America's Switzerland
Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park, the Growth Years
Published on 1. June 2020
Book
Paperback/Softback
472 pages
978-1-64642-064-3 (ISBN)
Description
America's Switzerland, a companion volume to This Blue Hollow, is the first comprehensive history of Rocky Mountain National Park and its neighboring town, Estes Park, during the decades when travel became a middle-class rite of summer. Drawing on a wide variety of primary sources and extensive archival research, James H. Pickering reveals how the evolution of tourism and America's fascination with the "western experience" shaped the park and town from 1903 to 1945. America's Switzerland provides extensive information, much of it new to historical literature, on how Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park - the most visited national park west of the Mississippi - developed to welcome ever-growing crowds. Pickering profiles the individuals behind the development and details the challenges park and town confronted during decades that included two world wars and the Great Depression.
Reviews / Votes
"James H. Pickering, who wrote about the early years in Rocky Mountain National Park in a previous book, chronicles Estes from 1903 to 1945 in this fact-filled, nicely written volume...America's Switzerland is the most extensive work to date on the area. If Pickering overlooked a fact, it's probably not worth knowing."-Sunday Denver Post & Rocky Mountain News "This book chronicles the dual history of the town of Estes Park and the nearby Rocky Mountain National Park. The story begins at the turn of the 20th century, where the author's This Blue Hollow: Estes Park, the Early Years, 1859-1915 (CH, Sep'00, 38-0517) left off, and it closes at the end of WW II. English professor Pickering (Univ. of Houston) is a long-time summer resident of Estes Park, and he brings to his study a familiarity with and love for the area. His primary sources include memoirs, oral histories, correspondence, park archival materials, and newspapers."
-Choice
"Pickering carefully, yet entertainingly, provides background on many of the familiar places and names in one of Colorado's most beloved tourist towns."
-The Denver Westerns Roundup
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Colorado
United States
Target group
Interest Age: From 18 to 99 years
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 226 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
635 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-64642-064-3 (9781646420643)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Pickering James H. Pickering
America's Switzerland
Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park, the Growth Years
E-Book
08/2005
1st Edition
University Press of Colorado
€39.49
Available for download
Person
James H. Pickering, a summer resident of Estes Park, is a professor of English at the University of Houston, where he has also served as dean, provost, and president. He has written or edited seventeen books on nineteenth- and early twentieth- century Colorado history.