August 21st Visit With Eleanor

Such an exciting day. I drove to the lodge on August 21st because Eleanor Richardson (the daughter of Joe Cortopassi who built the Emigrant Gap Annex - our lodge) was going to stop for a visit with her daughter Terri and son in law. It was a wonderful visit. 

Eleanor shared some additional information with me about her time at the lodge that I have added to the 1900 - 1950 section.  For example, when she was at the lodge, there was no snow shed enclosure on the side of the building.  Also, when she was little, since she was not allowed in the bar and dining hall, she spent a lot of her time with the cook in the kitchen.  The first cook she mentioned was a big burly man who once worked at the sawmill.  He made marble cake in a very big bowl.  The other cook was Yick, who cooked chinese dinner for the guests once a week.  She also mentioned that her dad put on a prime rib dinner each week and people would drive for miles to have dinner at the Emigrant Gap Hotel.  We talked about the fact that the lodge (once annex) had no kitchen and had multiple showers in the back bathrooms.  Eleanor's dad offered showers for a small fee to people who were in the sierra - but not staying at the hotel (one of these people was Eleanor's future husband - a game warden at the time).  

At one time the old hotel had a barber shop, a butcher and a homemade item store.  
There used to be a road behind the hotel that went to Fulda Creek (our current road was not there) And her father put in a tow rope in the back of the hotel for winter skiers.  

I took Eleanor and family on a tour of the building. She was happy to see what we are doing with the place and said her dad would be very happy that we saved the hotel from ruin. What a very nice person she is and I hope she is able to come for a longer visit some time in the future.

While at the lodge, I was able to make sure that all was well (our neighbor's cabin got broken into August 20). Of course it was fine - but I did see that one of the downstairs bedrooms had a window left open (which I closed). 

Finally I talked with some of the fire people about the Americon River fire across the Royal Gorge - they were driving around notifying camp grounds and hotels about the poor air conditions due to smoke - and they told me that the fire has been halted from moving our way so - no way it will get close to the lodge.