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Boy Scout Road (68C) and Manhattan Road (162)

On the left side of the road this sign indicates where Boy Scout Road leaves 74E and the beginning of their property (taken February 2009).  This was not always the road through the Elkhorn Drainage down to Pingree Hill Road to the Poudre and CR14.  There was another earlier road about 3 miles east, through what is now North Rim Subdivision.  This area was also the site of the Log Cabin Hotel.     

The Mummy Range, which is the backside or north side of Rocky Mountain National Park is vaguely seen in the distance (April 2007).   This is the general area of the Log Cabin Hotel and other structures.  

This tour is a loop down to Goodell Corner and then back up Manhattan Road where it rejoins 74E at Red Feather Lakes Village.  The table below identifies main features of the tour. The first column is the distance from 74E the second column refers to the side of the road, and the final column is a label and description what you will see and some history.  

In preparing this tour we explored the drainage by horseback.  It is a beautiful area for riding (and hiking), which we have been doing for several years.  Recently (fall 2008) my wife and I were on a mission to determine the locations of the various homesteads especially that of Billy Batterson, because we live on the land where his parents Solomon and Mary Batterson homesteaded. Second we wanted to determine the locations of the two Elkhorn hotels described in Stanley Cases book  The Poudre: A Photo History.  During our excursions we have encountered many two-tracks, explained in Among These Hills (p71) as follows “… ranches were put together from many others, and over the years not only did the ranch boundaries change, so did the roads in and out.”   See The Elkhorn Hotels for pictures of this exploration of the Elkhorn drainage and information about the Elkhorn hotels, and how we determined their loactions.

The map of the Elkhorn drainage below shows the Boy Scout Road (68C), leaving Red Feather Lakes Road (74E) at Log Cabin (upper right), going west through the Elkhorn drainage to Goodell Corner (lower left) and then south, steeply down Pingree Hill to the Poudre.  This was the only route west from Fort Collins via Livermore until the road through Poudre Canyon was built in 1920.  The Elkhorn drainage is a fairly level area for being in the mountains, indicated in the second photo of this tour. Subsequent photos will show its suitability for cattle ranching.  

Map of Elkhorn Drainage

On the far left is Manhattan Road (CR 162), an alternate route from Red Feather Lakes Village to Goodell Corner and Pingree Hill.  The private lands (gray) along Boy Scout Road are principally the Ben Delatour Boy Scout Camp (hence the common name for the road), and the Shambhala Mountain Center.  East of the Center are a few residences along the road, including a few survivors from the Millers Elkhorn Hotel era, and at Goodell Corner is the Red Feather Bed and Breakfast. 

At the top of the map is Parvin Lake which is just outside the Red Feather Lakes Village.  The Mount Margaret Trail is visible to the right at the top of the map; Glacier View Meadows is on the far right and to its left and unlabeled is the North Rim subdivision, both developed by Don Wexielman from the Currie Ranch.  Its access is via what shows as Gate 13 on the map although that sign is no longer there.  The road drops down to the Elkhorn, and was the early main road before the current 80C Boy Scout Road, and will be discussed more later.

The Elkhorn Creek courses through the middle of the map, first visible on the left where it crosses Manhattan Road (its headwaters are below South Baldy Mountain).  Just east of the Shambhala Center it drops sharply south, crosses 68C and joins the Manhattan Creek.  Manhattan Creek begins only a few miles west (on the east side of Manhattan Road) and parallels Boy Scout Road until it joins the Elkhorn.  After the junction, the Elkhorn passes below the Scout Camp continuing east towards Glacier View Meadows then makes a sharp turn south and descends rapidly to the Poudre.  The area has many unnamed drainages.

We did our exploring of the area starting from the U.S. Forest Service parking lot which is on the left side of the road just a few miles west of the Mr. Margaret Trailhead.  We rode across the valley and picked up the trail to Molly Lake.  Shortly before Molly Lake a left turn of less than a mile brings one to the Elkhorn Creek.  You can do this exploring too on foot.  

Log Cabin Hotel, Stage Stop, Post Office, School/church

At the left turn onto Boy Scout Road is this dedication by the Daughters of the American Revolution to the Log Cabin Hotel, which was located in this vicinity.  The information below is based primarily on The Poudre: A Photo History by Stanley Case, (p. 79, including several pages historic pictures).

In 1888  the Ashley Grange failed (more on this story under the history of the Boy Scout Ranch). Elizabeth St. Clair and her two sons, had just that year established a 320-acre homestead on this land. They bought a two-story cabin from the Grange, and moved it to their homestead.  In 1896, when the County moved the stage road from its previous route (which had gone down to the Elkhorn via trails in the area now called North Rim) to its present location, it passed the St. Clair homestead.  Elizabeth, presumably seeing economic opportunity, gave it the name Log Cabin Hotel and in 1903 she moved a small cabin onto the site, became the first store and post office. The hotel burned in 1932 and was not rebuilt, but the post office function continued until 1942 (39 years).   

In 1910 St. Clair sold to Stewart C. Case.  A 1912 picture shows the hotel, store, livery barn and cattle and sheep sheds (Case, p. 81).   Case sold in 1919 to Appleton Worster (see James Galvin’s The Meadow) who traded the next year to Willis S. Miller for their property on the Elkhorn.  Millers made improvements including a two-story addition to the back of the main building, a couple of small rental cabins, and converted a garage to a dance hall – the Miller family was very musically inclined and loved to entertain guests.  A 1920 photo (Case p. 86) shows, in addition to the above structures, the Log Cabin School, which also served as a church. 

In 1928 Millers sold to Rosetta Van Sickle who sold in 1942 to George Weaver who added the property to his nearby Pinecroft Ranch. 

Today the only remains of all these enterprises is a white structure (possibly the school/church, but possibly one of the rental cabins) and foundation ruins on the right side of the road prior to the turn onto Boy Scout Road, photo below.  

In the upper left corner of the photo (white spot) is a road running up the hill, shown in the following photo.

The Ben Delatour Scout Camp

Entrance to the Camp, photo taken April 2009

The Lodge, photo taken on a Historical Society Tour, August 2007.

This summary is based several sources

• The Story of the Ben Delatour Boy Scout Ranch by Harold M. Dunning (undated, with Mr. & Mrs. George C. Weaver as primary resources)

• Those Crazy Pioneers, especially the section on Lady Moon, by Lafi Miller.

• Two publications by the Livermore Women’s Club: Among These Hills (p. 24), Ranch Histories of Livermore and Vicinity, 1884-1956.

In 1958 the Longs Peak Boy Scout Council acquired the Pinecroft Ranch of 2,600 acres from owner George H. Weaver.  It was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Ben Delatour for $65,000 and deeded to the Longs Peak Council of the Boy Scouts of America.  Mr. Delatour had been a rancher and banker in Nebraska who retired in Fort Collins and decided to “do good works.”  He died in 1979 at age 96.  

The history of the development of the Ranch is complicated, involving lots of transactions which involved assembling many homesteads and small ranches over 41 years; and the sources used were not always in agreement.  This appears to be the norm in describing the ranching situation anywhere in this community.

According to Ranch Histories (p. 97), a lot of homesteading occurred in the Elkhorn area in the 1880s: John Hemmingway, Drayton Gimke, Walter Roxby, Richard Boyle, Dayton Robinson, William Batterson (son of Solomon), Clark Goodell, and the Ayers (John, Mary and Frank). By the 1890s consolidation had begun.  

In 1883, an Englishman, John Drayton-Gimke, brought his family from Clinton Ohio to homestead on the Elkhorn, along with an18-year old Catherine Gratton Lawder (the future Lady Moon, see also 74E tour) who was born of Irish parents on a boat as they were immigrating to the U.S.  The Ayers the same year established their homestead on upper Elkhorn up near the three Bald Mountains and built the earliest recorded ditch on the Elkhorn. 

The following year a remittance man, John Pearce, and his wife Mary Emily homestead 160 acres nearby on a location which became the headquarters for the Pinecroft Ranch.  The sources differ on who created the Ashley Grange, but they all agree it was a school where remittance men could learn to become ranchers (see Remittance Men, and book summary of Marmalade and Whiskey).  Ranch Histories says Roxby created the Grange by buying up Grimke and Boyle homesteads.  Dunning says it was Grimke who bought up the other two.  Among These Hills says it was Roxby and Charles Halliday who established Ashley Grange. In Ranch Histories, the Hallidays were referred to as enrollees of the school, along with Cecil Moon and Charles Craddock.  Two of the three sources agree Roxby created the Ashley Grange.

Cecil Moon was a remittance man who began life in Colorado in 1885 working in the Argentine Mining District, Georgetown, Colorado, (west of Boulder) first as a secretary for the Transcontinental Transportation and Mining Company and then as a common laborer because he failed at the first job.  The mine failed and closed and Cecil came to Livermore, enrolling in Captain Maude-Roxby’s Ashley Grange (this is Swan’s version) to learn the ranching business for $300 -$500 per year performing the dirty work of ranching: dig ditches, build fences, put up the hay, etc. (better than free labor).

In 1888  the Ashley Grange failed and Elizabeth St. Clair and her two sons bought a two-story cabin from the Grange and moved up to their 320-acre homestead.

Upon John Pearce’s death in 1917 his wife sold the 480 acre ranch and moved to Fort Collins to live with Craddocks.  It was apparently sold to Lady Moon because the sources agree that in 1918, C. Herbert Shutt bought the Grange from Lady Moon. In 1919 Shutt bought the McKay Place on the Upper Elkhorn, near Bald Mountain, which had been the Ayer’s homestead.

George Weaver married Marjorie Shutt in 1923 and at some point he acquired the Pinecroft Ranch either by purchase or via his marriage.  He added to the Ranch over the years: in 1928 the John and Carrie Cook 320 acre homestead and 160 acres of the Kyle homestead; in 1930 160 acres from Van Sant Place, originally homesteaded by Henry Walker; and in 1942 the Log Cabin property homesteaded by Mrs. St. Clair and son Williams.  

In 1958 Mr. and Mrs. Ben Delatour bought the Pinecroft Ranch and deeded it to the Boy Scouts.

Travelling west from the Boy Scout Camp, 68C crosses the Elkhorn Creek about a mile east of the Shambhala Mountain Center, shown below.

Further west on 68C is an old foundation wall and some old slab fencing.

Further on is an intact cabin on Manhattan Creek, with a For Sale sign (April 2009).

Shambhala Mountain Center

The Shambhala Mountain Center is nestled on 600 acres of grassy fields, forest, ponds, and streams, land which was once the Mason Ranch and site of early homesteads. The center boasts 35,000 square feet of building space for meditation, dharma talks, programs, and living quarters. The center hosts regular Shambhala Training programs as well as yoga instruction, leadership training, children's programs, and retreats, which last from a week to several months. 

The Shambhala Mountain Center was founded by Vidyadhara Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche in 1970 at Red Feather Lakes. Trungpa arrived in 1971 with a number of students from Tail of the Tiger in Barnet, Vermont, now known as Karmê Chöling.

Following the death of Trungpa in 1987, his followers began a fourteen-year process of building a stupa at the Shambhala Mountain Center. Completed in August 2001, The Great Stupa of Dharmakaya Which Liberates Upon Seeing reaches 108 feet (33 m) and is open to visitors daily.  Shambhala Mountain Center is affiliated with Shambhala International.  The Center was previously known as Rocky Mountain Dharma Center and Rocky Mountain Shambhala Center.

The above information is from their  website http://www.shambhalamountain.org/.   You can take a virtual tour of the facility on the website.

Map for Goodell Corner and Environs

West of the Shambhala Mountain Center are a number of smallish structures which are mostly likely homesteads and some according to photos in Stanley Case (p. 77) were part of the Willis Miller Elkhorn Hotel which he reports as being at 5210 CR 68C.   You can see 68C crossing Manhattan Creek close to the entrance to the Center.  The creek parallels 68C for several miles.   

Miller Elkhorn Hotel

The Miller Elkhorn Hotel began as a residence for Willis and Emma (Fogelsong) Miller and family of six sons and three daughters, who  homesteaded in 1887 on Elkhorn Creek about five miles west of Log Cabin near a wagon trail which is now 68C. The County relocated the State Road from the North Rim location to its present location in 1896, which presented economic opportunities for the Millers as it did for Elizabeth St. Clair, mentioned above.  When postal authorities closed the Manhattan post office in 1900 they moved it to Millers who then built a store on the edge of road and gave the name Elkhorn to their property.  Millers gradually added more structures to accommodate travelers.  In 1916 – 1917 they built a new, larger store and post office.  After completing these improvements, they traded to Appelton C. Worster for the Log Cabin Hotel, store, post office and ranch.  Worster, in less than a year sold to Chas A. Yancey who used the land to harvest timber for a sawmill in Windsor.  After 3 years he sold to A. A. Maxwell.  Ole M. and Ester A. Nelson owned the land for the longest stretch – 58 years (1928 – 1946) but  it is unknown for what purpose.   Willard W. and Mary Jane Leonard used the place as a fox farm from 1946 – 1959 (13 years).  This was followed by  Kenneth & Garnet Monroe who lived in the old hotel building until it burned in 1965, at which point they built a new home.  So the old hotel lasted 88 years (1887 – 1965).  Case (p. 77) has photos of family and structures including structures at 5210 County Road 68C the original Miller Elkhorn store and post office and second store and post office building, taken in 1993.  Below are photos taken in 2009 showing these structures.  

This photo matches Case’s 1993 photo which he labels “the original Miller Elkhorn store and post office.”

These structures are a bit further back from the road.

This structure is on the right side of the road and looks like a structure captured in the right foreground of Case’s photo.  If so, he said this structure was a second store and post office building .. [and] is still in use there as a garage and shop.”  In 2009 it is unused in and in deteriorating condition.  Apparently the persons living nearby in  trailer homes are unaware of its historical significance, are uninterested in historic preservation, of may not have the funds needed for restoration.  What a pity.  

Goodell Corner

Goodell Corner is the juncture of Boy Scout Road (on the right), Manhattan Road (on the left) and Pingree Road (foreground) which goes down to the Poudre and CR 14.  

 This photo is looking back, or north east and shows the Clark Goodell homestead.

The Red Feather Bed and Breakfast is adjacent to the Goodell homestead on Pingree Hill Road, CR 69.  It once was a dude ranch, but not now.  About a mile past this point CR 69 drops rapidly to the Poudre.

 The tour continues onto Manhattan Road (CR 162), back towards Red Feather Lakes.

Manhattan Cemetery  

The cemetery is about 0.6 miles after turning onto Manhattan Road, and on the right, a climb of several hundred feet.   

Manhattan Town and Gold Mining District

The story begins in 1886 when several Fort Collins businessmen, envious of Boulder, Jefferson and Gilpin Counties prospecting success, hired some “expert miners” to survey Larimer County for mineral prospects.  (Information based primarily upon Stanley Case p. 31 -37).  Unfortunately, the Colorado Mineral Belt, as it is known geologically, doesn’t extend this far north. 

____________

From Wikipedia: The Colorado Mineral Belt is an area with abundant ore deposits. The area stretches north-east from the La Plata Mountains in Southwestern Colorado to the Front Range near Boulder, Colorado.   Most of the historic metal mining camps of Colorado lie in this area, the most important exception being the Cripple Creek District.  Go to the website for a good map and more information.  

_________

Enough positive evidence arose to result in a platted town named Manhattan (no idea why that name) the following year.  At times the camp (not really a town) reached a population of 300 (1897).  The area never produced enough, and it gradually withered away, and as previously mentioned, the post office was terminated in 1900 and moved to the Miller Elkhorn property.  No doubt individuals continued to try there luck for years to come.

 Beyond the cemetery, Manhattan Road travels a bit further west, now in Forest Service country, then turns north and climbs through several switchbacks, on to 74E.  This area has a number (at least 30) camping areas. 

 The Baldies from Manhattan Road

Slightly north of this shot is the Bellairs Camping Ground. 

Molly Lake Trailhead

This is a small parking lot, and not suitable for horse trailers.  It is a short hike to the lake, probably less than two miles.  See Recreation for more information.  

The Lone Pine Valley, seen from Manhattan Road

The Pot Belly Restaurant

When Manhattan Road reaches 74E, the Pot Belly restaurant is right across the street.

This is the end of this tour.

Go to The Elkhorn Hotels if you are interested in the process it took my wife and me to discover the locations of the two Elkhorn Hotels, and see some beautiful scenery of the Elkhorn drainage.