To Arouse Interest in the Outdoors the Literary Career of Enos Mills

7/27/2019 To Arouse Interest in the Outdoors the Literary Career of Enos Mills

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"To Arouse Interest in the Outdoors": The Literary Career of Enos MillsAuthor(s): Carl AbbottSource: Montana: The Magazine of Western History, Vol. 31, No. 2 (Spring, 1981), pp. 2-15Published by: Montana Historical SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4518562 .

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byCrYr o u s eI n t e r e s t i n~~TheLiter_ ~~Careerf

Enos Mitllsby Carl Abbott"I amusualiy consideredan authorityon manythings out of doors."Few Americans nthe early years of this century would have disagreed with this statement by Enos Mills.During nearly two decades after 1904 he wrote scores of articles for general circulationmagazines including Atlantic, Harpers, World's Work, McClure's,The Saturday EveningPost, and Colliers.He also contributed regularly to country life magazines such as Subur-ban Life, Sunset, CountryGentleman, Craftsman,and CountryLifeitself, and to children'smagazines like American Boy and Youth's Companion. Over these years, Mills alsopublished thirteen books and prepared two more, most of them collections of natureessays about Colorado's"RockcyMountainWonderland." By 1920, one national magazinelisted him with Charles William Beebe, Henry Fairfield Osborn,and other eminent scien-

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tists as one of America's eight leading naturalists. Other journalists acknowledged himas a leading authority on national parks and on the wildlife of the Rockies. At his death in1922, some ranked him with Henry DavidThoreau, John Burroughs and John Muiras oneof those American writers who had chronicled "the unseen events of inaccessiblevalleys and hillsides."'A small, wiry man with the energy of a perpetually wound spring, Mills in fact built notone but four related careers around his accomplishments as a self-taught naturalhistorian. In his twenties, he supported himself as a mountain guide in Estes Park, Col-orado, in his thirties and forties as an innkeeper interested in the growth of Coloradotourism. Beginning in his forties, after 1910 he also made himself an influential lobbyistand spokesman for the country's national parks. In his own mind, the overarching con-nection among these diverse public activities and his writing was the desire to introduceAmericans to their natural environment. In his own words, his chief aim was "to arouseinterest in the outdoors."2As a hotel owner, a promoter of tourist facilities, and propo-nent of the establishment and active use of nationalparks, he sought to make the western mountainsdirectly accessible to middle-class Americans. At -the same time, he worked to make an understand-ing of the same natural environment available toanyone who took time to read his essays andbooks.Since most Americans in the early decades ofthe century knew Mills only in this latter role, 2it is worthwhile to analyze his developmentas a writer to see how it may have both in-fluenced and reflected Americans' attitudes CDtoward their natural heritage. Mills' literarycareer falls into three somewhat overlap- _rping stages. His choice of subjects ineach period, his use of literary tech-niques, and his changing ideas aboutthe interaction of man and naturewere influenced by his efforts tomake a living and to establish areputation. During his early adult- 0hood from the late 1880s until1905, he explored the ColoradoRockies and other parts of theWest, established himself as abusinessman, and undertook aself-directed apprenticeship asa writer. The dozen years from1906 through 1917 brought suc-cess as a popular nature writer,a national clientele for hisLong's Peak Inn, and a positionwithin the inner circle of na-tional park advocates. From1918 to 1922, a series of prob-lems in his public career, and alate marriage that transformedhis personal life, coincided witha new maturity as a writer intechnique and ideas.3



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OR HISTORIANSnterested in examples ofself-made men on the late nineteenth-centuryfrontier, the life of Enos Mills is almost toogood to be true. Born near Fort Scott, Kansas, onApril 22, 1870, Millsmoved alone to Coloradoat agefourteen in search of improvedhealth.He supportedhimself initiallyby summerwork at Estes Parkhotelsand off-seasonjobs on nearby ranches. Work on sur-vey parties introducedhim to the variety of westernlandscapes from the FrontRange to the Pacific. AsMills experimented with different avenues to self-sufficiency,he also worked for a time as a nightfore-man at the Anaconda CopperMine in Butte, Mon-tana.None of Mills' travels broke the spell which theColoradoRockies had laid on him as a teenager. Inthe depression years of the 1890s, he returned toclaim a homestead in the high open valley whichflanks the eastern slope of Long's Peak six milessouth of Estes Park. For the remainderof Mills' life,the FrontRangewas his one constant companionashe began to train himself for solitary careers asmountainguide and writer. By the turn of the cen-tury, scores of ascents of Long's Peak and othermountainshad made him a sought-afterguide whocould earn twenty-fivedollarsper day fromclimbingparties. In 1902, he decided to turn his knowledgeofthe region systematically to advantage and pur-chased the ramshackleLong'sPeakInn,where guestswould now be able to enjoy,alongwith the mountainair, his services as a guide.

In a direct outgrowthof his new role as a busi-nessman, Mills became an active promoterof Colo-rado tourism. He helped to organize the Estes ParkImprovement ndProtectiveAssociation andpraisedthe "live wire" attitude that built the road up BigThompson Canyon. For the Denver Republican in1905 he described the "wild and lovely scenes"locked almost unknown in the deep mountains.Would not good roads, he asked, mean much "finan-cially andotherwise" to the peopleof Colorado?Dur-ing the next decade he also consistently advocatedthe "vast importance"of allowing automobilesintonational parks so that Americans could easily ex-perience their scenery. He wrote his first publishedbook,The Storyof Estes Park,in the same spirit. Anundistinguished assemblage of historical anecdotes1. EnosMills,undatedautobiographicalketch,Enos MillsPapers,WesternHistoryDepartment,Denver PublicLibrary;"An Historianof Birds andFlowers and Animals," World's Work, 45 (January 1923), p. 252; "EightNaturalistsof Note," CountryLife in America(1920), clippingin MillsPapers. For general evaluations also see Grace M. Sissons, "InterestingWesterners-Enos Mills," Sunset 38 (April 1917), p. 40; "Friendof theRocky Mountains," Literary Digest 55 (July 14, 1917), p. 44; Proceedings oftheNationalParksConference:Held ntheAuditoriumf the NewNationalMuseum,Washington,D.C.,January2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, 1917(Washington:Government Printing Office, 1917), pp. 117, 120-121.2. EnosMills, undatedautobiographical ketch, Mills Papers. For contem-porary descriptionsof his role, see Arthur Chapman,"EnosA. Mills,NatureGuide,"CountryLife n America38 (May1920),p. 61;Ben B.Lind-sey, "ThePassingof EnosMills,"Sunset 50 (January1923),p. 44; "EnosMills' LastWork,"CountryLife n America44 (June1923),p. 104;Rose D.Meyer,"InterestingOutdoorPeople:Enos A. Mills-Knight Errantof theRockies," Outers'-Recreation 64 (April 1921), p. 250.

and current informationof interest to potentialvisi-tors, it gave him an opportunityo advocate "beauti-ful and efficient improvements . . to develop theregionso that it wouldappeal to people as a place ofrecreation or to live in."4The Story of Estes Park can be considered thefinal practice piece for a writer who had worked todevelophis skillsthrougha decade of self-disciplinedwork. He served his first apprenticeshipin journal-ism between 1896 and 1899 as a part-timecorres-pondentfor the Denver Times and RockyMountainNews, reportingsocial gossip of the resort season inEstes Parkfor 1/3per word. In the first years of thenew centuryhe placed signed articles in local news-papers-the Denver Times,the Denver Republican,the Loveland Reporter. He put hard work behindthese initial successes, followingthe textbookmodelfor a writerbykeepinga loose-leafnotebook nwhichhe recorded and groupedhis observationsfor possi-ble essays. He also learned enoughabout photogra-phy to be able to supply competentillustrationsforhis magazine submissions. During the winters of1903-1904 and 1904-1905, he supplementedhis in-come from the Innby tramping he mountainsof Colo-rado checkingconditionsof snowfall and timberforthe ColoradoState Engineer.Keeping n mindhis am-bitions as a writer, he compressedmasses of obser-vations and incidents into simple and compactreports on which he would later draw.5

HESEVERALtrands of Mills' career cametogetherafter 1905 to give him a decade ofunquestioned success. He made his firstsales to nationalmagazines in 1904 and collected anumberof his early pieces as WildLifeon the Rock-ies, his first book with an eastern publisher,in 1909.Additional collections followed at two-year inter-vals-The Spell of the Rockies in 1911, In BeaverWorldin 1913, and RockyMountainWonderland n1915. His growing reputationas a magazinejournal-ist certainly helped Mills to attract guests to Long'sPeak Inn, the hostelry rebuilt, after a fire in 1906,

3. Forbrief characterizations f Millsby historians,see the following:Mar-shallSprague,Colorado: BicentennialHistory NewYork:W. W.Norton,1976), pp. 143-145; Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973), p. 189; Hans Huth, Nature andthe American Lincoln:Universityof NebraskaPress, 1972),p. 182;JohnIse, Our National Park Policy:A CriticalHistory (Baltimore:The JohnsHopkinsPress, 1961),pp. 317-318;RobertShankland, teveMatherof theNationalParks(NewYork:Alfred A. Knopf,1970), p. 79.4. EnosMills, The Storyof Estes Park and GrandLake,4th ed. rev. (EstesPark,1917),pp.93-94, 108-109;DenverRepublican,April9, 30, 1905;Kan-sas CityTimes,Nov.20, 1911;ShepM. Husted o EstherB.Mills,February2, 1923, Mills Papers; Enos Mills to J. Horace McFarland, April 24, 1912,McFarlandPapers, PennsylvaniaHistorical and MuseumCommission,Harrisburgphotocopiesn RockyMountainNationalParkHeadquarters,EstesPark).5. EnosMills to DenverTimes,May 13, 1899;RockyMountainNews to EnosMills, May 17, 1897, May 11, 1899; Enos Mills to L. G. Carpenter, Nov. 5,Dec. 8, 1903, February20, March1, 9, May26, September26, December20, 1904,February4, 1905,all in the MillsPapers.

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with gnarledand weathered wood from the slopes ofthe mountain.In turn,the inngave him contacts withpublic figures who could be helpful for launchingaliterary career. At various times he entertainedSamuel Bowles of the Springfield [Massachusetts]Republican, William Allen White of the Emporia[Kansas] Gazette, George Horace Lorimer of TheSaturdayEveningPost,andJaneAddams of Chicago.6Of particular importancewas Lorimer,who wasa regular summerguest for several years in the early1900s. Letters from Lorimer to Mills between 1910and 1919 discuss not only story ideas but also theirpersonal friendship, the possibilityof meefingswhileMills was in Philadelphia, and the dedication ofRockyMountainWonderland o Lorimer.The friend-ship and the assurance of a reliable market surelyhelped Mills as he worked to define his literarytalents.7During his first years of achievement as awriter, Mills had a variety of opportunities o try outideas for new magazine sketches. Guests at the inncould expect fireside nature talks and impromptumonologueson anythingfrom geology to the dangersof overeatingas Mills led themalongthe trails of theFront Range. His initial success in writing for Col-oradonewspapers and national journalsalso openeda supplementarycareer as a lecturer on naturalhis-tory.A majoraddress on Colorado orests to the Den-ver Chamberof Commerce n 1905 was followed bytalks both in and out,of the state.

For the next four years he became an itinerantlecturer on the forests and wildlife of the West. Forseveral months each winter he spoke almost daily atcolleges, high schools, women's clubs, libraries,chambersof commerce, and social organizations.OnJanuary 31, 1907, for example, the Denver Timesreported that Mills had recently returned from aspeakingtourwhich took him to thirty cities; by mid-summerhe claimedto have made a total of 500 talksin twenty-seven states. A typical itinerary, for Octo-ber throughDecember1908, includedfifty-fourstopsat St. Cloud,East St. Louis, Dubuque,Tuscaloosa,Tuskegee, Live Oak, Gainesville, Tallahassee, anddozens of other towns scattered throughthe MiddleWest and South.Despite the burdensof travel, Millsfound satisfaction in publicizingthe joys of nature,telling an interviewer for the St. Paul Dispatch that"Myworkis this-I want to save the forests.... Thisis my life. It isn't as though it were drudgery.It ispure joy."86. Enos A. Mills to J. Horace McFarland,September 24, 1912, McFarlandPapers;L. C. Way, Superintendent's eport or August,1918, RockyMoun-tain NationalParkHeadquarters; ranscriptof article from Springfield(Mass.)Republican,August 1904, in MillsPapers;Diary of JaneAddams,August 1918, Jane AddamsPapers, SwarthmoreCollegePeace Collection,Swarthmore,Pa.7. JohnW. Tebbel, GeorgeHoraceLorimerand The SaturdayEveningPost(GardenCity,New York:Doubleday ndCo., 1948),pp. 254-255;GeorgeH.Lorimer o Enos Mills, November3, 1910, January 29, April 9, 1912,November13, 1914,MillsPapers.The othereditor whosecorrespondencesurvives n the MillsPapersis WalterDyerof CountryLife.

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Enos Mills is the youthat right,seen here on his first ascentof Long'sPeak.

Evidence of Mills' abilities at the podium issparse in the scattered press clippingsand notices ofhis lectures, gatheredby the naturalist fromthe backpages of newspapers in Des Moines, Louisville,andothertownsalonghis route.It is suggestive, however,that he was asked, at the National ParksConferencein Washington n 1917,notonlyto deliver a majorad-dress but also to entertain attending children withwhat Stephen Mather called his "inimitable bearstories."9From the listed topics, it is also clear thatmanyof his lectures were sketches for later articlesor fragmentsof essays already drafted. In scores ofdim auditoriumshe learned and practiced the tech-niques of tightstructure,fast pacing, and liberal useof short anecdotes that were equally valuable forholdingan audience or for catchingthe attention of areader.

8. The itinerary s taken from the Mills Papers,which also containseveralfolderson his toursand the response.Also see Denver Times,January31,1907; ranscriptsof articles fromDenverTimesandSt. PaulDispatch,June1906, andEnosMills to LydiaPhillipsWilliams,March6, 1906, all in MillsPapers;EnosMillsto JohnMuir,July30, 1907, JohnMuir Papers, PacificCenter or WesternHistoricalStudies, Universityof the Pacific,Stockton,Ca.9. Proceedingsof the NationalParksConference,p. 346.

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The self-sufficientyoungEnosMillsabout 1890.

That Mills focused his essays aroundhis own ex-periences seems to have been a source of early ap-peal, judgingby reviews published through1915.TheDial's review of Wild Life on the Rockies,for exam-ple, noted the "delightfulrevelation of the author'spersonality"while the Sierra ClubBulletinpickedoutas central themes his apparent indifference to dan-ger and -hisdelight in natural beauty.10Many earlyreviews emphasizedone or the otherof these aspectsof Mills' essays. Readers could expect either "thrill-ing stories" of "perilousmoments"with the "dash ofgreat adventure" or writingmarkedby "imaginativestyle," "sympathetic sentiment," and a "strongstrain of the poet." The reaction of the New York10. M. E. Cook, review of Wild Life on the Rockies in the Dial 46 (June 1, 1909),p. 363; Helen M. LeConte, review of Wild Life on the Rockies in the SierraClub Bulletin 8 Uune 1911), p. 147.11. Reviews of Spell of the Rockies in the Independent 72 Uune 6, 1912), p.1270; M. E. Cook, Dial 51 (December 16, 1911), p. 527. Reviews of RockyMountain Wonderland in Review of Reviews 51 (May 1915). p. 624; NewYork Times, August 8, 1915. Review of In Beaver World in The Nation 97(July3, 1913), p. 18. Review of Your National Parks by Marion Randall Par-sons in Sierra Club Bulletin 10 (January 1918), p. 385. Review of Wild Life

on the Rockies in New York Times. April 24, 1909.12. "A Watcher on the Heights," in Wild Life on the Rockies (Boston: HoughtoskMifflin Co., 1909), pp. 89-90. The theme is developed as well in "MountainTop Weather," in The Spell of the Rockies (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.,1911), pp. 71-89.

Times to Rocky Mountain Wonderland was typical:"It is his lonely journeys through the mountainwil-derness that most deeply stir the emotions andarouse the imagination.""1To create these "thrilling stories," Mills madehis articles smallwilderness adventuresdetailinghisown dangerous encounters with the harsh forces ofnature. His nature writing became easily acces-sible througha combination of two popular literaryforms of the early twentieth century.The heights ofthe Rockies were the favored setting, the lonelywinter the favored season. Avalanches, killing cold,winds strong enough to lift a crawling man, stormsthick enough to confuse the sight-these were thehazards Mills met and lived to write about. In thisstrange world above timberline, lowland rules nolonger applied. What was warming sunshine in themountain valleys became a deluge of light whichcould sear unprotected eyes into blindness. A gully-washing rainstorm could make the air at 12,000 feetan electrical sea unimagined below; as electricalwaves swept by Mills they "snapped, hummed,andbuzzed in such a manner that their advance andretreat could be plainlyheard."The effect on a hikerwas virtual paralysis. "Everymuscle was almostim-movable," wrote Mills. "I could climb only a fewsteps without weakening to the stopping-point.Ibreathedonly by gasps, andmyheart became violentand feeble by turns.I felt as if cinched in a steel cor-set.""2Mills found the adventure of mountaineering nthe ability to foresee and cope with these strangeforces of the heights. He delighted in recountinghowhe walked the high cliffs and snow cornices withoutcausing a slide, how he rode an avalanche and sur-vived, how he played games with a grizzly. "WindRapidson the Heights"told of his encounter with 170mile-per-hourwinds on the slopes of Long's Peak.Strong enough to lift, turn, and slam his prostratebody,the currents of air were a challenge, "an invis-ible, unresting contestant who occasionally tried tohurl me over a ledge or smash my bones against the

rocks." Withoutany need but the test of his abilities,he experimentedat 13,000 and 14,000 feet with thepattern of the winds. Where were the eddies, theundertows and whirlpools? Where did the steadycurrents flow? At one pointhe let the wind carryhimup a narrow gorge, using all his strengthto hold onand prevent being tossed up and over the top like apiece of paper. To prove his knowledge of a newforce, he let the wind itself push him across the laststeep incline below the summit. "It was seriouslysplendid to play with these wild winds," he wrote13. "WindRapidson the Heights," n Adventuresof a Nature Guide Boston:HoughtonMifflinCo., 1920), pp. 83, 88. For similaressays see "ColoradoSnowObserver," n WildLifeon the Rockies,pp. 3-26; "TrailingwithoutaGun," n The Grizzly:OurGreatestWildAnimal Boston:HoughtonMifflinCo., 1919), pp. 119-136;"Racingan Avalanche."Spell of the Rockies,pp.1-16.

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later. "There is no greater joy than wrestling naked-handedwith the elements.''l3Mastery over nature to Mills might mean ridingthe winds. It might also mean control of detail. In"Snow-Blinded n the Summit"he told of three dayswithout sight on the continentaldivide. Life depend-ed on "planning the best manner to get along." Thetheme of the essay is simple:"temporaryblindnessisa good stimulus for the imagination and the mem-ory-in fact, is good educational trainingfor all thesenses."14 The details were all-important.The distri-bution of trees, the patterns of moss and lichen, theexpected topographycould all give directions. Thedifferent echoes from his shouts could make a pic-ture of the landscape. Here too, however, survivalwas a personal triumph, a test that revealed some-thingabout the power of a man's faculties and wits.

y ANY OF MILLS'essays, however, wereseries of observations on natural historythat lacked the ready-madestructure ofpersonaladventure. Looking or instructionas he be-gan to write seriously in the early years of the cen-tury,he mightwell have turned to the techniques ofthe "nature-fakers."Ernest Thompson Seton, Char-les G. D. Roberts,and WilliamJ.Longamong otherswrote "biographies" of wild animals. Frequentlythey combinedobservations of a number of animalsinto the adventures of a single animal-heroand, forgoodmeasure, describedthe thoughtprocesses of thecomposite. The result was "psychologicalromanceconstructed on a framework of natural science,"often with the intentionof pointingout morals for hu-manlife.'5 Olderwriters like Burroughsand influen-tial voices like Theodore Rooseveltmight call for thereturnto purityof observationand simplicityof pre-sentation, but a public clamoringfor nature essayswanted a chance to "readthemselvesinto the role ofanimal hero after the manner of all fiction.16

The initial compromiseMills tried was to avoidartificial plotting;he used extended metaphorscom-paringnaturalphenomenato human artifacts or ac-tivities. In describing a frozen waterfall as "a won-derous array of columns,panels, filligree, fretwork,relief-work,arches" he might as well have been atourist of a generationpast excited to literary effortby the Garden of the Gods. Each tree in "RockyMountainForests"represented a differentpersonal-itywith the comparisoncarriedthroughappearance,attitude and activity.The "grizzledold pine,"like an14. "Snow-Blinded n the Summit,"n Adventuresof a NatureGuide,p. 5.15. CharlesG.D. Roberts,quoted n PeterSchmitt,Back to Nature:TheArca-dian Myth n UrbanAmerica NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress, 1969),p.47.16. Schmitt,Back to Nature,p. 53.

Atop Long'sPeak with youngtouristHarriet Peters.

old man in the autumnof his life, shared the slopeswith the silver spruce, "the queen of these wildgardens." Aspens were playful children:Usually you find a number of little aspensplaying together, with their leaves shaking,jostling,jumping-moving all the time.Ifyougo near a group and stop to watch them,they may, for an instant, pause to glance atyou, then turn to romp more merrily thanbefore. And they have other childlike waysbesides bare legs and activity.Ona summerday, if youwish to findthese little trees, lookfor them where you would for your ownchild wading the muddiest place to befound. They like to play in the swamps, andmayoftenbe seen in a line alongside a brookwith toes in the water, as though ookingforthe deepest place before wading in.7

17. "Colorado Snow Observer," in Wild Life on the Rockies, p. 12; "RockyMountain Forests." in Wild Life on the Rockies, pp. 205-207.

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A'

On the porch at Long's Peak Inn.

"TheStory of a ThousandYear Pine,"publishedfirst in World'sWork n 1908, reprintedin WildLifeon the Rockies,and then issued as a short book, wasan entire essay structuredaround an extendedmeta-phor.The story is the autobiographyof a yellow pinetranslatedby Mills from its growthrings, an "accur-ate diary" of its own "personal experience."Decades of life on an even tenor alternate withserious injuries:the loss of arms to heavy snow, cur-vature of the spine from some burden while young,scarring by fire and through railblazes on its flanks.18. "The Story of a Thousand Year Pine." in Wild Life on the Rockies, p. 34.19. John Muir, Our National Parks (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1912), pp. 7,113.20. Edward Way Teale, ed., The Wilderness Worldof John Muir (Boston:Houghton Mifflin Co., 1954), pp. 311-312; Muir, Our National Parks, p. 257;"Rocky Mountain Forests." in Wild Life on the Rockies, p. 213.

Beyond the obvious trials of its life the tree had"stood patient in his appointedplace," had "enjoyedthe changingof the seasons ... boomedor hymned nthe storm or in the breeze."'8The most importantmodel for Mills in this morelyrical writing was JohnMuir. Muir also used theliterary device of treating plants as sentient beings,with references to "activeplant people ... brightandcheery" and to the "wide-awake enthusiasms" ofyellow pines in the wind.'9 Like Muir, Mills was aromanticwho foundmuchof the value of naturein itsability to stir upliftingemotions and who professedthat "the clearest way into the Universe is throughaforest wilderness." Where Muir could claim that inthe wild country "nature'speace will flow into youas the sunshine into the trees" and refer to the"spring gladness of the blood when red streamssurge and sing in accord with the swelling plants andrivers," Mills likewise found that "a climb in theRockies will develop a love for nature, strengthenone's appreciation of the beautiful world, and putone in tune with the infinite."20At his most expansive,Mills filled his early essays with "the occult elo-quence of the tongueless scenes," with "wildreveries" and "raptures that nature has within mestirred. "21Therelationshipwith Muirwas onethat Millscon-tinuouslyemphasized. He repeatedly referred to an

accidental meeting with Muiron the sand hills westof San Francisco in 1889. As Mills later describedthe encounter, Muir had drawn him out about hisearly interest in natural history and encouraged himto organizeand write down his observations. "He in-cited me to the purposeful use of what I knew con-cerning the outdoors," he wrote thirty-two yearslater, "and stimulated my efforts and my interest ingeology, flowers and scenery, and their relation tohumanity."22 ater correspondenceshows that Millstook Muir as a model for his active lobbyingin thecause of conservation. In addition, Mills dedicatedWildLifeon the Rockiesto the Californian,sprinkledreferences to himthroughhis writings,and was closeenough to the Sierra Club circle to publish anobituarytributeto Muir in the Sierra ClubBulletin.23Almost certainly Mills was pleased when readersand reviewers pickedup the impliedanalogy:"WhatJohnMuir was to the Sierras, Enos Mills is to theRockies."2421. Denver Daily News, June 10, 1906.22. Quote in Enos Mills to Fred L. Holmes, June 21, 1921, Mills Papers. Also seeEnos Mills to Mrs. Lydia Phillips Williams, March 6, 1906, Mills Papers.23. Enos Mills to John Muir, January 13, 29, 1903, July 30, 1907, November 24,1914, Muir Papers; Enos Mills, "John Muir," Sierra Club Bulletin 10(January 1916), p. 25.24. Review of Reviews 51 (May 1915), p. 624. Also see New York Times, June17, 1917; Dial 51 (Dec. 16, 1911), p. 527.

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S\-~~ in

Millsposed withother dignitariesat the dedicationof thelong-soughtRockyMountainNationalPark, September4, 1915.Left to right:RobertSterlingYard,parks public relationsofficer;Alfred Lamborn behindMills);Mills;F.0. Stanley;Con-gressmanEd.Taylor;Mrs. JohnSherman of Illinois;Coloradogovernor George Carlson.D URING HESAMEdecadein which he wasbuildinga successful business and extend-ing his reputationas a popularwriter, Millsalso established himself as a leading advocate in thenational conservation movement.In 1909 he initiateda six-year campaign for the creation of a nationalpark to embrace Long's Peak. For this "strenuousand growth-compellingoccupation" he organizedmass meetings and petition drives, made speeches,and secured publicitythrough The SaturdayEveningPost. Despite scattered oppositionof local real estateinterests and questionsraised by the Forest Service,the campaignpicked up supportfrom Denver news-papers, the Denver Chamberof Commerce, he Colo-rado MountainClub, the state Democratic Party, theGeneralAssembly, and the state delegation in Con-gress.25The act settingaside RockyMountainNation-25. Enos Mills, "The Proposed Estes National Park," Sierra Club Bulletin 7

(June 1910), pp. 234-236; Lloyd K. Musselman, "Rocky Mountain NationalPark: An Administrative History" (Ph.D. dissertation. Department ofHistory, University of Denver. 1969). pp. 30-45; Ise, National Park Policy,pp. 212-213; Mills, Estes Park, pp. 102-108. Quote in Enos Mills, undatedautobiographical sketch, Mills Papers.

al Parkpassed in January1915. At the park dedica-tion in September,Mills enjoyed the honor of chair-ing the ceremonies that marked what he called "theachievement of my life.">During the Rocky Mountain Park campaign,Mills had demonstrateda pragmatism n tailoringhissales talks to the interests of his audiences. For east-erners unfamiliar with Colorado he described thebeauties of the high peaks andurgedthe patrioticef-fects of recreation on national health, but for Colo-radans he analyzedthe economicbenefits of a touristattraction. Even after its establishment, Mills waseager to total the statistics on park visitors and tocall for improved facilities.27In turn, Coloradansacknowledgedthe practical as well as the scientificside of Mills. As local author ArthurChapmanput it26. Denver Post. January 20, 1915; Rocky Mountain News, January 19, 1915;Mills, Estes Park, pp. 106-107; Enos Mills, undated autobiographicalsketch, Mills Papers.27. Rocky Mountain National Park. Hearing before the Conrmittee on PublicLands, H. R., 63 Cong., 3 Sess. (1915), pp. 16-18; Denver Republican. Novem-ber 20, 1911; Denver Post. December 29. 1912. January 18. 1915; RockyMountain News, April 16, 1914: clipping from Denver Post 1918. in MillsPapers.

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in 1920, "his writings have done more to establishColoradoas a public playground han all the tons ofrailroad resort literature ever published.If the statehad capitalized Enos Mills it would have realizedmanyhundredpercent on its investment."28Work for RockyMountainParkbroughtMills in-to contact with the group then mounting he success-ful campaign for an independentNational ParkSer-vice. Although the Coloradan always felt himselfsomewhat an outsider, he played an importantpartin publicizing the issue and securing space in news-papers and magazines. When Woodrow Wilsonsigned the necessary legislation in 1916, Mills couldfeel that he had made his second major contributionto national parks within two years. At the NationalParksConference n Washington n January1917, hecertainlyseemed a memberof the inner circle whichalso included Stephen Mather, Horace Albright,RobertS. Yard, FrederickLaw Olmsted, Jr., GilbertGrosvenorof the NationalGeographic,and J. HoraceMcFarland of the AmericanCivicAssociation.29Mills'most ambitiousbookyet stemmeddirectlyfromhis involvement n the ParkService effort. Thepublication in 1917 of Your National Parks simul-taneously marked his attempt to confirm himself asthe spokesman for national parks and climaxed themiddle stage in his career as a writer. Inthis generalintroduction to the new National Park System, heventured beyond his accustomed subject matter ofthe Coloradomountains.Copying he mixed formatofJohn Muir's earlier description of Our NationalParks,he included specific descriptions of the historyand character of twenty parks and general chapterson "TheSpirit of the Forest,""WildLife in NationalParks,""InAllWeather," "TheSceneryin the Sky,"and the career of JohnMuir. Mostreviewers, assert-ing that Mills had written the standardintroductionto the growingparksystem,concentrateddisappoint-ingly on the practical informationand cited the ap-pendix of lodgingand transportationcosts. OnlytheSierra Club Bulletin recognized that in the moregeneral chapters Mills gave "freer rein to the moreimaginative style that we have come to recognize ashis own." Indeed, these sections of Your NationalParks sum up in typical rhapsodic prose the Millsconviction that "in the heights dwell a bigness, astrangeness, and friendliness not felt in the earth'slower scenes.'"oIn other importantways, however, YourNation-al Parks marked a turningpoint in the evolution ofMills as a writer. Several sections introduced newideas which would dominate his later work.The six-pointplatformhe defined in his discussion of "Park28. Chapman, "Enos A. Mills, Nature Guide," pp. 61-63.29. The career of Mills as a public lobbyist for conservation is treated in moredetail in Carl Abbott, "The Active Force: Enos A. Mills and the NationalPark Movement," The Colorado Magazine 56 (Winter-Spring, 1979).30. Enos Mills, Your National Parks (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1917), p.349.

Developmentand New Parks" thus listed the need toestablish an independent board of National ParkCommissioners, the need to maintain vigilanceagainst the ForestService,andthe need to forbidpri-vate concessions and monopoliesof park services, allissues to which he devoted himself passionately inpublic campaigns and lobbying. More importantly,the chapter titled "National Parks the School ofNature," and other passages, developed the idea ofscientific nature study based on the parks and at-tacked the sort of "humbug magination"not contentto take the facts of natural historyat face value.

N THELAST ive years of his life, EnosMillsbecame a better and more interesting writer,and at the same time turned away from thearena of public affairs. At the age of forty-eight,hemarried EstherBurnell,an artist who had fallen inlove bothwithEnosMillsandwith the mountains hatseemed to be his special possession. Marriage in1918 and the birth of a daughterin 1919 broughtacombination of emotional security, emotionaldemands, and financial responsibilities for a manwho had been fiercely self-sufficient since adoles-cence. At the same time, the Long'sPeakInn felt thecompetitionof new hotels in EstesPark,the impactofwartime inflation.and then the postwar depressionof 1920-1921that cut nationalspendingon recreationand transportation.Perhaps it was worries aboutsagging registrations that persuaded Mills to lendlegitimacy to the adventures of "The ModernEve" in1917. In this stunt sponsored by the Denver Post, apurported University of Michigan student namedAgnesLowe donneda leopardskinandventured orthfrom the Long's Peak Innfor a well-publicizedweekin the wilderness, after coaching from the greatnaturalisthimself. 1Economic pressures contributed as well to adeep rift between Mills and other park advocatesover policies on park expansion and transportation.Mills wanted an open fight to transfer the MountEvansregionfrom the Forest Service and annex it toRocky MountainNationalPark. Public officials suchas Stephen Mather,the Director of the new ParkSer-vice, and his assistant Horace Albright were in-terested in compromise and conciliation of conflict-ing interests. When Albright sought behind-the-scenes negotiations in 1918, Mills attacked him inangryletters and denouncedhimto associates.32Twoyears later, Mather'sdecision to award a franchisefor automobiletransportationwithin Rocky Moun-tain Park caused Mills to vent his outrage in news-paper articles and letters to Congressmenand con-31. Denver Post, August 4,6, 11, 13, 1917; L. C. Way, "Superintendent's Reportfor August, 1917," Library, Rocky Mountain National Park Headquarters.32. Donald Swain, Wilderness Defender: Horace M. Albright and Conservation(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), pp. 86-87, 94-98.33. Enos A. Mills, "Exploiting Our National Parks," New Republic 24 (October10, 1920), p. 272; Enos Mills, letter in New York Times, February 13, 1921;Enos Mills to Reed Smoot, April 23, 1920, Mills to Morris Sheppard, April28, 1920, John Barton Payne to Frank B. Kellogg, March 22, 1920, all inDepartment of the Interior, Office of the Secretary, National Park Servicecorrespondence, National Archives, Washington, D.C.

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servationists. His former ally, he wrote in the NewRepublic, was a "non-resident King," an autocratwho hoped to secure his arbitrary power by "farm-ing these parks out to monopolies." Although thetransportation franchise inconvenienced guests athis own Inn, Mills also saw a higher principle atstake. At a time when manyvisitors to RockyMoun-tain National Park arrived by train, he believed thatlimitationof in-parkmotor transit to a single firmlimitedpublicaccess to the outdoorsand underminedthe purpose of the park system.33To the new bureaucrats of the National ParkService, the argumentative Mills seemed atroublesomerelic whose claim to special importanceinterrupted he implementationof nationwide policy.The superintendent of Rocky Mountain Park andadministrators n Washington replied that Millswasabusing his public reputationto further his privatebusiness, to bolster his book sales, and to dictatepolicy. The parks establishment also cut referencesto Mills from official publicityand assigned the rolewhich Mills had soughtas chief publicistto RobertS.Yard. Onlya severe injury n a New Yorksubwayac-cident and Mills' resultingdeath in September 1922,ended a court test that Mills had forced, and ter-minated the dispute that had alienated him frommanyof his friends both in Coloradoand the East.3

SINCEOST of the battle with the Park Ser-L vice was fought in private letters, legal briefs.and obscure newspapers, the broader publiccontinued to know Mills through his books and arti-cles. With his literary reputation and markets stillsecure, Mills as a writer had the opportunity tofollow some of the themes hinted at in Your NationalParks.For example, he moved away from his previ-ous tendency to let metaphor substitute for preciseunderstanding.Adventures of a Nature Guide (1920)and Waiting n theWilderness(1921)show a strongerwillingness to take nature on its own terms withneutral and detailed descriptions. His sketches con-tain less affectation and cuteness, fewer elaboratecomparisons, more data on natural processes."White Cyclone" and "Snow Slides" detail the ef-fects and side-effects of an avalanche as observed bya mountain hiker. "The Arctic Zone of the HighMountains" describes an ecological system withoutresort to literary effects. In "An Open Season onNature Stories," Mills ridiculed the false beliefsabout animal behavior beloved of anthropomorphiz-ing writers and took his stand in favor of scientificprecision.35"Trees at Timberline" romAdventures of a Na-ture Guideoffers a typicalcontrast to the "Thousand34. L. C. Way, Superintendent's Report for February, 1920, Library, Rocky

Mountain National Park Headquarters- Arno Cammerer to Reed Smoot,May 4, 1920, Library, Rocky Mountain National Park Headquarters: JohnBarton Payne to Mrs. Francis E. Whitley, January 8, 1921, National ParkService correspondence, National Archives; Rocky Mountain News, May28, 1921: Musselman, "Rocky Mountain National Park," pp. 46-73: Swain,Wilderness Defender, p. 95.

4~~~~~~~~.

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Esther B. Mills and Enos Mills in the 1920s.Year Pine" or "Rocky Mountain Forests." Millsweighs the effect of snow, cold, anddrynessin deter-mining the alpine vegetation patterns. Metaphorsnow are for enliveninga paragraph,not for structur-ing an essay. Trees maystill "seize every opportunityor opening," but the openings themselves are de-scribed objectively. One example is the unadorneddescriptionof the originsof a long, hedge-likegrowthof trees extending along a high slope:

A lone boulder aboutsix feet in diameteratthe west end of the hedge had sheltered thefirst tree that had grownup to the leewardof it. Then another tree had risen in theshelter of this one, and still others in orderand in line eastward, until the long hedgewas grown. The straight line of the hedgewest to east showed that the high windsalways were from the same quarter.... Thefront of this hedge was the diameter of theboulder,and the fartherend, about two hun-dred feet away, was about a foot higher.35. "TheWhiteCyclone,"n Adventuresof a Nature Guide.pp. 114-121;"TheArctic Zone of the HighMountains," n Adventuresof a NatureGuide.pp.93-102; "Snow Slides from Start to Finish," n Waiting n the Wilderness(Boston:HoughtonMifflinCo., 1932),pp. 183-197.

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tact with nature." In an essay written in 1920, Millssummarized he mission of this special profession:A nature guide is a naturalist who can guideothers to the secrets of nature. Every plantand animal, every stream and stone, has anumber of fascinating facts associated withit . . . every species of life is fitted for apeculiar life zone. The way of these things,how all came about, are of interest. Touchedby a nature guide the wilderness of the out-doors becomes a wonderland. Then, everafter, wherever one goes afield he enjoysthe poetry of nature.41In advocatingthe future of nature guidingas a"nation-wide and distinct profession," Mills enun-

ciated an idea of wide popular appeal which tied thenational interest in outdoor recreation to theclassroom-oriented nature study movement. Apartfrom Mills' own informal "trail school" and natureguidingout of the Long'sPeak Inn, the first nature41. Proceedingsof the NationalParksConference.pp. 269-271;"Evolution fNature Guiding," n Adventuresof a Nature Guide,p. 245.42. Reportof the Directorof the NationalPark Service to the Secretary of theInterior or the Fiscal YearendedJune30,1920and theTravelSeason 1920(Washington: overnment rintingOffice, 1920),p. 53; Reportof the Direc-tor of the National Park Service to the Secretary of the Interior or theFiscal Year ended June30. 1921and the Travel Season 1921 Washington:Government rintingOffice, 1921),p. 34;HaroldC.Bryantand Newton B.

guide service in the national parks was offered atStephenMather's suggestion in Yosemite in 1920 byHarold C. Bryant and Loye Miller. At that time theeducational director for the California Fish andGame Commission,Bryant had previously given lec-tures on an informal basis at Yosemite in 1918 andconducted nature walks at Lake Tahoe resorts in1919. Campfire ectures by naturalistsat GlacierandYellowstone were expanded to include field excur-sions in 1921 and other nationalparks followed withtheir own programs. The Park Service appointedAnsel F. Hall of its Yosemite program as its firstChiefNaturalist in 1923. Bryantin 1925 opened theYosemite School of Field Natural History to trainhigh school and college teachers, scout leaders, statepark employees, and interested citizens in the art ofnature guiding. He followed its success five yearslater with the establishment of an educational divi-sion within the National Park Service.42

Mills himself never enjoyed the satisfaction ofparticipating n the implementationof his idea. At the1917 conference, Mather described Mills as aleading expert on the new subject of nature guidingalthoughwarning that its developmentwould neces-sarily receive low priority in the first years of thePark Service. Three years later, after the Mills-Mather friendship had dissolved in acrimony,Matherturned to the young Bryantrather than Millsto conduct the experiment with the new program.Bryant adopted Mills' terminology in calling hisYosemite program a "Nature Guide Service" andgraciouslyacknowledgedMills as a pioneerwho hadhelped to define the concept and had offered "thefirst adventure in nature guiding, as such, in a na-tional park," but the enmity between Mills and ParkService administratorsblockedthe writer-naturalist'sactive participation.43The Coloradanhad to remaincontent with the praise of journalistswho saw thenature guide idea as his special contribution."Thefirst Park Service naturalist hired for Rocky Moun-tain National Park was a New York high schoolteacher who presented thirty-one lectures andtwenty-seven field trips in the summer of 1923, theyear after Mills' death.45Drury, 'Development of the Naturalist program in the National Park Ser-vice," transcript of interview, Regional Oral History Office, University ofCalifornia, Berkeley; Harold C. Bryant, "Nature Guiding," pamphletdescribing Yosemite School of Field Natural History (no date, 1925?),bound with Bryant-Drury transcript; Donald Swain, Federal ConservationPolicy, 1921-33, University of California Publications in History No. 76(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963), pp. 132-133; C. FrankBrockman, "Park Naturalists and the Evolution of National Park Service In-terpretation through World War II," Journal of Forest History 22 (January1978), pp. 24-43.

43. Proceedings of the National Parks Conference. pp. 269, 272; Bryant,"Nature Guiding," p. 2.44. Chapman, "Enos A. Mills, Nature Guide," pp. 61-63; "Enos Mills' LastWork," p. 104; Robert Duffus, unidentified article on Enos Mills (1922 or1923), from Aldo Leopold Papers, courtesy Susan Flader, University ofMissouri.45. Roger Toll, Superintendent's Reports for July and August, 1923, Library,Rocky Mountain National Park Headquarters.

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T HE ROLEof Enos Mills in the evolutionofthe nature guide idea suggests some largerreasons why his career has fallen into rela-tive obscurity. In his day-to-dayaffairs, he neverovercame his youthful habits of solitude, ordevelopedthe capacity to work easily with people ofdiffering ideas and interests. The intense energy anddrive which carried him successfully through thedangers of the high country could quickly turn toquarrelsomenesswithin the confinesof meetinghallsand committee rooms. As a self-made businessmanandself-taughtwriter and naturalist,he also trappedhimself into narrow definitions of his goals andabilities. In the uncompromisingdrive to defend thepurityof his positions, Millsalienated importantCol-orado conservationists, civic leaders, and membersof the national parks establishment, few of whomwere able to give wholehearted supportto his owndefinition of the cause. His long vendetta against theForest Service may also have cut him off from in-fluence on men like Arthur Carhart and AldoLeopold, who first developed their theories ofwilderness preservation as Forest Serviceemployees.Mills also locked himself into a career as apopularwriter committedto an audience and a for-mat not suitable for the extended exploration ofideas. His booksusually appeared in the springto bepurchased for summer afternoons,and readers val-ued him for his regularityandreliability. Manyin hisusual audience surely agreed with a Sierra Clubre-viewer that "to say that the book... was written bythe late EnosA. Mills is introductionenough.""As amagazineessayist, he was accustomedto packagingeach new idea or observationin a brief and informalarticle, writing in a style readable by children aswell as adults.47He wrote for the present ratherthanthe future and was more skilled at introducingsub-jects than at developingthem.At the same time, it isindicative of his relative confidence in his writingabilities that the same Enos Mills who constantlypicked fights with neighborsand bureaucrats neverneeded to engage in literary feuds.

Changes in Mills' personal life over the yearsinfluencedchanges in the perspectives and even thematerials of his writings. Until the middle of the1910s,he drew largelyon his life as a solitary explor-er duringthe 1890s and early 1900s. He describedtrees, rocks, animals, and sometimes himself, but46. Sierra Club Bulletin 12 (1924), p. 107; Outlook 122 (August 20, 1919), p. 613;Boston Transcript, May 20, 1922, in Book Review Digest (1922), p. 370.47. ALA Booklist 8 (January 1912), p. 221, 16 (October 1919), p. 14; Dial 51(December 16, 1911). p. 527; George H. Lorimer to Enos Mills. April 17,1913, Mills Papers.48. Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind, pp. 159, 182-236; Huth, Nature

and the American, pp. 50-52, 75-77, 84, 141-142; Paul Shepard, Man in theLandscape (New York: Ballantine Books, 1967), pp. 235-265; Earl Pomeroy,In Search of the Golden West: The Tourist in Western America (New York:Alfred A. Knopf, 1957), pp. 46-56.49. "Evolution of Nature Guiding," Adventures of a Nature Guide, p. 245.

other' people entered only as intrusions into thenatural system. In the years around 1920, however,he increasingly drew on new travels in the East, ondealings with his guests, and on perspectives fromhis wife, who was as much an avid amateur natur-alist as Mills himself. These later essays explorednew ideas and admittedotherhumanbeings as legit-imate participantsin the drama of the mountains.In a sense, Mills' strengthsand limitationsmakehis career especially useful evidence on the develop-ment of American attitudes toward nature, for hewas a market-orientedwriter who respondedto thepublic's interests. RoderickNash, Hans Huth, PaulShepard,and EarlPomeroyhave all pointedout thatAmericansin the nineteenth century approachedtheoutdoors with a romantic sensibility, applying pre-conceived categories andlookingfor the picturesqueand sublime in nature. The middle decades of thepresent century,in contrast,have brought ncreasingacceptance of the ecological perspective most clear-ly articulated by Aldo Leopold.uMills stood out amongAmericannature writersof the early twentieth century as one whose ideasgrew. He slowly freed himself of the need to overdra-matize his observationsof the outdoorworld and tooverdrawthemin colorfulprose.He moved nsteadto-ward more straightforwardreportingof the naturalworld and toward an interest in the disseminationofknowledge hroughdirectcontact with the outdoors,agrowth that paralleled his readers' changing ap-proach to nature. "Every plant and animal, everystream andstone ... every species is fitted for a pecu-liar life zone," he wrote toward the end of his life."Theway of these things,how all came about,are ofinterest."4 oC

ABOUTTHEAUTHORCarl Abbottis Associate Professor in the School of Ur-ban Affairs at Portland State University, Portland,Oregon.Theauthorof Colorado:A Historyof theCenten-nial State (1976)and numerousarticles onurbanhistory,including cities in the American West, Prof. Abbottholds advanceddegrees fromUniversityof Chicagoandhas taught at Old Dominion University in Norfolk,Virginia,Universityof Denver in Denver, Colorado,andWillametteUniversity n Salem,Oregon.An earlier arti-cle on Enos Mills by Dr. Abbottappeared in ColoradoMagazinein 1979.

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To Arouse Interest in the Outdoors the Literary Career of Enos Mills

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