Automobile tourism was a big deal along the Front Range of Colorado in the 1920s. At the time, the Fall River Road in the newly opened Rocky Mountain National Park (west of Estes Park) already had reached the Continental Divide. And, west of Colorado Springs, adventurous motorists could drive to the summit of Pikes Peak.

Surveyor/ engineer Fred Fair wanted a high-country scenic “highway” in Boulder County, too. To make Boulder the “gateway to the glaciers,” he proposed a road that would overlook the Arapaho Glacier.

Environmentalists, though, brought the plan to a screeching halt. Early in the 1920s, Fair widely promoted and operated his “Glacier Route Line,” packing tourists into seven-passenger touring cars and driving them from Boulder to a base camp, northwest of Nederland. There, sightseers were put on horseback and led uphill and onto the Arapaho Glacier.

An advertising campaign by officials of the Burlington Railroad helped to draw in the crowds. In promotional literature, a railroad official stated, “In thirty-six hours from Chicago, people can see more than the Alps provide in thrills and mountain grandeur.”

The competition with Estes Park and Colorado Springs was in full swing.

In July 1925, with 165 people in attendance, the U.S. Forest Service opened the first leg of Fair’s dream —— an improved road to the present Rainbow Lakes trailhead, accessed from the Peak to Peak highway between Nederland and Ward.

But Fair’s ultimate plan was for motorists to continue their drive to the top of the glacier to an overlook called “Arapaho saddle.” Realizing that the continuation of the road would cost at least $100,000, Fair suggested a toll road and teamed up with A.E. Carlton, one of the builders of the Pike’s Peak road.

In Fair and Carlton’s application to the U.S. Forest Service the following December, the men stated that the tourist destination would be complete with a shelter house and refreshment stand. Even the Boulder Chamber of Commerce gave its approval.

But not everyone was happy with the plan. University of Colorado Professor T.D.A. Cockerall was the first to object, fearing that the road “would soon convert the glacier area in to a ‘Coney Island.’ “

Additional opposition grew behind the scenes. The main concern of Boulder residents was that they drank water (and still, in part, do) that drained directly from Arapaho Glacier, pitting glacier promoters against city residents concerned about their water supply.

In 1927, a bill was placed before the U.S. Congress for the city of Boulder to buy 3,689 acres of U.S. Forest Service land, for $1.25 per acre, including the Arapaho Glacier. Newspapers announced that its purchase was “to prevent the building of a toll road.”

Boulder then closed the glacier area to public use. Today, the Arapaho Glacier lies within a protected watershed, but hikers at the Rainbow Lakes trailhead can follow a graded portion of the extended — but never completed — six-mile road to the overlook, on Arapaho Glacier Trail 905.

Fair died in 1935. Even though his highway never materialized, he left his mark on the glacier region. Per his wishes, his ashes were dropped from an airplane over the Fair and Isabelle glaciers, named for him and for his first wife.

Isabelle, though, is buried in California.

Silvia Pettem’s In Retrospect column appears once a month. She can be reached at silviapettem@gmail.com.