Frank Leonard Smith (Son of Frank L. Smith)
Frank Smith was born 28 September 1899, so he would have been at Estamere between 1900 and 1907. It is not known whether, after his parents divorced in 1907, he and his brothers visited their aunt, Cora Carnahan, and cousins Harold and Doris Carnahan at Estamere in subsequent years. After studying in Denver, Frank moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he married. Frank died of sleeping sickness in Santa Fe on 26 April 1924. He was 24 years old.
Other Visitors at Estamere
Over the years, the Smiths and Carnahans invited prominent Denver families to visit them at Estamere. Many of these people had known members of the Smith and Carnahan families since their days in Leadville. Among those whose visits to Estamere were mentioned in the press included:
Ralph Bulkley and Daughter Eleanor
Frank Bulkley was working in Leadville in 1880 and was elected a delegate from Leadville to the Colorado legislature in 1886. In the 1890s, he was general manager of the Aspen Mining and Smelting Co., and later moved to Denver where he worked as a mining engineer. His daughter, Eleanor, was the same age as, and a good friend of, Doris Carnahan and served as a bridesmaid at Doris’ wedding. Frank’s son, Ralph, was a friend of Harold Carnahan. Both Eleanor and Ralph (and presumably their parents) spent time at Estamere.
Robert J. Cary
Robert Cary was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on 25 January 1857 and came to Leadville where he was a founder of the old Leadville Club in 1881 with Charles Boettcher and others. He moved to Denver in 1888 and with his brother founded the Mine and Smelter Supply Company of Denver. Eben and Frank Smith also became investors in this firm. Robert missed out on a chance to become an owner of Cripple Creek’s Victor Mine that later produced millions. Eben Smith offered him a one-fourth interest in the mine, and Cary paid over the money while they were both at Cripple Creek on business. When they returned together to Denver, Smith changed his mind and Cary took back his money. However, Cary did business in many mining camps from Montana to Mexico
Robert and his brother, John, established the Yampa Live Stock and Land Co. on the Cary Ranch near Hayden in Routt County, Colorado. Livestock were bred on the ranch, which contained 2,700 acres of irrigated land and 11,300 acres of pasture. Cary used the place as a dude ranch to entertain guests and prospective customers for mining supplies. In 1927, Robert moved to Harlingen, Texas, where he died on 30 July 1940.
Evelyn Cary was a close friend of Cora Smith and accompanied her to Bermuda in 1916, the site of Cora’s marriage to Thomas Costello. Evelyn then gave a reception for the couple in Denver a few months later. Evelyn and Robert Cary later divorced. Cora Costello kept in touch with Evelyn and visited her in southern California in the early 1940s. Doris Carnahan was a good friend of the Cary’s daughter, also named Evelyn, who was born in Leadville.
“General” and Mrs. George Washington Cook and Son George
George W. Cook advanced from an 11-year-old drummer boy in the Indiana Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War to commander of the Grand Army of the Republic for Colorado and Wyoming in 1891 (hence his appropriation of the title “General”). Cook moved to Leadville in 1880 where he became division superintendent of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. He was mayor of Leadville from 1885 to 1887. He then went to Denver where he became general sales agent for the Colorado Fuel & Iron Co. and subsequently an independent mining operator. Cook was elected as a Republican member of the U.S. Congress and served one term in Washington from 1907 to 1909. His wife, Minnie, was active in the philanthropic activities of Denver. While living in Washington, she was chair of the entertainment committee of the Congressional Club. Their son, George, attended West Point.
John A. Ewing
John A. Ewing was born in Saltsburg, Pennsylvania, on 26 March 1856. He studied law in Indiana and Pennsylvania and moved to Colorado in 1879. Two years later, he established a law practice in Leadville and became friends with Eben Smith. Ewing was a pioneer mining attorney and counsel for Isaac Guggenheim whom he encouraged to invest in Colorado mining operations. He was instrumental in establishing the zinc ore industry in Colorado. Ewing was a founder of the Colorado Bar Association and served as its president in 1904. Ewing moved to Denver in 1905 where he established a law office. He was a delegate to the Republican national conventions in 1916, 1924, and 1932 but never ran for public office.
Ewing handled legal affairs of the Eben Smith family for many years, visited them at Estamere, submitted annual water payments for Estamere to the town, and drew up the deeds which conveyed the Estamere property to the Rocky Mountain Summer School in 1926. John Ewing died in Denver on 12 March 1935.
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Judge Stuart D. Walling
Stuart D. Walling was born in Keokuk, Iowa, on 18 September 1857. He was a graduate of the University of Michigan and was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1878. His father was a lawyer and a former U.S. Congressman. Walling came to Leadville in 1882 and set up a law practice, specialized in mining litigation. Moving to Denver in 1888, he focused on corporate and banking law and was an attorney for the Denver National Bank. Walling was a partner in the Denver law firm of Rogers, Shafroth & Walling. He did legal work for the Eben Smith family, and represented Josephine Hill Smith in her divorce from Frank L. Smith in 1907.
His wife, Sarah, was active in philanthropic, church, and civic work, and a founder of Free Kindergartens, City Improvement Society, and Woman’s Society. She also was a member of the State Board of Charities and Corrections. Stuart Walling was appointed to the Colorado Court of Appeals by Colorado Gov. John Shafroth, his former law partner, in 1911, but died in Denver the following year on 22 August 1912.
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Chapter 5
Professor H. H. Nininger and the Rocky Mountain Summer School
(1922-1930)
Professor Harvey Harlow Nininger
H. H. Nininger was a college teacher who developed, largely through his own determined efforts, a scientific expertise that led to his recognition as one of the world’s foremost experts on meteorites. Nininger was born in January 1887 at Conway Springs, Kansas, and lived in Missouri and Oklahoma during his youth. He received a B.S. degree in biology from McPherson College in McPherson, Kansas, in 1914; and a Masters from Pomona College in California, in 1917. Nininger taught biology and geology for 17 years, during which time he was a professor at McPherson College from 1920 to 1930. However, beginning in 1923, he developed a consuming interest in meteorites, and he began to collect and study meteorites by buying them from farmers and ranchers. In the early 1930s, he and Ray Niswanger set up a meteorite lab in a backroom of Niswanger’s store in Palmer Lake. The two men cut and polished many meteorites Nininger had bought during his travels.
Nininger served as curator of meteorites at the Colorado Museum of Natural History in Denver from 1930 to 1946. In his career, Nininger discovered more than 225 previously unknown falls involving 2,000 individual meteorites. By 1940, he was personally accounting for half of all the discoveries of meteorite falls in the world. Later he founded and became director of the American Meteorite Museum that relocated to Sedona, Arizona, in 1956. When Nininger was in his seventies, struggling to make a living, he offered his collection of meteorites to the Smithsonian Institution for $60,000. When they did not respond, he made a large sale to the British Museum in London. He sold the rest of his meteorite collection to Arizona State University in 1960.
Nininger carried out research at the Meteor Crater near Winslow, Arizona, wrote 150 scholarly articles, published at least twelve books (e.g., Our Stone-Pelted Planet and Find a Falling Star) and amassed a large personal collection of meteorites. Nininger’s relentless quest for knowledge and his passion to study meteorites was based on this teaching he once articulated:
Apply your mind to at least one problem which has never been solved, which in general is considered impossible of solution, but if solved would help out humanity. Do with yo
ur life something that has never been done, but which you feel needs doing.[65]
Popularly known as the “Father of American Meteorites,” H. H. Nininger died in Denver on 01 March 1986 at the age of 99.
The Beginnings of the Rocky Mountain Summer School
H. H. Nininger first came to the Colorado Springs area in the summer of 1921 on a summer field trip to collect beetles, and he stopped by Palmer Lake. He was so impressed with the locale that he got the idea of setting up a summer school in such an environment where natural history studies could be pursued “in nature,” especially by public school teachers who wanted to take refresher courses in those subjects. Nininger received permission from his college to hold a trial session of a summer school at Palmer Lake in 1922. Thus was born the Rocky Mountain Summer School (RMSS).
The first mention of this enterprise in the town records of Palmer Lake occurred in October 1921 when the council agreed to allow M.P.C. [McPherson College]
free use of the town chairs from the Town Hall for Summer School. Mr. Shrull will move and retrieve chairs when and where needed.[66]
Nininger and three other faculty members taught courses in education, languages, history, and natural history that first summer. Besides providing chairs, the town helped to secure living quarters in the old YWCA facilities in Glen Park. Nininger remembered that the student “dormitory” was made up of old canvas tent cottages that had been used during the Chautauqua assemblies in Glen Park. Tent cottages, however, had gone out of fashion about 1915, and the canvas covers and wooden frames must have been in storage for many years. Perhaps they were still in good enough condition to keep out the rain and sun’s rays. Nininger wrote that the partitioned rooms within each tent were furnished with a bed, a box, a candle, and two nails for a wardrobe.[67] Other students probably stayed at the YWCA Rest Home in Glen Park.
The school held two sessions the first summer (15 June to 24 July and 27 July to 14 August) that attracted a total of 45 students. The summer school, with Nininger as director, was to operate for eight more summers. His right-hand man during those first years was Professor B. E. Ebel, who taught modern languages at McPherson College.
With the experiment of 1922 considered a success, the town council of Palmer Lake offered more than chairs in 1923; it granted $350 to McPherson College to advertise the summer school.[68] Ray Niswanger was elected to the town council that spring, and he became a strong local supporter of the Rocky Mountain Summer School. In July, Ray made a motion that the town donate $400 to the RMSS. In future years, the council usually authorized $400 each spring to be used for advertising the school’s program in Palmer Lake.
The 1923 summer term began 28 May, and the second semester ended 20 July. According to school records, 81 students attended the sessions, 19 as auditors (probably those who were not seeking college credits or professional accreditation). Eleanor Phillips of Palmer Lake was a student, while Mrs. Marie Medlock of Pine Crest audited classes. Most of the students came from Kansas and Colorado, though others came from Illinois, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, and New Mexico.
The RMSS continued to hold two summer sessions in Palmer Lake in 1924 (26 May to 18 July), 1925 (01 June to 24 July), and 1926 (31 May to 23 July).
McPherson College noted in its 1925 Bulletin how enrolling in its summer school could benefit teachers and college students:
[The school] is an extension of McPherson College which has been established to serve public school teachers and college students who find it desirable to earn credits during the summer months and who at the same time feel the need of recreation such as is offered by the cool and invigorating atmosphere of the Rocky Mountains.
Ample facilities in the form of school buildings and summer cottages are supplied by the village, and laboratory and library facilities are transported from McPherson. Teachers from the regular faculty of McPherson College make up the teaching staff. All work is of standard grade and applies on the regular course for a degree. The work is recognized by the State Board of Education.
Expenses are $3.00 a credit hour, plus a $3.00 enrollment fee. Living expenses are from $8.00 a week up. This item can be reduced by several students renting a cottage and boarding themselves.[69]
The RMSS Incorporates and Purchases Estemere
As attendance increased at the RMSS, it became more difficult to find suitable housing for the students. Tent cottages were no longer an attractive option. The Verano Lodge in Glen Park and The Rocklands Hotel had burned to the ground, and few new cottages were being built. Having students spread out across the town and the Glen was not an ideal arrangement in any case. The Estemere mansion, however, had generally been vacant since 1922. Eben Smith’s heirs, who had inherited ownership shares in the property, either were no longer alive or interested in spending their summers at Estemere. All three of Frank Smith’s sons were dead, as was the son of Cora Smith Costello. Cora’s daughters were married and were raising families in Denver. Cora herself had been living in Los Angeles for several years with Thomas Costello, although she may have separated from him in 1925 and returned to Denver. She was nearing 60 years of age and was not as active in Denver’s social circles as once she had been. We do not know who brokered the sale of Estemere; perhaps Ray Niswanger, who ran a merchandise store in Palmer Lake, approached Cora; or maybe it was John Ewing, who had long been involved with the financial affairs of the Smith family relatives. Perhaps the go-between was Frank McDonough Sr., who had come to his summer home in Glen Park for years, had been an officer of the Chautauqua, and was an attorney in Denver.
The first meeting held to discuss establishing a Rocky Mountain Summer School as a legal entity was held at Palmer Lake on 14 August 1926. The articles of incorporation for the Rocky Mountain Summer School, Inc., a not-for-profit corporation, were signed on 08 September. The purpose of the RMSS, Inc. was [70]
to establish and maintain an institution of learning at Palmer Lake, Colorado, for the instruction of students in the various branches in scientific and literary subjects…where such students may obtain a sound, thorough, general and classical education of college and university work…. [The school shall have the power] to grant and confer certificates, diplomas and degrees to students who shall merit the same in the judgment of [its] faculty and trustees.
The school also would acquire property and equipment that it would maintain or dispose of in any way necessary to carry out the objectives of the corporation. A Board of Trustees of seven individuals was designated to remain in office for one year or until their successors should be elected. The Trustees had the power to establish prudent by-laws under which the business of the corporation would be conducted. While the RMSS, Inc. obviously was set up to support the summer school that McPherson College had run at Palmer Lake for the previous five years under the RMSS name, the new corporation was not controlled by the College and potentially was not limited to continuing the identification of the RMSS, Inc. with McPherson. Two professors from McPherson were on the RMSS Board, but the College was not a party to the purchase of Estemere and gave no written guarantees about the future of the summer school it had been running at Palmer Lake.
The three men who established the RMSS, Inc. were Raymond S. Niswanger, Peter Paul (P.P.) Blass, and D. E. Johnson, all of Palmer Lake. Members of the Board of Trustees were Professors B. E. Ebel and H. H. Nininger of McPherson College; John Stutzmann and Ray Niswanger of Palmer Lake; Florence M. Stote of Colorado Springs; Thomas L. Girault of Denver; and D. E. Johnson. (See biographical sketches at the end of this chapter.)
The RMSS purchased the Estemere property for $7,500 ($94,400 in 2011 dollars), and the executor and warranty deeds from the Smith family were signed 01 October 1926.[71] Subscribers to a building fund were solicited, and members in the “society” included anyone paying at least $5.00 a year to support the school. Probably the directors put up some of their own money, and the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce made a donation. The funds raised amounted to $3,500. A loan of $4,000 was
arranged at seven percent interest, payable in annual installments of $1,000. The holder of the mortgage was Lydia M. Blatt of Denver. Niswanger and Stutzmann guaranteed the notes (suggesting they had a financial stake in the RMSS). Payment of the first note was guaranteed by William A. J. Bell, son of Dr. William A. Bell, who had worked with General William J. Palmer to build the Denver & Rio Grande Railway in the 1870s, and who from the early days had owned land in the Palmer Lake area.
An 1880s Victorian Mansion in the Colorado Rockies: The Estemere Estate at Palmer Lake Page 10