An 1880s Victorian Mansion in the Colorado Rockies: The Estemere Estate at Palmer Lake
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Four Summers of the Rocky Mountain Summer School at Estemere
1927 College Bulletin for the RMSS.
The RMSS held two sessions at Palmer Lake in 1927 (from 13 June to 22 July and from 25 July to 19 August); 1928 (11 June to 20 July and 23 July to 31 August); 1929 (09 June to 18 July and 21 July to 29 August); and 1930 (09 June to 18 July and 21 July to 15 August).
1927 newspaper clipping about the RMSS.
The 1927 faculty consisted of Dr. D.W. Kurtz, president of McPherson College, with degrees from Yale and Leipzig, who taught philosophy; H. H. Nininger who taught nature study; B. E. Ebel who taught Spanish, French, and history; Sadie Glucklich and George Boone who both taught education courses; Mary McGaffey who taught English; and Helen Whitaker who taught mathematics and astronomy.
The enrollment fee for the summer session was $3.00, tuition per semester hour was $3.50, and laboratory fees were $2.50 for botany, $2.50 for birds study, and $1.00 for geology. The students paid between $8.00 and $10.00 per week for room and board.
In late June 1927, members of the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce, “through whose financial assistance the purchase of the [Estemere] property was made possible,” visited the campus. The local members of the RMSS, Inc. board were present; members of the faculty were introduced; and refreshments were served on the south veranda:
A bit of pristine glory returned to Palmer last Tuesday night. Estemere, formerly the property of the Eben Smith heirs of Denver and recently acquired by McPherson College [sic], is a permanent location for the Rocky Mountain Summer school, [and has] emerged from the seclusion of vacancy, which has enveloped it the last few years.[72]
In addition to their regular classes, RMSS students engaged in a variety of activities each summer:
· School sessions often opened with a campfire picnic.
· Chapel exercises, assemblies, and occasional special lectures were held in the Glen Park auditorium.
· Story hours that the Palmer Lake community was invited to attend were held on the lawn of Estemere on Wednesday evenings. Local residents were selected to narrate stories; students presented vocal numbers; and community singing ended the programs.
· There was an Estemere “open house” during the first story hour or toward the end of the semester when invited guests from outside Palmer Lake visited the School.
· Every year some students climbed Pikes Peak; others rode burros or drove to the summit.
· In the Palmer Lake area, students went to the Black Forest to study birds; hiked up the canyons and to Dome Rock to study rock formations; had an annual picnic in Butler Canyon; camped out overnight on Chautauqua; climbed Mt. Hermon; and studied the stars and watched the sun rise from the top of Ben Lomond.
· Tennis courts were built (on the Estemere grounds) and tournaments were held; the students also played croquet at Estemere.
· RMSS boys’ and girls’ baseball teams were formed and played against other local teams.
· A student council was organized in 1926 and elected each year thereafter. It organized hikes, sightseeing tours, athletic events, and arranged for programs in assembly and the story hours.
· Students took day or weekend trips to visit the Royal Gorge, Phantom Canyon, Seven Falls, Manitou, Cave of the Winds, and Garden of the Gods in the Colorado Springs area; Perry Park, Deckers, Sedalia, and Denver. John Stutzmann provided transportation for many of these outings.
John Stutzmann applied to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC) in May 1928 for a license authorizing him to transport tourists from Palmer Lake to various points of scenic attraction in the Pikes Peak Region and the Denver area. He said he would offer this service only during the summer months. Stutzmann owed one seven passenger car and one Reo Speed Wagon that could seat 21 passengers. His business originated at the Rocky Mountain Summer School, whose students he would take on scenic trips. The PUC noted that many other transportation agencies operated such services along the Front Range, but after a hearing in Colorado Springs, it decided to issue Stutzmann a license limited by the following conditions:
· That all sightseeing and tourist operations by Stutzmann shall be limited to round trip operations originating and terminating at Palmer Lake;
· That no one-way transportation of passengers would be permitted;
· That the equipment used in the service would be limited to the one automobile and one motor bus currently used by Stutzmann;
· That Stutzmann’s operations should not compete materially with any railroad, bus line, or truck line currently operating within the territory involved.[73]
Stutzmann soon wrote the Commission that after considering the limitations contained in the PUC certificate, he found it impossible to operate under them and refused to accept the terms of the PUC license. In effect, he simply ignored the state licensing requirements and continued to take RMSS students on sightseeing trips, as he did in June 1928 when he drove two groups of summer school students to the Royal Gorge.
In 1927, the School’s first year at Estemere, it was noted that three classrooms had been completed on the campus in June where Professors Nininger, Glucklich, and McCaffey held their classes. Two other professors held classes in the old school house. More than 100 students attended the first semester, 85 the second. The dormitory (Estemere) was filled to capacity with extra beds in some rooms, and many students had to find lodging elsewhere in the town.
A Sanborn[74] Real Photo Postcard during the RMSS years. Note the absence of the lions,
no upper-right balcony, and the vines growing on the front porch. Undated.
Two more Sanborn postcards during the RMSS period. Lower photo looking north.
Years later, H. H. Nininger wrote about Estemere as he remembered it in the late 1920s:
Very few changes were made [by the RMSS] to the spacious home [Estemere]; only such utilitarian pieces as additional beds and chairs supplemented the luxuries of the past. The billiard room was transformed into a library, but the felted gaming table remained. The red room, the violet room, the carnation room, the blue room—each with its characteristic wall covering and its own fireplace of individual design, together with a few gems of old furnishings—became the summer headquarters of Kansas girls.
The servants’ cottage was converted into a man’s dormitory and the huge old carriage house became “Pioneer Hall,” fitted with classrooms and auditorium. Well supplied with its own water system, an immense walk-in icebox, porched and towered, the great old house was a never-to-be-forgotten background for student summers.
The mansion’s self-sufficiency was completed by the effective carbide light system. This plant was situated in a little out-building up on the mountainside, lime-covered and somewhat noisome. But it fed a glow of soft gas-light into every corner of the big home, caught and reflected in a glorious collection of crystalled and chimneyed chandeliers.
For [four] summers, the building was host to youth and enthusiasm, echoing to story hours, home dramatics, dormitory parties, tennis and croquet on the lawns, [and] recitations. With ringing of the dinner bell, students crowded four big tables in the dining room and ate family-style. Town folk participated in many of the lecture and entertainment activities.[75]
The annual meeting of the RMSS, Inc. in 1927 was held 12 August, and the trustees elected were Otto H. Shrull, Mrs. Florence Crannell Means, and Sterling M. Price. The officers were H. H. Nininger, president; John Stutzman, vice president; and R. S. Niswanger, secretary-treasurer. From time to time, special guests visited the School and stayed at Estemere; such as, for example, Dr. Wieand of the Bethany Bible School of Chicago.
In mid-August, Cora Smith Costello and her daughter Doris Van Schaack came to Palmer Lake for a day and visited with Mrs. Clarissa Berry, who once had watched over Estemere for Eben Smith. Cora and Doris surely toured the mansion in which they had spent so many summer days in past years, but a place now occupied, not by wealthy members of Denver high society, but by dozens of college studen
ts, most from rural Kansas.
There were some different RMSS faculty members in 1929. Nininger remained the director of the School and Sadie Glucklich returned to teach education, psychology, and act as the Registrar. Other teachers included Della Lehman who taught English and dramatic arts; E.C. Wine who taught history and government; N.E. Byers who taught philosophy; and Thelma Budge who introduced music classes to the RMSS. Miss Budge organized a glee club and a college orchestra that presented many musical programs during the summer. A Professor Phelps taught astronomy during the second semester. The Palmer Lake Museum has in its collection a very interesting “Student Diary” handwritten by a RMSS student, Ethyl Gresham, who recorded her experiences at the School from 07 June to 05 July 1929. It describes her drive to Palmer Lake from Kansas, finding a room at the home of the Stutzmann’s, her classes, field trips, and shopping excursions:
Went up to the school where we met Niningers and others then down to Nicewangers [sic] store and began to look for a place to stay, after a look at a house close to the store then up to Mr Stutzmann’s and over in the Glen we decided to take the lovely rooms at Mr Stutzmann’s. Moved in and took supper out.
How many other RMSS students must have kept journals and taken photographs, but how few of them are available today to tell their stories of college life at Estemere!
At the start of the June 1929 session, the women of Palmer Lake gave a reception at Estemere, and Pioneer Hall (the original Carriage House) was dedicated. It was remarked that improvements being made at the summer school included the remodeling of the dormitory and the administration building. About 90 students enrolled in the first session. There were two unique school activities that year. First, a yearbook, The Estemere was published. (Another edition was published in 1930.) Secondly, RMSS students made two radio broadcasts that summer, one from KFUM in Colorado Springs, the other from KOA in Denver.
After the 1929 and 1930 classes of the RMSS were over and its students had departed, the Church of the Brethren in Colorado held a young people’s conference at Estemere for one week.
In its promotional materials for 1930, the McPherson College wrote:
[Estemere’s] spacious, green lawns and tall shade trees lend an atmosphere of restful attraction. Pioneer Hall on the Estemere grounds provides three good classrooms and an auditorium of sufficient capacity for general gatherings and public meetings.
The public school building of Palmer Lake [near Niswanger’s store] is given over to our use for the summer, and two rooms have been provided with tables for laboratory purposes. Mr. R.S. Niswanger has provided an additional classroom.
Laboratory equipment consisting of microscopes, chemicals, stuffed birds and other apparatus and supplies necessary for the courses offered are transported from McPherson. A small library of three hundred reference books adapted to the courses offered is a part of the local equipment, and additional reference books are transported from McPherson College….
The Estemere is operated by the school as a dormitory for girls and furnishes a very beautiful home for about forty students. Twin Pine Lodge [the Cottage] is occupied by men students. Both men and women take their meals in the Estemere dining hall. The charge for board and room is $9.00 per week.[76]
Eighty students enrolled in the first session, and more than 70 attended the second. One-act plays and musical programs were given in Pioneer Hall, and its stage was dedicated in August. The last day of the RMSS at Palmer Lake was 15 August 1930.
Flyer for the last year of the RMSS.
Clara Ricter Euhus, a student of the RMSS in 1929 and 1930, provided the following snapshots of life at Estemere
[77] .
Students of the RMSS at Estemere.
More students near the lower fountain at Estemere.
The entire student body and faculty taken in front of the Glen Park Auditorium, about 1929.
Looking east. Note the “lean-to” kitchen shed.
Two of the most precious documents we have relating to Estemere are the original 1929 The Estemere annual and a copy of the 1930 The Estemere. The 1929 annual was a gift from Clara Ricter Euhus. Her annual has the personal notes from her classmates throughout.
The Lucretia Vaile Museum has a copy of “The Golden Book of Favorite Songs.” In it is a typed copy of the RMSS school song.
The RMSS school song.
There are several reasons why the School did not open in 1931. The country then was in a deep Depression, and that could have made it more difficult for the College to continue paying its faculty to hold an out-of-state summer school and for students to meet the required expenses. H. H. Nininger had left McPherson College in 1930 and taken up his new position with the Colorado Museum of Natural History. He had always been the director and driving force behind the Rocky Mountain Summer School, but he may have been unable or unwilling to continue in that role. Finally, the Kansas State Board of Education adopted a rule requiring that all accredited courses be given on the home campus. If the home school wanted to hold extension programs off-campus, it had to finance such programs itself. McPherson’s Board of Trustees decided it could not do this. This was indirect testimony to the financial and other support the RMSS had received from its directors and Board members in Colorado and from Palmer Lake residents such as Ray Niswanger and John Stutzmann, who had contributed so much time and effort on behalf of the School. In turn, the small businesses and stores in Palmer Lake had benefited greatly from the purchases made by those connected with the RMSS—its students, staff, and visitors.
Palmer Lake as it looked during the years of the RMSS. Sanborn postcard.
Personalities of Estemere (Associated Through the RMSS)
Peter Paul Blass
P. P. Blass was born in Austria in 1854 and came to America in 1873. He farmed on land south of Monument. About 1900 he bought land east of Glen Park that he named “Columbine Park,” presumably because of the profusion of wild columbines, Colorado’s state flower. P. P. built many Swiss-style log cottages in the area, but sold his land in 1908. The place then was renamed “Pine Crest.” Blass soon moved to Denver where he built houses, but had retired and settled in Palmer Lake by 1916. He contributed money in 1925 to help purchase property in Palmer Lake, and, as head carpenter, remodeled the buildings that became the Little Log Church and parsonage. Blass was an organizer of the RMSS in 1926 at the age of 72.
Bartel Edward Ebel
B. E. Ebel was born in Ukraine in 1884 and came to America as an infant. He graduated from the University of Kansas and was a graduate student at Harvard from 1914-16, but did not receive a degree. Professor Ebel was on the faculty of the RMSS from 1922 to 1927. He was a professor of history and modern languages (German) at McPherson College until 1927, and then taught at the University of Redlands in California until he retired in 1952.
Thomas L. Girault
Thomas Girault was born in Mississippi in 1888 and graduated from Old Miss, where he met his wife, Willia, also an Old Miss graduate. They married in 1915 and Tom accepted a teaching position at Wayland Collage in Plainview, Texas. Girault had contracted TB as a youth and heard that Colorado had a favorable climate for “consumptives,” so the couple moved to Sterling, Colorado, and began teaching at the high school. Tom taught history; Willia taught English and was a counselor. How they ended up in Palmer Lake is an interesting story that illustrates how a chance event can lead one down an unexpected path and have a lasting impact on one’s life.
The Giraults planned to spend part of their summer vacation at a rental cabin in Green Mountain Falls. This probably was in 1920. They set out by train from Sterling, but as the train was late reaching Denver, they missed their connection to Colorado Springs. They were about to look for a hotel in Denver to spend the night when they overheard someone at the depot lunch counter talk about catching a train to the mountain town of Palmer Lake. The Giraults decided to go to Palmer Lake and spend the night there instead and continue on to Green Mountain Falls the following day.
&n
bsp; Arriving at The Rocklands Hotel, the Giraults met the manager, who told them there were no available rooms, but, on second thought, he could arrange a space for the night at no charge if Tom would agree to wash dishes in the kitchen after the morning and evening meals. The manager was short of help but thought he could find a dishwasher in a day or two. The Giraults agreed. During a hike up the canyon they fell in love with the surroundings. The next morning Tom asked the manager if the arrangement could be extended through the summer, and so it was.
The Giraults returned to Glen Park the following summers and rented cabins, until 1926 when they purchased “Aloha” on Largo Avenue. One of their summer neighbors in the Glen was Harry V. Kepner, principal of Denver’s West High School. Kepner offered Girault a position as a history teacher at West, so Tom and Willia moved to Denver in 1925. Both Giraults enrolled in graduate school at the University of Denver in 1926 and earned M.A. degrees in 1928. With his educational and teaching background, it is easy to understand why Thomas Girault became one of the RMSS’s original Board members when the corporation was established in 1926.