Easy of Access. The fact that the Rocky Mountain park is situated at the gates of Denver and only 30 hours from Chicago makes it the most accessible of all the national parks for those seeking rest and recreation and the splendid outdoor life which the mountains afford. Hunting will not be allowed in this park, as it is not in any of the other national parks, and this protection of the wild animal life will soon cause the area to become well stocked with many kinds of our four-footed friends, leading their happy, unmolested lives. The wild animal life of this great mountain state is now hunted from valley to peak and from peak to valley. The army of sportsmen wbich annually invades even th 6 most remote portions of Colorado allows the deer and the elk and the bear no peace, no respite; they flee from one party and run foul of another fusillade of the high-ipw-er, smokeless guns. Surely they wftl welcome a refuge of a quarter of a million acres in which the terrifying crack of the rifle and the occasional deadly thud of the bullet will be no longer heard. The Rocky Mountain park contains many lofty mountain peaks from 10,000 feet in altitude to over 14,000, many profound canyons and grassy valleys, furnishing ideal camping places, gay with hundreds of species of mountain flowers, glaciers and glacial lakes, rushing and foaming streams alive with brisk trout, and waterfalls and rapids. Of the beauties of this region a glimpse is obtained from a paragraph of Chief Geographer Marshall's report: “There is no predominant, commanding national feature in the park,” he states, “such as is found in thte Crater Lake, the Yellowstone or the Yosemite parks, or along the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. The region as a whole, however, is as beautiful as any to be found in the United States, or, indeed, in the world. There is spread before the eye a gorgeous assemblage of wonderful mountain sculpture, surrounded by fantastic and ever-chang-ing clouds, suspended in an apparently atomless space. At first view, as one beholds the scenes in awe and amazement, the effect is as of an enormous painting, a vast panorama stretching away for illimitable distances; gradually this idea of distance disappears, the magnificent work of nature seems to draw nearer and nearer, reduced apparently by an unseen microscope to the refinement of a delicate cameo. Each view becomes a refined miniature, framed by another more fascinating, the whole presenting an impressive picture, never to be forgotten.”

UNNAMED KING OF THE CONTINENTAL DIVIDE

ABOVE THE TIMBER LINE