In his biography of Stephen Mather, Robert Shankland explores the advent of the transportation system in Glacier National Park: “To run a park transportation line, he [Mather] gave his blessing to Roe Emery, who became a close friend of Mather’s.”
More than once, Emery was ‘in the room where it happened.’ Again, drawing from Shankland’s book, in 1917 Emery, and others of the inner circle, hosted a dinner for Stephen at the Cosmos Club in an attempt to steer and cheer him from an accelerating depression. And most famously, Emery and Stephen’s daughter, Bertha, were on-site when Stephen—and thirteen charges of dynamite--blew up the Great Northern’s sawmill.
The Glacier transportation franchise was not Lereaux William Emery’s first rodeo. In “1919 the National Park Service awarded an exclusive franchise to Roe Emery's Rocky Mountain Parks' Transportation Company to carry passengers in the Park for profit.”
At the same time Emery envisioned a lodge in the park and eventually secured financing from a wealthy friend, A. D. Lewis. Emery took over control of the hotels in 1923 and renamed the Lewiston the Estes Park Chalet. Later he acquired the landmark Stanley Hotel in Estes, CO.
With the completion of Fall River Road, Emery’s dream of a Circle Tour of the central Colorado Rockies became a reality. “White autos” [manufactured by the White Automobile Company] could seat eleven people. A two-day trip with hotel and four meals was $33. A three-day trip with 2 nights and seven meals was $39.00 and a four-day Trip with three nights and ten meals was $45.00.
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