While Estes Park is celebrating our Centennial year in 2017, the town’s history began long before it was established in 1917. The Arapaho tribe frequented the Estes Valley in the late 1700s, and in 1859, Joel Estes, a Kentucky-born adventurer who struck it rich in the California gold rush, “discovered” the Estes Valley. The town of Estes Park was platted in 1905 by Abner Sprague, and within a decade, much...