Setting the record straight in Green Mountain Falls
Written: May 31 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Beauty all around
Cons: I don't live there
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| M_Lee_Williams's Full Review: Colorado |
I heard the rumor. I had to go to Green Mountain Falls, Colorado to check it out for myself. Green Mountain Falls: A small alpine village on the slope of Pikes Peak. About 15 miles west of Colorado Springs. Population less than 1,000.
Who of those 1,000 citizens could have started the rumor? Was it Pat and Diane Drayton, the owners and operators of The Outlook Lodge, the best bed and breakfast inn west of the Mississippi? Their wonderful inn built in 1889, with its seven rooms, and welcoming porch crowded with rocking chairs, sits high up on the hill behind The Church of the Wildwood that is the subject of the rumor. In fact, the charming and inviting house was originally meant to be a parsonage for the church, but in 1946 it became a bed and breakfast to accommodate all the tourists who, once they discovered the peace, beauty and tranquility of Green Mountain Falls returned year after year, bringing friends and family with them.
I discovered the wonder of the place in 1978 and I can’t begin to tell you how many folks I convinced to vacation in GMF and stay at The Outlook Lodge. Back then it was owned by a woman named Impy and the rooms were rustic and each was named after a desperado in Colorado’s past. My favorite room then was the Soapy Smith room, but over the years I stayed in them all.
Today the Outlook has a whole new look. No signs of desperados and every room has it’s own shower. Back in the seventies it was one shower for four rooms. Despite all of the renovations, the hummingbirds still feed outside the windows and breakfast is just as good as ever. Now a full breakfast is served, including oven-baked bread and sweet breads. Back in the seventies Impy made the best sweet breads and offered the sweetest jams and the best coffee. The Drayton’s have added eggs, pancakes, waffles – the list goes on. But the price is still reasonable for a good night’s sleep in the mountains: $75-$85 off season (October 1 through the Friday before Memorial Day weekend) and $85-$95 during high season.
It was an adventure to return to GMF to investigate the rumor. I sat on the porch, wearing shades and a turned-up collar, pretending to read one of the books in the large library at The Outlook. People came, people went. Nobody said anything about The Church in the Wildwood. They were too busy heading out to hike, ride horses, sit in the gazebo on the small lake in the heart of GMF and let the world pass them by, or check out the sites nearby: the Garden of the Gods, Manitou Cliff Dwellings, the Olympic Training Center, the US Air Force Academy, the art galleries throughout the area, the pottery shops, the top of Pike’s Peak (I’m sure most of them took the Cog Railway to the top. Who in their right minds would want to hike the 14,110 feet to reach the clouds?)
I turned my attention to the other folks around GMF. From my high vantage point on the porch of The Outlook Lodge I could see the activity in this quaint hamlet. Up the road is Columbine Inn – all seven rooms and the public area with the baby grand piano and fireplace. Couples seemed to frequent that establishment. On further investigation I learned that they offer a room and dinner for $125 to $175 per night during the high season. Dinner? What else but King Crab or steak. Cheap at twice the price.
I watched all afternoon as folks loaded and unloaded cars at the Falls Motel, Just-A-Mere Cottages, Lakeside Cottages, Rocky Top Motel, Lake View Terrace Hotel. I watched as they gathered to eat at Columbine Inn, the Pantry, Black Bear Café and the Green Mountain Falls Grill. They strolled the streets. They returned from long, soul-refreshing hikes along rushing creeks and up, over and around the foothills of Pikes Peak.
Since it was the middle of the week, nobody stopped for very long at The Church in the Wildwood. They did slow their journeys to admire the small church from a distance. Had they been able to venture into the church, as I did in the seventies, they would have seen letters carved in wood on the back wall of the altar. The words as I remember them concern the wisdom in Psalm 72:3. The mountains shall bring peace to the people.
But, apparently the mountains don’t stop folks from spreading rumors – even though I couldn’t catch anyone in the act of spreading it. The Rumor:The Church in the Wildwood in Green Mountain Falls, Colorado is THE church that inspired Dr. William S. Pitts to write the hymn The Church in the Wildwood.
You all remember that song:
There's a church in the valley by the wildwood,
No lovelier spot in the dale;
No place is so dear to my childhood,
As the little brown church in the vale.
Oh, come to the church in the vale,
To the trees where the wild flowers bloom;
Where the parting hymn will be chanted,
We will weep by the side of the tomb.
How sweet on a clear Sabbath morning,
To list to the clear ringing bell
Its tones so sweetly are calling,
Oh, come to the church in the vale.
From the church in the valley by the wildwood,
When day fades away into night,
I would fain from this spot of my childhood
Wing my way to the mansions of light.
Come to the church by the wildwood
Oh, come to the church in the vale.
You probably don't know the origins of that song, and obviously the folks of Green Mountain Falls, Colorado don't either. It must be the high altitude that makes them want to lay claim to the little brown church in the vale. Or perhaps those GMF folks can't believe that a song could be written about a place of incomparable beauty unless it was written about Green Mountain Falls.(No lovelier place in the dale.)
The Truth: The inspiration of that song is an area near Nashua, Iowa. It seems a young William S. Pitts, a music teacher, was traveling through Iowa way back in 1857 on his way to Wisconsin to be with a young maiden, the love of his life. He stopped to rest at a little spot that he thought would be perfect for a church. When his journey was over, he wrote the poem that was to become the song. Pitts, being the gifted music teacher that he was, set the poem to music. He later moved to Nashua to teach music, and was pleased to see that other folks had felt the same way about the area where he had first rested and been inspired. Other folks, with very little money but a lot of faith, had built a small church on the site. The quaint, tiny church was brown because brown paint was cheaper than white paint. It remains brown to this day.
Pitts went on to sell the song to a music publishing company for the grand price of twenty-five dollars, which he used toward his endeavor to become a medical doctor. After medical school, Dr. Pitts returned to the area to practice medicine.
I really can’t blame the folks of Green Mountain Falls for laying claim to something as nice as Dr. Pitts’ hymn, but I do believe GMF and The Church in the Wildwood located there don’t need to bolster their reputation by falsehoods. The little Colorado hamlet and its church seem to be right out of a storybook. The mountains do offer peace to those who are lucky enough to live there or visit there. The wind rustling the trees and the water splashing against the rocks in the creeks in that area create a hymn on their own.
Recommended:
Yes
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M_Lee_Williams
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Member: M. Lee Williams
Reviews written: 17
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