Pingree Park namesake led wild, controversial life

By Dan MacArthur
North Forty News

Life was no walk in the park for George Pingree or the pioneers who followed him, carving out a rugged existence in the unforgiving upper Poudre Canyon.

Living is considerably easier for those now drawn to Pingree's namesake valley, now a Colorado State University campus and conference center. Thousands trek to Pingree Park every year to take classes, attend conferences and experience the spirit that sustained those sturdy trailblazers through the hard times.

Pingree was a colorful man with a rich and checkered history. It's a history that's also difficult to precisely nail down, given the lack of documentation and innate inaccuracy of oral histories that tend to get distorted with every telling.

Despite those difficulties, a historical consensus emerges from the collective sources, including a dramatic 1911 newspaper interview and information provided by CSU, the Colorado Historical Society and other local researchers.

Pingree epitomized the tough, nomadic and independent Europeans who filtered into the mountains starting in the 1830s. But they were relative newcomers, according to Bill Bertschy. Retired 25-year director of Pingree Park, he has extensively researched Pingree and the mountain campus' history.

Bertschy said archaeological evidence indicates various Native American tribes lived and hunted in the area continuously for almost 8,000 years until being displaced.

Pingree and his breed were fortune seekers determined to exploit the bounty of the land, first as hunters and trappers and later as prospectors. Pingree was similarly adept at harvesting wildlife but was ultimately memorialized for staking his claim on the lumber needed to sustain the inevitable westward march of the railroad.

That's logical given Pingree's timbering roots. He was born in 1832 to a prominent family descended from Salem, Mass., tycoon David Pingree. The so-called "Merchant Prince of Salem" in 1820 began purchasing vast tracts of Maine forestlands.

Today the politically powerful family controls a million acres, making it the fourth largest property owner in the nation. Three-fourths of that property – a parcel bigger than the state of Rhode Island – was preserved as America's largest forestland conservation easement.

George Washington Pingree took a different path. "I figured he was the black sheep," said Bertschy.

By Pingree's account, he moved to Missouri in 1856 and was placed in charge of a tie-cutting camp. Armed Democrats, he claimed, drove him out after he cast the only Republican vote in the presidential election.

Pingree arrived in Colorado in 1858 from Minnesota. That winter he met famous scout Kit Carson near Bent's Fort in southeastern Colorado, and they became close friends.

Bertschy said Pingree worked as a teamster in Central City before enlisting in the 1st Colorado Cavalry at the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. The next several years were eventful and dangerous by Bertschy's accounting.

Pingree fought the Confederates in Texas. He suffered numerous serious injuries and was hospitalized and jailed twice.

He returned to Colorado in 1864, was discharged and became a government scout. That November he participated with former commander Col. John Chivington in what many regard as perhaps the most infamous event in Colorado history. Then called the Sand Creek Battle, it now is instead widely characterized as a massacre.

Chivington and 800 soldiers attacked a village of Indians who had been assured that they would be left alone because of their promised peaceful intentions.

Some 130 Indians were slaughtered in the raid, mostly women, children and old men, whose bodies were mutilated. Pingree was wounded by an arrow, and Bertschy said some believe he grew a robust beard to hide the scar.

The atrocity evoked an angry outcry even from old Indian fighter Carson. Pingree was among those with blood on their hands, admittedly killing and scalping 13 Indians. He claimed to have later traded the scalps to a Denver barber in exchange for two years' worth of shaves and haircuts.

Pingree was held for 10 days in the guardhouse at Fort Lyon until Chivington secured his release. By all accounts, Pingree resented his imprisonment and never regretted his part in the massacre.

After an unsuccessful stint as a miner outside Boulder, Pingree came to the Poudre Canyon to again trap, hunt and cut ties. In 1867, the Union Pacific needed ties for extension of the railroad and sought "tie hacks." Stanley Case, in his photographic history of the Poudre Canyon, said hundreds of loggers spread out across the upper Poudre in pursuit of suitable timber.

According to Case, Pingree was contracted to locate suitable trees up the Little South Fork of the Poudre River "up to the headwaters in the high picturesque valley that was later named Pingree Park." A sign at campus marks the approximate site of Pingree's cabin. Nearby his partner was killed and consumed by a bear.

Pingree established a camp at the current site of Rustic, in the Poudre Canyon. At that time there was no road up the Poudre, so he cut a trail to the current Red Feather Lakes area to pack out pelts and pack in provisions. The trail later was widened and improved, for the first time opening Poudre Canyon to wagon and later automobile traffic. It remained the only access into the canyon until 1920.

Some 40 tie hacks worked at the Pingree Camp. Using saws and broadaxes, they earned 10 cents each for each tie hewed. Hacks on the average could earn perhaps three to five dollars a day – about half as much as the powerful Pingree, who by legend could cut 100 ties a day.

With the spring runoff, ties were floated down the Poudre to LaPorte. There they were retrieved and transported by ox train to Tie Siding, Wyo.

Life was brutal in the tie camps. Winter was long and severe. Pingree's camp and most others closed in 1870 when demand for ties diminished as the railroad moved on.

Pingree's story grows thinner in later years. Bertschy said Pingree helped build a road to the short-lived mining town of Manhattan. He married twice and outlived both wives.

In a newspaper interview, Pingree said he went to Leadville, then into North Park and on to Wyoming. There he worked as a government surveyor and ranched near Laramie for 10 years.

After his second wife died, Pingree moved to a friend's place near Platteville where, living in a tent, he continued to trap. Pingree finished his full life there in 1921 at age 79 and is buried at the Platteville cemetery.

Look for the September issue of the North Forty News for subsequent history of Pingree Park.