Abner Sprague returned to the Estes Valley Monday evening, to recount a few tales of life here 150 years ago. He quickly made friends with the Estes Park residents and visitors gathered to meet him at the YMCA of the Rockies.
He told how he and his family found their way from Illinois to Colorado, where the Rocky Mountains rose up in the West.
“My first opportunity to visit Estes Park came in 1868,” he said. “I walked all of the valley and found only three people: Griff Evans, ‘Rocky Mountain’ Jim Nugent, and an old prospector with hair and beard grown so you could barely see his face.”
At the age of 25, Sprague homesteaded land in Willow Park (now known as Moraine Park), to raise a few crops and livestock. His parents, his sister and his brother soon joined him.
Adventurers to the mountains would stop at the small windowless sod-roofed house and ask for a bed for the night or a hot meal. Being generous, Sprague would always agree, and the guests always paid cash money for the hospitality. After a time, he realized, “There’s more money in milking tourists than in milking cows.”
That quip made everyone in the audience smile, and Sprague grinned with the recollection. However, it was not quite accurate. Having been raised to be honest and trustworthy, Sprague never tried to take advantage of others. In fact, when he discovered that some of the landowning neighbors were inflating the value of their property to get more money from the US government, he “blew the whistle” on the practice.
The Sprague family decided to expand their occasional hospitality into a hotel and fishing camp. Sprague and his brother served as guides for the guests, and the Sprague Hotel became quite popular.
Sprague dramatically recounted the story of how he nearly got himself and other killed through foolish pride and overconfidence. Returning from an overland pack trip from the Valley to Grand Lake, his party was caught in a snowstorm, and Sprague’s misdirection nearly got them all frozen. The old pack mule that came with them, as it turned out, knew the way better than he did, prompting his wife, Mary Alberta Sprague, to say that old Abner had less sense than an old mule.
Eventually they sold the property in Willow Park to J.D. Stead who renamed it Stead’s Ranch. The Spragues moved to the front range, but within a few years, they returned to the mountains and built a new hotel in the Glacier Gorge area.
Sprague, an engineer and surveyor by trade, dammed up Glacier Creek until he had a fine fishing lake just a few steps from his hotel. This, of course, is now known as Sprague Lake. “Sprague Lake created a great spot for our lodge guests to hike and fish, to enjoy wildlife watching, and to relax,” he said, and chuckled. “As the years go by, people tend to think that lake’s been there for hundreds of years.”
Sprague had a stubborn and cantankerous side as well. With some obvious glee, he told how, in 1941 at the age of 91, he volunteered to fight in the U.S. Army, and was rejected due to, of all things, advanced age.
Age, however, gives a man perspective. “People in the future,” he said, “just like people of my time, will wrestle with questions of how to keep the natural beauty preserved. But if the right balance can be maintained, the beauty—and people’s ability to enjoy it—will both be maintained.”
Monday evening, Abner Sprague showed his wit and charm, recounting his stories and the history of the Estes Valley. And then, Mr. Sprague took off his derby hat and his wire rim spectacles, and became Kelly, our friend and neighbor in Estes Park.
Previously serving on the staff at the Estes Valley Library, Kelly now focuses on bringing history to life through enactments of the fascinating historical characters who lived in the Estes Valley.
More about Kelly and his portrayals of historical figures is online at www.characterinfusion.com.
Kelly will introduce Mr. F.O. Stanley to Estes Park this week, 1 p.m. Friday, August 30, at the Historic Fall River Hydroplant on 1754 Fish Hatchery Rd., sponsored by the Estes Park Museum. Mr. Stanley will no doubt have some stories to tell.
Break a leg, Kurtis!