The Pingree of Pingree Park

Where did Pingree Park get its name?

George W. Pingree was born in Orono, Maine, on November 16, 1832. Details of Pingree's life prior to coming to Colorado are sketchy.

According to R.E. Ford, Pingree established his first tie camp in the Pingree area early in 1868. Thirty to forty tie hacks worked that summer and winter cutting and piling ties along the banks of the Little South Poudre River. In the spring of 1869, during the runoff flooding, the ties were floated down river to a point near LaPorte, Colorado, where they were hauled by oxen-pulled wagons to Tie Siding, Wyoming . The name "Tie Siding" is indicative of the town's role in the construction of the railroad. It is said that teamsters charged 50 cents per tie for the round trip to LaPorte, which took seven to ten days.

The tie camp at Pingree Park, a name given to the valley the first winter, was occupied during three seasons. All provisions were packed by men and mule over hard trails form the colony of LaPorte. The tie hacks were paid 10 cents per tie, an average day's work was from 30 to 40 ties.

By fall of 1870, the local demand for railroad ties had been filled, and the tie camp closed.

Historical Preservation - Koenig Homestead/Ranch

Visitors can walk past South Dorm and enter the historic Koenig/Ramsey Homestead, where, in the 1920s, Frank and Hazel Koenig built the present structures and made a life in the often hostile valley. Crops were meager and cattle grazed where they could. The family survived fires, long winters, endless wind, and diseases that caused the death of two children (buried in the cemetery on the hill). By the late 1940s, the Koenigs were subsisting by renting summer cabins to tourists and fishermen. When the property was sold to Colorado State University in 1974, family members kept some land and a cabin on the east side of the valley.

Restoration projects, funded by grants from the Colorado Historical Society, have helped to preserve many of the buildings on the property. The most recent grant was used to renovate the one room schoolhouse and several other cabins that make up the Koenig/Ramsey Ranch Historic District. The structures are being preserved as an illustration of life in pioneer times and to allow visitors to experience the early settler way
of life.

In a rare interview conducted in 1974, the late Hazel Koenig talked about what it was like to grow up and live in Pingree Park. When Hazel was asked why she spent her life in the valley she replied, “I get to have quiet and get out and walk. You don’t have to dress up, you can be on dirt, and you’ve got flowers that you can touch if you want to. It doesn’t belong to somebody else and I can look at the mountains and the sky and call them home.”