ESTES PARK, Colo. — The Town of Estes Park has gone through a lot of construction in the past year and a half, with an end goal to create a better traffic pattern. Meanwhile, the construction is wreaking havoc on the tourism industry during the busy summer season.
The town thought it should get the mayor involved by personally thanking visitors for enduring the traffic.
“It causes a lot of issues,” said Estes Park Mayor Gary Hall. “It causes delays for the tourists or the residents to get through town and to get to the merchants downtown. It has created constraints with some of our businesses. We are trying to work through that.”
The mayor has been walking around Estes Park, handing out personally signed thank you notes, Estes Park merchandise and a single dollar bill attached to each note.
“The dollar bills are an attention-getter,” Hall said. “We started thinking, 'What are some creative ways that we could use money?' Not just to do $20,000 in television advertising, but very personally, what could we do with a minimal amount of money and yet still attract attention to our beautiful town and get people to enjoy their visit and come back again and again?”
It's a welcomed gesture for some frustrated tourists and the shop owners who interact with them every day.
“The construction has definitely impacted getting around,” said Karen Jirsa, owner of Village Goldsmith, a jewelry store in town. “It feels like they kind of cut the town in half, and it makes it difficult to get downtown. Nobody knows where to go or where to park.”
Visitors should expect one-lane closures on East Riverside Drive, Moraine Avenue/US 36 and East Elkhorn Avenue this summer for the Downtown Estes Loop Project. Once completed, it will improve access to Rocky Mountain National Park, reduce travel times and congestion, and decrease pedestrian and vehicle conflicts in the downtown area. Click here for weekly updates on the project.
“This is one little bit of fun that they get along their trip that might be different than if they went to New York City or down to Dallas,” Hall said of the handouts. “Are they going to have the mayor handing out dollar bills? Maybe not.”
The town of Estes Park hopes that this will encourage people to keep coming back, especially once the construction is finished. The current plan is for it to be wrapped up in January.
“I'm very thankful that we're appreciating our tourists. I love them,” Jirsa said. “Some of them are my best friends. They come back year after year, and I'm always happy to have more tourists.”
“I would remember it if I was a tourist back in 1974 and the mayor handed me a $1 bill in a stocking cap that said Estes Park — I'd be talking about it right now,” Hall said. “ So I'm hoping that we have that kind of impact.”
Estes Park is the eastern gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park, which just celebrated its 109th birthday in January.
Learn more about the park's incredible history in our special below.
