National Park After Dark - Rocky Mountain National Park’s Historic Tea Room

Episode Date: September 30, 2024

Some histories are lost with time, but remnants of their existence remain. Off an unmarked trail within Rocky Mountain National Park sits an abandoned cabin that in its heyday was a popular place for tourists to visit. It was once filled with people from around the world who had ventured to see Anna Wolfrom’s famous Tea Room for themselves. Anna managed to operate a hugely successful business in a time that was not common for women to do so, but she didn’t stop there. Remnants of her entrepreneurial spirit remain scattered around Estes Park and the country.Backcountry Trip with KMACFor a full list of our sources, visit npadpodcast.com/episodesFor the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to this week’s partners!‌Jack Black: For 10% off your order & FREE Shipping, head to JackBlack.com/NPAD and use code NPAD.BetterHelp: National Park After Dark is sponsored by BetterHelp. Get 10% off. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. Walking along the footpath of Rocky Mountain National Park's Lily Lake, it would be easy to miss the unmarked trail. With the sweeping mountain views of Long's Peak in the background and the crimson sea of Indian Brush in the foreground, the small opening between the Aspins is just a blip in the awe-inspiring National Park scenery. If you did happen upon the trail, you'd find yourself in the midst of thick forests following a path along the Aspen brook. After a series of switchbacks, a break in the trees would reveal a meadow.

Standing there would be an unassuming log cabin with a green roof boarded up and abandoned. At first glance, you'd notice it is in a peculiar place for a building. There is no road here. No easy access for it to be someone's home, but there are incredible views. With a second look, you'd notice how old this cabin must be, and most notably how well it must be built to be standing there. For over a century, this cabin has stood the test of time. Through rocky mountain blizzards that buried the structure to its roof and heavy white powder,

monsoon seasons filled with lightning strikes and record-breaking rainfall, and of course, the fires. If you envisioned some burly, calloused men arriving to this location to build their own trapper cabin in the early 1900s, like many did during this time, you'd be entirely off base. This wasn't a base camp for any type of hunter, and it was not built solely by men. In fact, not only was a structure built by a woman, but here in the Rocky Mountain terrain sits an old gathering spot for women. And it's not just any old spot. This was a high society tea room and was the beginning of much of what you know today

to be Estes Park. Welcome to National Park After Dark. Wow, I'm so excited for this episode. We're in Colorado, baby. And it seems very sweet. Yes, this is a lighter. hearted episode for sure. We're talking about tea and cozy and Rocky Mountain Winters and everything you can think of as cozy. This episode is probably going to be for the most part.

Lovely. Well, I'm excited. And I don't have tea. I have coffee as usual. But I have tea. Do you? Oh. And it has a little ski resort on it. Yeah. Yeah, I have. Dunks. Of course. Oh, no. I know. I'm sorry. It was the, it's the call. Don't show me that. It's the closest thing to my house. So, yeah. So before we get into this story, Danielle doesn't have a Starbucks near her house anymore. But she tried to take me to a Dunkin' Donuts. And I'm sorry, from New England, I do not like Dunkin' Donuts.

And I was like, do not bring me here. So we went to this really cute coffee shop that is pretty close to her house that makes decent, like pretty good stuff. And it was so cute in there. And I was like, never go to Dunkin' Donuts again. You know that I think about it. It's so funny because I went to the chiropractor this morning. That is literally I could walk to that coffee shop from my cat.

I totally forgot about it. I'm a creature of habit, I guess. Yeah. Well, some habits need to be broken. Okay, all right. Sorry. I'll do better. Okay, yeah.

So tell me about Rocky Mountain because I love it there. Yeah, me too. And I have like a lot of information on a lot of things. So for people listening, this is going to be a very historic-based episode, very locational based in Rocky Mountain National Park, which is exciting. And today I'm going to be telling the story, a story that has been largely lost to history. There's not a lot of information that you can find anywhere for this, except for I found this book that this woman wrote. And it is called Anna Wolfram Dove. and the wigwam tea room.

And I actually bought this when we were in Rocky Mountain National Park, like, I don't know, over a year ago now. Yep. And I've just been sitting on it and now it just felt like a really good time to talk about it. Especially because, I mean, this is going to be all out of order because we're pre-recording before we go to England, Malaysia, and Germany. But when we're in London, we're going to be a tea. Did you book that thing, actually? the i haven't yet because i was going to ask if um some of my family members that are there wanted to come which they probably don't because it's like the most touristy thing you can do but we're

going to okay so we're going to take a bus around a double-decker bus around london to like what different tea spots or are we having tea on the bus the double-decker bus is the tea room and they have like they have their clotted cream and biscuits and tea and they um this specific one they also serve you like prosceco at the end to celebrate and they drive you around london and they show you like all the major attractions there as you're driving around drinking tea from perfect yeah the most tourist thing you could possibly do definitely yeah so don't come at us with like your london Rex because this is it's already happened we've already experienced it we'll probably go back because there's a lot of things in London I want to do that we aren't able to do this time around

but yeah I feel like this is going to be that's going to be a highlight for the bird definitely definitely a highlight but I did find a coffee crypt a literal crypt that is a coffee shop so we'll also be doing that so there's tea and then coffee there's light and there's dark and that's it's going to be an adventure yeah that's true it's very representational of us as people. Yes. And if you're watching us on YouTube right now, Danielle and I accidentally matched today. I, yeah.

And then Cassie, like, she put on her blue light glasses because I have mine on. And we both, we look like FBI cyborgs when we do that together. Yeah. I know. It's kind of a bad. I almost had to change. I was like, I can't see this. I can personally.

I love matching. Yeah. And speaking of matching, we're also going to be, what are they called? Drindles. Drindle dresses because we're accidentally. So on our way back from Malaysia, we booked a night in Germany just because to break up the flights. And we didn't realize it at the time. But it is October Fest.

So I bought Danielle and I semi-matching dwindle outfits. They're just like color. Different colors. Yeah, they're just different colors. And we're going to October Fest now. Yeah. accidentally we both don't drink and I personally don't like large crowds so it's going to be interesting and I don't have shoes so I'm going to be wearing my hiking shoes.

Yeah, my journal. Probably same. But anyway, okay. Anyway, just being annoyed. That's our adventures. But going back to the tea room, Anna Wolfram Dove created this famous tea room that attracted visitors from all over the world that is now in Rocky Mountain National Park. And it was really fun and cool because she did.

decorated it with items from her travels, handmade goods. She put books that she self-published in there for visitors to read. She then went on to buy land and open businesses all around Estes Park, which many of those buildings still exist today. And she did this in an unprecedented time in women's history, and she largely did it alone. She has been labeled the first independent woman homesteader in Estes Valley, which I think to call her an homesteader is vastly underrating what she really was because, yes, she was a homesteader, but more than that, she was a very wildly successful businesswoman in a time where there wasn't a lot of those. While her businesses have long since closed, her impacts on the town and the national park are still in existence today.

So for today, this episode is a tribute for our love for historic buildings and the forgotten women who once gave them life. I love that. Like, it doesn't always always. It doesn't always have to be doom and gloom. I feel good about this. Yeah, it is. It's mostly, I added a little bit of doom because there's, it's national park after dark, but it's mostly not. Great. Dark. Yeah. Girl, winter is so last season. And now Springs got you looking at pictures of tank tops with hungry eyes. Your algorithm is feeding you cutoffs. You're thirsty for the sun on your shoulders. That perfect hang on the patio sundress. Those sandals you can wear all day, and all night. And you've had enough of shopping from your couch. Done hoping it looks anything like

the picture when you tear open that envelope. It's time for a little in-person spring treat. It's time for a trip to Ross. Work your magic. So first, before we dive into Anna and her tea room, it's been a little while since we've spoken about Rocky Mountain National Park, so I just wanted to reacquaint us briefly with the park itself. So this park can be found in northern Colorado, and it spans the Continental Divide. It was established as a National Park on January 26, 1915, which is coincidentally during the same time that Anna resided there and she was there the day that it was established. She had strong connections to some of the women who were instrumental in the creation of the first six national parks and she herself was part of a club that donated land within the park for the park

to have an administrative building. So she has direct ties to the national park. I'm like, this is a national park story, guys. Like get excited. It's not adjacent. It's not a stretch. It is fully national park story. So Rocky Mountain National Park encompasses 250,000 acres or 1,025 square kilometers. And it's made up of five regions. I won't go super in depth of like what each region is, but the titles of them kind of explain what these regions of the park are.

There's the moose in big meadows regions. Yes, there are moose here. the alpine region, the wilderness, heart of the park, which is the easiest to access with all the roads and beautiful scenery. And lastly, the waterfalls and backcountry, which is south of Estes Park, and it contains the 14er Longs Peak. It is also the region of the park where our little cabin tea room once thrived. While Estes Park is not part of Rocky Mountain National Park, it is really important to mention because it is the base camp of Rocky Mountain for all the visitors. kind of that entry gateway town before you go into the park. And a lot of people use it as a home base for their adventures into the park.

And located very close to Estes Park is the Beaver Meadows entrance, which is just a few miles up the road ahead. While there had been some incorporated areas before the establishment of the park in 1915, Estes Park officially became a town in 1917. Right from the getco, they focused on tourism for money because that's why. people were flocking there was because of how beautiful it was. And Anna and her tea room were definitely a big part of this. Today, it's home to the famous Stanley Hotel and an airway tramway, lots of restaurants, breweries, coffee shops, a historic theater, outdoor guiding companies, including the Kent Mountain Adventure Center guides, which this is a rock climbing and outdoor adventure guiding company that has been in operation since 1987. And surprise, surprise, we'll be, we'll be hosting our next NPAD trip. Yeah. So this is, I love that you just did this because only the real ones who just like got

through our banter and are like listening to a description of a park we've been to before that they're probably like, oh, maybe I'll skip this part because they've done episodes here. They're just going to go over park stats. Sneak this in here. We're being sneaky snakes. So if you're listening to this, hi, we're doing a winter NPAD group trip. The first winter trip we've ever done. And it's not, like Cassie just said, we're not going through our usual tour group company that we've been hosting trips with in the past.

This is the first time we're doing a trip with a local guiding service. So it's going to be a different experience. Yes. And a really cool one because this guiding company has been doing this for so long and they have intimate knowledge of the area. But what makes this trip so exciting, first, it's going to be in January. It's going to be January 19th to the 25th of 20th. 2025. So it's coming up pretty soon. It's actually our next trip that we'll be hosting. But it is a winter trip where we are splitting into, it'll be split up with two groups because we want this to be accessible to a lot of different types of people. But we're going to have a backcountry trip, a backcountry skiing, snowboarding kind of adventure. And then we're also going to have a snowshoeing adventure. And for people who want a snowshoe in the backcountry and an adventure around in the park. And for people who want to do backcountry snowboarding, skiing type of thing, we're actually going to be

through this guiding company. We're going to have an avalanche one course. So it's a combination of education in the outdoors and adventuring out there. Yeah. And if that's not your thing, if you don't ski, if you don't snowboard, that's cool too because everyone can snowshoe. That's right. And so we specifically designed this. So it's going to be one big group. We're going to be at the same hotel. We have a bunch of rooms at a really nice hotel right outside of the park. We're going to to be, you know, waking up and going to sleep together. We're going to be doing different activities together. We have some other activities in there that you can go look at the itinerary for more information on. But the bulk of like the day excursions are going to be split into these two groups. So if you're more of a hardcore backcountry ski or snowboarder, you're going to be with Cassie's group. Or if you just want to learn and you've never done it before. It's great for people who, because we're doing the Abbey One course, it's great for people who are just starting out. Yeah. But you need to know how to like, you know. You know. need to be confident on a ski pair of skis or a snowboard. But for people who would like to take it a little bit more low key and do cross-country skiing or snow-shoeing, you can be with my group. Yeah. So which fun fact, you're going to be kind of doing the same stuff Anna did. That's what she did. She snowshoot around. The Rocky Mountains, beautiful, amazing, like area to be. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We have like I kind of said, we have some other activities. It's not just like go, go, go every day all day. But. But.

But it is largely based around winter sports and activities in Rocky Mountain National Park. And it's so fun that you just said the anniversary of the park is the 26th of January because we will, our trip is the 19th to the 25th. 24th. 24th. I was going to say the 25th sounds familiar, but for another reason, that weekend, following weekend, the 25th, 26th, Estes Park is actually hosting the skajorting event with the horses and the skisks and stuff. And so there's a big event there and probably a celebration of the anniversary of the park. So if you want to like a lot of stuff, add that in at the end of your trip if you decide to come. Yeah. So cool. Yeah. It's going to be really fun. And we have a link in the show notes here. You can go check out the full itinerary and everything. And for dates that this will be opening up is that this is coming out on September 30th, October 1st. It will be live to book. But we're doing things a little bit differently because we decided to open.

this trip up specifically for Patreon members for the first 24 hours. So if you're on Patreon, you get first dibs to tickets and then any leftover spots after Patreon members have a chance to book on October 2nd. It will be open for everybody. Yeah. Yeah. So a little gift to our outsider community to thank you for all the support. And of course, we want to open this. In the past, we've we've only done this one other time. Usually we open it up for everyone right off the bat, but we just thought that this would be a special way to say thank you yeah so if you're into winter stuff come to colorado with us rocky mountains in the winter magical yeah okay so that's about um our trip now uh back on to our story and to understand how anna found herself here and she's chopping logs

she's hauling wood to build this cabin and the rocky mountains and this unforgiving terrain uh first we have to understand her past a little bit especially because she was not from Colorado. She didn't grow up here. This wasn't really her thing. She wasn't this hardcore outdoors woman. So firstly, Anna was born in 1872. And in one resource I found it said that she was born in Massachusetts. But I didn't really find anything else that said that. She was from Duluth, Minnesota. And that is where she grew up until she was about eight years old. Her parents were both immigrants. Her mother was from Ireland and her father was from Germany and she had three brothers, however, one of them died very young. Around the time that she was eight years old, her family

moved to Kansas City, Missouri. But shortly afterwards, her parents divorced and her father actually abandoned the children entirely and he moved back to Duluth and left her mother with the children alone. She was particularly close with her brother, Philip. Being just two years apart, they did everything together. When he turned 18, he left Missouri for the West. And it was actually him who fell in love with Colorado first. He became a modern day cowboy working on a ranch, hurting cattle on horseback, and just loved the Western style of living out there. He became an excellent horseman and fantastic with a lasso and just came back with all of these stories for Anna. Meanwhile, Anna turned 18 and became a teacher in Kansas City.

She lived with her mother who, because of stigmatization of divorce in that era, she actually listed herself as, a widow and Anna was there to help support her. It's unclear if schooling was required for her teaching job at the time. I read some resources that education was kind of in the middle of changing for teachers, whether women would be, because women were primarily the teachers, if education was being, it was like a weird time where some women were going to college and others weren't. So it's unclear if she had to do any training before she got here, but she had not gone to college at this point when she became a teacher. Eventually, her brother Philip found himself in school in New York City where he found a love of animals in art. His sketches eventually landed him

at an art school in Paris. And when Anna ventured out to visit him in France in 1895, she fell in love with the European lifestyle and enrolled in school there to study French literature. And I think it's important, and I kind of mentioned this a minute ago, but it's important to note that this was very unusual for women at this time period. Generally, women were expected to find husbands and settle down. Traveling to another country alone, which she did to go see her brother, was also very unheard of for women at the time, especially American women. And to give some statistics on this, I just wanted to like give some numbers. In the year 1900, which was five years after Anna had enrolled in school, there were about 85,338 women enrolled in college in the United States,

which was half of the amount of men who were enrolled. And of those women who were enrolled, only 5,237 actually earned their bachelor's degrees. So it was a new time for women in education. And in an article I found from that era titled What Becomes of a College Woman wrote that about 55.5% of graduates married right after college and did not go to work. It then goes on to say that about 40% do not marry. And there was a clear problem with that. And it says in this article, it says the question, quote, I'm quoting this, is the question therefore is, what work are unmarried women doing?

Are they doing a work of value sufficient to justify the time and money spent securing in education? And it was basically referring to that if women aren't getting educated, it was thought women should be educated because it makes them more proper and enticing to marry, but they shouldn't actually go on and do anything with it. So it was like, okay, if they got their education and they're not going to work as a housewife, then what are they doing? Are they doing anything of value? What are these 40% of women doing? That is the question, I guess. Yeah. Like, yeah, what else could women contribute to the world? Don't get me wrong. If you, if you're at home raising kids,

that's a job in itself, but to say that's a woman's only role. Well, to frame it that way is, yeah, it's wild. But this was the time. And I think it's important. to note that environment. So anyway, she enrolls in this college in Paris. And this is also important because only two American women were accepted into that school and they only allowed 100 applications. So of those 100 applications, she was one of two. Things were going well for both of them in France. And Philip became this well-known artist and sculptor in the area. Unfortunately, in 1890, it was reported that Philip became mentally ill and required hospitalization. During his stay, he jumped out of a second-story window to try to escape. And he survived to this jump, but his mental health continued to deteriorate. Anna wanted to bring him home, and when he seemed stable enough to make the journey back to the United States, she arranged the travel plans. On the way back, he assaulted a nurse, caring for him and broke a window on the ship and tried to jump out into the ocean to escape. He was then put into a straitjacket for the rest of the transport to New York City. Anna moved to New York

with him while he was hospitalized at Bellevue Hospital. And during her time there, she was hired as a journalist and she began writing a lot. Philip was eventually released and went back to his art, but after a stint where his workshop burned down along with all of his work, he found himself committed to a state mental hospital again, which if you listened actually to my Nellie Blye story that I did pretty recently, you know that the conditions of these hospitals were atrocious and the treatment for mental health care was just not there. And with that, it didn't go into, the resources I found didn't go into a lot of detail, but he died shortly after his, he was institutionalized and he died from mild paralysis, which I think is very, very suspicious of what his treatment was there because he was not

paralyzed. He was completely, his physical body was fine. So that to me indicates some type of abuse happened. When this happened, the year was 1904, and following his death, her and a friend traveled to England, where they both enrolled in school at Oxford University. And she did this because her schooling had been interrupted when Philip had gotten ill, and she went back to New York City. And then in New York City, she didn't go to school. She was working as a journalist. So she enrolled in school at Oxford University. And while enrolled in college there, she met a friend of a friend. His name was Guy LaCost, who had traveled. And to England with the sole purpose of trying to convince this man named Lord Dunraven to sell him his parcel of land that he had in Estes Park. That is where things... That name is very familiar. Very familiar. Yeah. He's a big name.

Do you know where you're remembering it from? I'm pretty sure I read. I forget who the author is, but it happened in Rocky Mountain National Park. a book that I picked up probably. I think I have that book too. Did we buy them together? We might have. I haven't read it though. I just have it on my shelf. Okay. It's very similar to like the death in books. With the parks, only this one isn't just focused on fatalities. It's just, it's a kind of like a conglomeration of different historical things and accidents and things like that in the park. And I think there's a chapter that has to do with this guy. Was he like one of the

original land or one of the people who owned a lot of land in Estes Park. Okay. That's the extent of my knowledge, but his name is very memorable. Yeah. Laura Dunraven. Yeah. And he did. He owned a lot of land there.

He was actually a big game hunter who had purchased 15,000 acres in Estes Park. And his goal for that is that he wanted to make Estes, this area in Estes Park a big game hunting park to attract visitors. to hunt there. However, he had other obligations and now he was a member of parliament and he could not make these trips back to Colorado anymore. And this guy, guy, his name's guy, had come there to see him in person because he had been writing letters to him for a long time asking if he could purchase the land and he never got a response. But now that he was there in person, he actually was able to convince him to sell the land to him. Now during that time that Anna had met him,

they had these deep conversations together about Estes Park and why he loved it so much and what his plans were. And this was most likely the first kind of the seed was planting. The seed was planted at this point of that Estes Park is this amazing spot. For my knowledge, it wasn't clear that she had been there previously to this. But her mutual friend that she had with this guy that she met there did live in Estes Park. so she did have a connection to Estes. Life got in the way again, and Anna found herself back in Kansas City teaching in 1905. And that same year, she visited her friend, his name was Frank Webster, in Estes Park, and she fell in love with the area.

She was determined to finish school, though, and she actually went back home, and she enrolled in the University of Missouri College of Arts and Sciences. And she officially graduated in the spring of 1907 at the age of 35. Within weeks, she moved to Estes Park, Colorado, and this is where the story of the tea room really starts to take form. Anna was able to acquire 160 acres of land in Colorado without paying for it. And this was due, and I guess she paid a little bit for it, but this was due to the Homestead Act of 1862, which called for any citizen, male or female, who planned to live on and improve land, could claim it as their own. And this was under the stipulation that they agreed to do this for a minimum of five years. So they had to live there for five years. And they had to improve the land by means of farming or business.

If they followed these demands, after five years, they would be handed over the title of the land for a small fee of $1.25 per acre. So $160. That plus a little more than that for 160 acres. And prime, prime real estate. nowadays. Even back, I mean, back then, the land hasn't changed. It's just as beautiful, but it's just more incorporated and a lot more stuff is happening there. And I, for reasons that I couldn't find, Anna didn't actually get the title for her property for 10 years. It showed that her documents that she received were on April 27th, 1914. And she acquired it in 1904. And I don't know if it

was because of the amount of time it took to create the business and build things or if she faced other hardships. I'm not sure, but it took 10 years for her to get it. Now, when she did acquire the land at first, Anna's first task was to build a simple cabin as required by the agreement. She just had to have some type of structure on the property. And while she had never built a cabin before, she asked her neighbor a man named Jimmy Fields to help her. He showed her how to do it. And together, They cut down trees, hauled lumber, and carried shingles and tools from a road that was about two miles away from her cabin where it would be. And at this point, there's not really like, there's not much trails or roads or anything leading up there. They're just hauling this to the spot that she chose.

Eventually, his duties to teach her how to do everything were over and she finished the building by herself. At the time, not many people lived in this Estes Park area year round. the winters were much too harsh in the mountains for most people. And per the Homestead Act, Anna needed to be living there for at least five months out of the year. So this worked in her favor because in order to afford all these expenses that she was acquiring, building, and incorporating the land, she needed to still work. So she would go back to Kansas City for the school season and she would continue to teach and earn money that way. When she wasn't teaching, she was back on the land building a second. structure. The tiny cabin she quickly built was enough to allow her to stay there, but she

wanted something that was livable year-round. And again, she found herself building, this time a larger cabin with a fireplace, a chimney, and a covered porch, which she completed in 1910. During her time there, she realized that where she was located was directly on the path of many hikers and horseback riders who are heading up to Long's Peak or to Lily Lake. Her interactions with them inspired the idea to informally serve refreshments and occasionally bake goods to each person, as she noticed that most of the people traveling traveling through that she would say hi to you, were either hungry or thirsty or both. And it kind of sounds like it started off as a rest place. They would come across this cabin and would be like, hi, do you have like a drink of water I could have, like just being

hospitable to people. But then she's noticing more and more and she's feeding these people and giving drinks to these people. And it becomes almost a social event at her place and she really enjoys it. And while she did this in the summertime, she did continue to go back to Kansas City to teach. And during that time, she would shut down and winterize everything for the winter when she would leave. And that was until 1912 when claim jumpers threatened to take her land. The details of exactly what happened is a little bit unclear. But because she didn't technically own the at this point because remember she didn't get it till 1914 the title yeah the land was still the governments and there were others who were interested in coming in and basically commandeering

her land while she was away like she's not here who's here to stop me from taking this over and i'll incorporate this myself and i'll improve the land myself while she's gone and and take it as my own so with those threats anna was not would not allow that she's like i will do whatever i have to do to keep this land and she notifies her work. She's like, I'm sorry, I'm not coming back. I have to go to Estes. Find another teacher. I can't be here. And she decided that she would hold out and fend for herself for the winters in Colorado. And she would just figure it out. So she did. She moved in. She lived there alone with her cat, her dog, her horse, and some chickens. She had no electricity or running water. And she had to carry all of her supplies herself when she would go into the town of

and she had her horse to help her, but she also had to like lug in water and it was just, it was hard living. But she loved it. She spent her days reading and writing in solitude and keeping her cabin warm in the frigid temperatures, kept her pretty busy. And I will say, I don't go into this a ton, but she does end up writing. She's a huge into writing. So she wrote a couple of books and a lot of those were written in this cabin when she had all this

time to herself. Well, you alluded to that a little bit in the beginning when you used. said that there is some books there that she self-published. Yeah. That's really cool. On December 1st, 1912, while she was there, a major storm hit for five days and nights, and snow accumulated up to seven feet or two meters high. It was so much snow that it took Anna four days to shovel her way out of her cabin to get to her horse and chickens. She was stranded up there for 12 days before a rescue from Good Samaritans in town where, able to reach her. And what had happened was a small group had been checking on local rural

residents and bringing them food and supplies or taking them out of where they were and getting them down into Estes Park because the storm had just caused so much damage and people were just people needed help. But when they found Anna, she was just like tucked away in her cabin, warm by the fire. She had plenty of provisions. She was just hanging out, doing her thing, eating, drinking, writing, reading, all of that. Like, she could not be bothered. She was just like, yeah, everything's good here. Like, no worries.

Thanks for checking in. Thanks for checking in. But still, though, she couldn't survive that way for, like, she didn't have provisions to last her the whole winter. And there was damage that had happened. And she did need to get out. So she did go with them and she snowshoot back to town. And she hung out there.

And she actually wasn't able to get back to her cabinet until March. And her neighbor, Jimmy Fields, was actually going to her house to take care of her animals while she was away. This wasn't the only winter she spent alone in her cabin, many more came. And she was quoted saying, I was never lonesome or afraid. These mountains have always been safe for any woman. The men who lived here were few, but they were princely in their behavior towards women. And she continued on to say, during the winter, mountain sheep, coyotes, deer, and other wild animals came around to my cabin door, but I was never afraid of them. I had to be.

my dog, cat, and all my books to keep me company and they proved adequate. I like this woman a lot. Yeah. The kindred spirit. Yeah, truly. During the summer, she continued to provide a space for hikers and horseback riders to stop, to rest, to give drinks to, and food. And in one of those instances, a woman from Boston suggested that she should start serving

tea to the people who came by and what a novelty that would be if she were to do that. Oh. Oh, I just, you're like a novel tea and you like looked at me. Novelty. CUNA did my ear. It reminds me of the, just without any further explanation, it reminds me of the, where the hell were we? Just help me. Where were we?

I don't know. Where were we? Oh, Acadia. Oh, Acadia. Oh, the Jordan, the Jordan Pond tea house. With the popovers and the tea room. With the popovers and tea. Do you remember when that started?

that because this you're talking about 1912 13ish right now I want to say this is in the 19 I'll look it up Jordan Pond I think it burned in 1979 Jordan since 1893 1883 1883 okay yeah tea rooms were popping up at this point like out in the will I mean out in the wilderness but it's just tea rooms in general and I do go into the history of tea rooms a little bit in this but um there was a big reason of why tea rooms were popping up. Okay, which I'll, I'll jump into in a few minutes. But basically, this woman comes up to her and says, tea would be such a delight to have here. You know, after, especially on a colder, you're in the mountains, it's colder, you have a warm tea. And Hannah loved this idea so much that she ended up following through with it in 1914.

When she finally gained her title to the land, she officially opened her tea room, which she named the wigwam. And I think part of why she officially opened it and, when she owned the land was just because then it was officially her land. Right. Yeah. There was no dispute over that. Yeah. And who owned it and all that. Yeah. And I do want to go over the name that she chose the wigwam because the name is referring to the shelter commonly used by indigenous peoples. That is dome or cone shaped. And while today, this would definitely be inappropriate, especially because she is not an indigenous woman. I wanted to recognize that that is not appropriate and would not be today. But I also did want to recognize that Anna was really interested in indigenous history.

She actually wrote a book about Saka Juea, and she often supported indigenous communities by buying their handmade goods from them. And she actually, eventually, she hired indigenous peoples to sell their goods inside of her tea room, which will go a little bit more into later, which I do recognize that it's a controversial subject because she, of course, acquired this land from a government that stole it from. indigenous people and then she named it after an indigenous name, which today would not be acceptable. And I think that that is important to note. And I think that part of why she had such an interest in indigenous communities was because Rocky Mountain National Park is full of their history and full of their people. The area is known to be home of U, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Eastern Shoshone, Apache, and Comanche people. Opening the tea room, was no easy task because she was so far away from the town.

She hired her neighbor Jimmy to help her log and clear like this road and not a road like you see today. It's just a path. Like she logged trees so people could get there a little bit easier because she knew that that would be important in allowing people to get to her home because it wasn't that easy unless you were on the, it was something you came across across the trail, but she wanted there to be a little bit of an easier way to get there. When that was finished, she used her horse to help her transport flour, sugar, coffee, tea, lard, chocolate, nuts, raisins, figs for candy and breads, and other essentials that she needed, like kerosene and milk. Because her cabin had no running water, she would fetch it herself to make any of these ingredients from the Aspenbrook and she would carry it back to her home. When she was finally prepared for it to officially open, word had spread fast.

It was already well known that Anna had been unofficially giving people a rest of it. stop along the trail, so when she officially opened her own shop, people were really excited. The new road she built also made it much easier for people, not necessarily on the trail to get to her. However, her home was directly on a very popular route for people hiking Long's Peak from Astis Park. She was quoted, saying when she opened it, they used to come in and rest anyhow. The idea didn't seem so incongruous as it sounds at first. A tea room in the wilderness on a trail that can only be traveled on foot or horseback. It doesn't sound very practical, but it is thoroughly so.

There were days last summer, which I served more than 200 people. There will be times when people in big hotels down below find that they can break their journey up on the trail with tea and talk, and they are not afraid to undertake it. And with that, people began to flock to her tea room. And it actually made the trail significantly more popular than it already had been because she was there and because people wanted to come across her. Not only did she serve hot teas, sandwiches, candies, sponge cakes, French biscuits, and gingerbreads, which were a delight after a long day out on the trails, but she also decorated her tea room in a way that made it very welcoming and unique. She cooked these items in her steel, a majestic stove, and majestic stoves are this brand of stoves that she used to heat up with both wood and coal to cook with. So there was like this beautiful stove that's in her kitchen that she's cooking on. And what particularly was impressive about Anna baking all these goods with these stoves at the location that she was making them is I didn't know this, but it's actually harder to bake at higher altitudes.

I knew that. I figured that out. Like recently, because I kept trying to bake cookies, chocolate chip cookies when I was in Colorado. And I could not. They kept coming out like, crap. I'm like, what is going on? Like for years, you know, every once in a while I would just like want to bake. And that was just, I'm not a big cooker or baker.

So I would just always do the simplest thing, which I thought was chocolate chip cookies. And they would always come home. Do you know why? And it's because of the altitude and you have to adjust. If you look up, if you know those blogs, those like food blogs that they tell you their life story and then it's the recipe at the very end. bottom has the recipe in directions. There's some out there that it'll say high altitude, like chocolate chip cookies at a high altitude, like in parentheses.

And I never came across those until the very, or if you have like a cake batter or mix, like pre-cake mix, you know what I'm trying to say. If you go out of grocery store and you get a cake mix, there'll be on a lot of them like the Betty Crocker or whatever. It'll say in small print, if cooking at high altitude and there's sometimes there's slightly more, slightly less of certain ingredients and different cooking times and cooking temperatures. Interesting. Well, I was very intrigued by this because I had not, I had not experienced this before, I seen this before. And so she was cooking at about 8,250 feet in elevation or 2,514 meters.

And so I looked up why this is at different altitudes. And it's because lower air pressure can cause liquids to evaporate faster. with that liquids also boil at lower temperatures so that changes how you cook things but also with that flour tends to be drier and yeast rises faster so with all of that if baking in particularly can be a lot more challenging so that was something that she had to figure out and maneuver which she did i mean she had mastered this craft and she was very well known to be this excellent baker so it's not just me it was the altitude and I just didn't. They kept cutting out really flat, like pancakes. Yeah, maybe you were cooking them for too long or whatever.

Weren't adding enough of a certain ingredient or something. It was so bad. So bad. That's so funny. You're like, why can't I make cooking? Try and make them now that you're on the East Coast. Now I feel I actually made pumpkin bread yesterday and it came out great. Yeah, there you go.

So, yeah, it's not me. It's not me. Yeah. Kind of going back into her cabin and how she had this whole atmosphere and decorations and all of that. Unless it was a very hot day, Anna would always have a warm and cozy fire going in her fireplace that she had. She had hopi, zuni, and Navajo blankets hanging up on the walls. She had trinkets of things from her travels thoughtfully placed around the cabin. And also on the wall, she hung her late brother's artwork. She had a gallery wall of his animal art, which included sketchinges. of lion, tiger, zebra, a donkey, and buffalo. Guests who came to visit were so enamored with not only the beauty of the location, but the atmosphere that Anna had created, that they would ask if they could buy some of her decorations and souvenirs that she had. And while these were her personal items that were not for sale, it did give her another idea. Alongside her tea room, she opened a gift shop that she stocked with items she felt would appeal to her guests.

And in that, she quickly realized that people loved handmade items from indigenous communities. And because of that, she brought in local indigenous peoples to demonstrate basket weaving and also to sell their own goods in the shop. She added lots of items from local artists in the area as well. Her tea room became extremely popular and people would travel to the area specifically to see it. Not only was it popular, but it was extremely popular among women. And the reason for this, I think, particularly is because it wasn't until the late 1800s that women were even allowed to dine without a man. In fact, if a woman arrived to a restaurant without a man, they would be turned away, which wild. But it was only recently that change was really beginning to happen. And in that, an example, a few states began granting women the right to vote at this time. And that included Wyoming, Colorado, where she was, Utah and Idaho. And tea rooms were a dining experience that were made for women by women, and women were just flocking to them. Tea rooms were the first dining experience that offered food items that women were more likely to enjoy.

Instead of serving what was mostly served in restaurants, these big dishes with just meat and potatoes, they served these nice, delicate sandwiches, salads, cakes, sweets, things that women were more likely to find more appealing. So not only was the food better, but women designed the atmospheres to be more thoughtful as well, where restaurants before this were just like bright lights and white walls. Now people are adding their own unique taste to these dining experiences, which is why Anna's was such a hit. Combined with the location and the thoughtful touches that she added, women love to come there to relax, especially after a long day of horseback riding or going out to Long's Peak. To add to the timing of Anna opening her shop, when Prohibition was placed in the 1920s and the bars closed their doors, the popularity of tea rooms surged. And her tea room had become so popular that in 1921, she built an addition onto the cabin to make it double the size to fit more gas. Anna had fancy china, beautiful decor, and lovely treats for visitors.

That combined with locally made gifts, her self-published books that she printed and sold herself inside the show. and the overall welcoming atmosphere, Anna had so many customers that she had to hire employees to help her run it. And with that, she earned enough money to open another business. Her gift shop was so successful that she opened a second one on Elkhorn Ave, which is like the main strip in Estes Park, which she named the Indian shop. And not long after that, she changed the name to the whatnot shop. The whatnot? Yeah. Okay. Like full of whatnotts. Yeah, right. I just wanted to. Yeah. She didn't stop there, though. She opened another business in Estes Park.

She opened her own confectionery and grocery store where she sold the ingredients and recipes of some of her baked goods. That way, people who were craving her items but couldn't make the trek to the tea room could buy it right in town. She called it Beaver Point store and Confectionery Store and it was near Highway 66. Today, while that business has closed, the building is still there. And today it is the bird and gym restaurant and bar in Estes Park. park. Oh, cool. Make it a stop. Fun little fact. Yeah. Yeah, we could definitely go there. And that wasn't all she did. She bought a parcel of land and built another business, which she named the Belknap cottages. And this was a place for tourists to stay that had a gift shop and antique store. And today, that is still in existence. And it is

it is still a hotel and it's named the Skyline Cottages. And it's right along the river with like these huge mountain views. That's really cool. And it's beautiful. Yeah. On top of Anna's business adventures, she was also a charter member for Estes Park's Women's Club. At the time, when she joined, Estes Park was an unincorporated town and the women's club took on a lot of the responsibilities to building it up. With the growing tourism in the town, there was a need for more facilities, but there was a lack of money that was there. So they took over creating events to fundraise for money. And how that all kind of started was they were already raising money that they believed should go into road projects to promote more tourism and accessibility into the area.

And when they brought the money to a town meeting that was ran by men, the men said that the women were not allowed to dictate how the money they raised was spent. And this did not sit well with them at all. So they ended up leaving with their money and said, never mind then, we're not giving this to you. And they created their own society, which at first they named the ladies' improvement and development society, but then they changed it to Estes Sparks Women Club. And that's how that whole whole club began. Well, this club made major improvements on the road systems and also the town itself. In the first year, they arranged for garbage disposal, advocated for a tourist bureau for visitors,

and funded a trail leading from Elkhorn Lodge to the top of Deer Mountain. Along with that, they also created the first library. town. When Rocky Mountain National Park was first established in 1915, they were the ones to host the dedication ceremony. They also gifted a parcel of land to them for an administrative building. And what people said was a surprising turn of events, Anna, she got married at the age of 51 years old to a man named Dr. Orville Dove, and he was a doctor from Kansas City. And although there was little I could find about how they met and fell in love, they did move together to Estes Park. full time. And there was actually an article written about them. And it said, like, this might be a surprise to everyone, but Anna's getting married. They were like, I thought she was as independent. And she still is. She still goes about and does her business, successful business. But people are like, she's in her 50s and she's getting married for the first time. Like, we thought she was just didn't, didn't want that. And she did. She ended up getting married. And they lived in Estes Park together for 25 years until he died from a

long-term illness. Anna operated her tea room for 16 years until 1930. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of history of what happened there after it closed in 1930, but it is known that eventually in 1948, she sold her 160 acres of land to three men in 19, and this was in the year in 1948. Anna lived until the age of 79 and died in 1950 from a heart attack in the Longmont Hospital. Before her death, because she had no children of her own, she had put her niece as the beneficiary on her remaining properties. However, the sale of her wigwam property had been financed and when the three men defaulted on the loan, that property was actually returned to her niece. So then she ended up with it again. And she ended up selling it to the Ryecart family who made the cabins she had built their home.

And they actually moved to the area and they restored and renovated slightly. But they had a real respect for Anna and her family, and they didn't want to make these crazy changes to it. So they tried to keep the integrity of the building and the history there. And eventually, when they had lived there for several years, they donated the property to Rocky Mountain National Park to preserve the land and also Anna's history. Today, remnants of Anna and her family's history can be found around the country. She donated her brother's art sketches to Brooklyn Museum, where now, Now his animal sketches can still be viewed there. She had also collected many indigenous artifacts over the years, which she donated to the Panhandle Plains

Museum in Texas. She donated 176 items. Nations that were represented in those are of the Ojibwe, Sao, Yut, Navajo, Omaha, Hopi, and Winnebago peoples. Today, while her businesses no longer exist, the buildings of them do around Estes Park. And along with that, some of the trails in road. ways she was part of establishing are also there. Along with that, the Reichart family, when they bought the property, found Anna's old diaries, and they donated them to the Estes Park Museum, along with her majestic stove that she wants to use to bake her goods. So you can still go there and you can see her diary and you can

see certain things of hers and you can see the stove that she used when she was there. And of course, her wigwam tea room cabin is still standing inside of Rocky Mountain National Park. All the though it has faced vandalism over the years, specifically in one instance someone chopped down doors, broke windows, and shot holes in the side of the building, it has since been restored. Today you can still hike out to the cabin but the trail to get there is not marked. The only public access is from Lily Lake. It is a 5.5 out and back mile trail with 780 feet of elevation gain. While the trail is unmarked, it leads you onto Aspenbrook Trail to the Storm Pass Trail. When you leave the

storm pass trail, you'll see a private property site. where you then continue north and after a series of switchbacks, you'll reach an opening in a field. And right there stands the old wigwam tea room. And that is my story. Wow. I'm really surprised that do you happen to know if there's any future plans for any, I understand that the park is preserving the building and the property as of right now, but any future plans of restoring and doing some sort of like reopening, whether it's a miniature, I don't know, like interpretive site or museum or I don't know if it'll ever be a full-blown tea room again, but I don't know. Not that I'm aware of. It is on the National Historic List, the building. Okay. It is now. But not that I'm aware of that there's any

plans to do anything. Yeah. Per se. I mean, because like I mentioned with the, I understand the Jordan Pond one is way more accessible to the general public. Yeah, that one you just drive into the parking lot and you can get there. Yeah. And I was, I know it's on a tea room, but it reminded me of the, do you remember in, again, where were we? Bow Lake, that lodge that had like the, we remember in Canada? Yeah, remember we got the ice cream sandwiches and the tea and there was art and like a little, and it was right on the. lake. Again, it was you could drive to it. It had electricity, running water. Yeah, I don't know. I imagine

that it would be kind of difficult because of how far out the location is and because it doesn't have amenities. But I think that that would be really cool. Anna did it. I mean, those things, yeah, Anna did it. And she did it in the 1900s. Like, come on, Rocky Mountain. If you're not, I mean, maybe they do have plans that I'm just like, hey, don't come at us. But no. There's something that's so special about cabins in the wood, like things that offer, I just going for a long hike and then coming across a cabin that just wants to feed you and give you a nice warm fire. Yeah. There is.

So there's a spot. We should go to it actually this winter while you're here. Is it the hot dog stand? Offlock trail. Well, yes. A hot dog, whatever. But no. So at the Von Trapp in Stowe, they have cross-country ski trails behind it.

and they have this huge network of trails. And I didn't know this when I went, but we discovered it once we were there, is you go out on these, on these trails and a couple miles in, they have a cabin there that has a huge fireplace, it has seating, has this porch outside. And inside, they serve hot drinks and hot soup. And they have little like breaded stuff there too. And I, when I tell you, after working so hard to get there to come. across this cabin that just wanted to like feed you and keep you warm was the best.

Like it's just, it's unmatched. It's the best. It just reminds me of those scenes and movies when someone's out in the desert and they're like about to die. And then they see like this little oasis. Like, thank God. But it's not a mirage. It's real. It's real.

I don't know if it's this. Remember you came to the little time share we have in Stowe, the Vantra. at the Vaughn Trapp Lodge. Yeah. Was that two years ago? So I don't think it's our year, because we split it with our family. Like we rotate ears. So I think it's our year next year again.

So we can do it then, too. Well, I also. I know, but I'm saying we could like, oh, I thought that was a huge spider on my ceiling. If they stays over there, it's fine. Yeah, no. We could, but I'm saying like we could also go up there and like stay. at the lodge and make it a whole thing. But we could also like just do a little day trip. But yeah, I agree. There is something really comfy, cozy about places like that. So I'm really excited that

you shared the story because it was really cool. I liked learning about Anna and her vibe. And I just, I mean, she was the coolest. It sounded like just doing her own thing and getting married later in life. Just it's something she wanted, but it wasn't a priority. She wanted to do her own thing for a while. And I think a lot of people can relate to that, especially nowadays. Yeah. And she was an entrepreneur. She really was. I mean, when she died, she was a very, very wealthy woman.

So she did it right. And she lived in a place that she loved. And she's a cool person for sure. Nice. Well, when we're there, hopefully we can make it a point to go see the tea room. Because I know maybe it's not feasible for our trip that we just talked about. But we're going to be back in Colorado in July for another trip. No, not.

Yeah, maybe that'll be better. Same year. Oh, yeah. Same year. Same year. Yeah. Like, man. Yeah.

So we'll be back frequently to Colorado next year. So we'll make it a point to do that. Cool. Well, thank you everyone for hanging out listening. You have the information for the trip to Estes. If you want to join us, it's in the show description. We'll link it. It'll be on our socials.

And it goes live to every. one, October 2nd, but Patreon, you have 24 hours free for all. Yes. All right. All right. Well, we'll see you all next time. Thanks for hanging out. Enjoy the view.

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