2nd annual Poudre River Ball
November 1, 2008
Friends of the Poudre presented its 2008 Friend of the River Awards to local persons who have raised public awareness about the importance of the river to the way of life in northern Colorado.
Proceeds go to keeping Picnic Rock open. The day-use site, near the mouth of the Poudre Canyon, is used annually by thousands of people for rafting, fishing, hiking, picnicking, wildlife viewing, and frolicking in the waterway.
The site is owned by the Colorado Division of Wildlife and city of Fort Collins, but could be closed in 2009 due to funding shortfall at the two government agencies.
Picnic Rock was closed for financial reasons in 2002. However, the public continued to use the site by parking along a curvy, narrow-shouldered stretch of nearby Colorado Highway 14 and walking in. Parking along the highway created a dangerous situation.
To reopen the site, Friends of the Poudre began managing the area through an agreement with the owners; in 2005, management was taken over by Fort Collins and the site has remained open with annual financial assistance from Friends of the Poudre.
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A rich history
"Tiger Jim" Wilson, who claimed there was no ill intention when he killed the wrong man in the lower Poudre Canyon in the 1880s, would probably grimace and grunt if he could hear that the area of his wayward gun-slinging is a place where people now frolic and play. |
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The site in the lower Poudre Canyon has a high recreational value as well as a rich history.
Native Americans used the site long before early fur-trappers like Jim Bridger and explorers John C. Fremont and Kit Carson visited the Poudre.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, college students traveled there in buggies and Model Ts to celebrate the school year's end. Many romances were started at Picnic Rock—kisses offered and accepted on the sly—and occasionally there came sips of spirits from hidden jugs.
A historical tidbit little-known today is the battle for the Poudre Canyon waged in the 1880s between Union Pacific and the Denver, Salt Lake and Western Railroad Company. Each wanted to be the first to lay tracks up the canyon and then to Salt Lake City and beyond.
One hundred laborers spent a year and $50,000—the equivalent of $1.5 million in today's dollars—to build railroad grading into the lower canyon. The project was abandoned near Picnic Rock—too much cost, too much rugged terrain.
The railroad's effort didn't go to waste, though. When convict laborers built the canyon road starting in the second decade of the 1900s, they used stretches of the abandoned railroad grading for the byway.
It was near or possibly at Picnic Rock—historical records on the exact location are vague—where railroad laborer "Tiger Jim" Wilson was fired from his job. Tiger Jim wasn't happy about his sudden change of fortune, so he got a gun to shoot the foreman who fired him. However, Tiger Jim mistakenly killed the wrong fellow.
Today, we live in a fast-paced world and often have little historical knowledge of the place where we live. History, though, gives us a sense of place, of belonging and understanding, and the history of gems like Picnic Rock is well-worth knowing.
This brief history was written by Gary Kimsey, a founder of Friends of the Poudre and the Cache la Poudre-North Park Scenic and Historic Byway (Colorado Highway 14). His research on Picnic Rock and the byway was funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation. |
