Dates

1915 - 1955 (General Timeline)

1916 - First attendance tally

1917 - First car tally

1920 - Attendance tally; Fall River Road Opens

1932 - Trail Ridge Road Opens

1940 - 1955 - Attendance Increase

Context

Park attendance rates during the early years of Rocky Mountain National Park have rapidly and consistently escalated since day one. In 1916, the park admitted roughly 51,000 visitors, and 240,966 four years later. This rapid increase is at least partly due to rising automotive use, with about 20,000 cars entering the park in 1917 alone. Although the park has a notable history of focusing on natural preservation, it always catered to car travel with its extensive road system. Enos Mills himself predicted that the dominant way for people to experience the park would be by automobile. Car culture shaped the layout of Rocky Mountain National Park, and the opening of Fall River Road in 1920 and Trail Ridge Road in 1932 allowed for extensive access to the interior. Visitors often embarked on two-to-three hour drives along these roads to view the wilderness in comfort.

As years went by, the infrastructure of Rocky Mountain National Park proved increasingly unable to handle large amounts of visitors. Although the World War II led to first decline in visitation since the opening day, a massive surge in post-war patronage exacerbated crowd problems beyond any immediately practical solution. Personal automobiles dominated America after the war, and families increasingly used their new vehicles to visit parks. Annual attendance throughout the entire National Park System exploded from 25 million visitors in 1940 to 50 million by 1955, and the trend showed no sign of slowing down. Rocky Mountain National Park’s miniscule staff lost fourteen of its twenty-four members to conscription in World War II and was slow to meet the post-war boom. By 1950, 90 percent of National Park guests arrived via automobile. Road upkeep was a perennial challenge even before the war, and Rocky Mountain National Park’s antiquated system grew increasingly unable to accommodate the rising numbers of drivers.

The large numbers also took their toll on the park’s rustic post-war architecture and the delicate wilderness areas themselves. Limited roads led to heavy traffic, and visitors’ tendencies to drive their cars wherever they pleased disrupted the flow of the park and destroyed the scenery. Park planners and supervisors had to improve visitor mobility in order to mitigate further degradation. Although Rocky Mountain National Park had long touted itself as an “outdoor museum with unsurpassed accessibility,” the unfortunate reality was that the park needed a massive overhaul of its existing roads and buildings if it was going to continue to uphold its preservationist philosophy with any credibility.