A Mountain Boyhood - Softcover

Mills, Joe; Comstock, Enos B.; Pickering, James H.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0803281544 ISBN 13: 9780803281547

Publisher: Bison Books, 1988

Synopsis

Estes Park was hardly more than a post office in 1899, when young Joe Mills first saw Colorado's Front Range. A would-be Robinson Crusoe, Joe scaled peaks, watched wild animals, hunted and trapped, and generally roughed it in the region that would become Rocky Mountain National Park in 1915. A Mountain Boyhood, the true story of his adventures there, is as rich in human as in natural history. Joe meets a colorful bunch of early settlers, living for a while with a circuit-riding parson who operates a ranch. He learns campcraft and nature lore, crosses Flattop Mountain on snowshoes in midwinter to socialize, and builds a log cabin near Longs Peak (the fireplace still stands). Joe Mills arrived far enough ahead of the sportsmen and tourists to serve them later as a seasoned guide, and, along with his brother, Enos Mills, the naturalist and writer, he was instrumental in establishing the area as a playground for the nation.

About this title

About the Author:

James H. Pickering, Dean of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts at the University of Houston, has provided textual notes and an introduction recognizing the importance of Joe Mills, long obscured by the fame of his brother, in the history of Rocky Mountain National Park.

Review:

"A Mountain Boyhood provides the best single sustained account we have of life in Estes Park, Colorado, and the surrounding region during the first decade of the twentieth century."—James H. Pickering (James H. Pickering )

About this edition

• Publisher: Bison Books
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0803281544
• ISBN 13: 9780803281547
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 311