Reminds me of the Overlook Inn. "All work and no play makes Ike a dull boy..."
Alright, I went with this.
POD September 4, 1915
President Woodrow Wilson attends the dedication of Rocky Mountain National Park. While there Freelan Oscar Stanley offers the use of his nearby hotel to the presidential party for the night. Eager to not spend more time in the cramped quarters of a train Wilson agrees and has a relaxing evening at the Stanley Hotel before departing for Washington the next morning.
September 25, 1919
While giving a speech at Pueblo, Colorado the President has to be helped to his podium by secret service agent Edmund Starling. Wilson slurs over some of his words, repeatedly misses his place and breaks down in tears. * Starling confers with the First Lady and the president’s doctor Dr. Grayson. Grayson had previously opposed the trip West on the grounds that it would harm Wilson’s health and needs little convincing otherwise. After the speech the three demand that the President return to Washington immediately for the sake of his health. Wilson is aghast at the idea, fearing he was letting down his supporters. Secretary Joseph Tumulty offers a compromise; What not rest for a day or two at that nice hotel the president had enjoyed before?
Wilson agrees and ends up spending the next several days at the Stanley Hotel, recovering his strength before returning to Washington DC. While he is unable to resume his speaking tour in favor of the League of Nations he does leave behind one unexpected legacy…
January 1920
Freelan Oscar Stanley is startled to receive an offer from the federal government to purchase his hotel as a rest and recreation facility for certain government employees. Wilson had enjoyed his time at the Hotel and was extraordinarily impressed. Stanley is torn at the choice, he loves his hotel but it is losing money yearly. After several weeks hesitation he agrees.
August 2, 1923
President Warren Harding dies of a heart attack at the Stanley Hotel while touring the west.
The
1920s and 30s
For the next several years all presidents choose to avoid the Federal Lodge as it’s now known. Coolidge feels it would be crude to intrude upon where his predecessor died, Hoover realizes that vacationing during a Depression wasn’t the best public image, and Roosevelt prefers his home at Warm Springs. During these years’ various cabinet members and other members of the Executive Branch would instead take of the resort’s surroundings. With the onset of the New Deal the Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress Administration spend much time on the grounds of the Lodge, preforming various improvements and renovations.
The
1940s
The coming of World War II brings a flurry of activity to the quiet mansion. In 1942 President Quezon of the Philippines and his government-in-exile spend a weekend at the Stanley enroute to Washington DC. Later that year the short-lived Pacific War Council holds its inaugural meeting there.
For the rest of the war years the US Navy takes over the Stanley, renaming it “U S Naval Convalescent Hospital (USNCH) Colorado”
A Lt. Heelan described the advantage of the Lodge in treating those recovering from mental and physical injuries, writing “...The Lodge is well isolated from the standpoint of military objectives. No military operations are conducted within a radius of well over 700 miles all line distance. It is off the route of all the flying lanes and the locality is well protected on all sides by the high and rugged Rocky Mountains. Persons subjected to the shock of combat may here find relaxation and recuperation in the absence of nerve racking elements…. The local situation provided, and has continued to provide, physical surroundings for patients entirely different from the usual naval environment. This difference was capitalized. The hotel or club idea was made prominent. The patient entering this hospital receives the benefit of a complete change in his naval routine in much the same way that a person in civil life is benefited by a vacation that takes him away from his usual business or vocation.”*
USNCH Colorado treats 6,500 patients by the end of 1945 before being returned to the Federal government in 1946.
Though the newly sworn-in President Truman spends little time at the Lodge (he finds it’ boring’) the Stanley is the site of the “Estes Park Agreement” in 1948 which formed “an outline for the division of air assets between the Army, Navy, and the newly created Air Force” *
The
1950s.
With the election of Dwight D Eisenhower, the Western White House begins to see more use. Ike had always had a fondness for the state, he lived there for several years after marrying his wife there. During the Eisenhower years the Stanley receives its official name of “Centennial Lodge” in honor of the state nickname of Colorado
While on a “working vacation” in Colorado in September 1955 Ike suffers a massive heart attack but manages to recover after the First Lady drives him to a hospital. While ultimately the President returned to Washington a few weeks later the long drive to a hospital highlighted the need for an expansion of the Lodge. Along with a state-of-the-art clinic and communications facility a helipad is also added to ease travel from Stapleton International Airport added along with what British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan described in a 1962 diary entry as
"a sort of Presidential Command Post in the event of atomic war. It holds fifty of the President's staff in one place and one hundred and fifty Defence staff in another. The fortress is underneath the innocent looking huts in which we lived, hewn out of the rock.”*
(Note: Due to security reasons the bunker is only listed as “Room 237” in floorplans of the facility.)
In 1959 Soviet Chairman Khrushchev accepts an offer to visit the United States, he stays for a week with two of those days spent at Centennial. The Soviet leader would later write in his memoirs
“''Apparently the control of military spending is a universal problem. I remember a conversation I once had with President Eisenhower when I was a guest at his dacha at Centennial Lodge”. We went for walks together and had some useful informal talks. During one of these talks, he asked, 'Tell me, Mr. Khrushchev, how do you decide the question of funds for military expenses?' Then, before I had a chance to say anything, he said, 'Perhaps first I should tell you how it is with us.' ''
'' 'Well, how is it with you?' '' ''He smiled, and I smiled back at him. I had a feeling what he was going to say. 'It's like this. My military leaders come to me and say, Mr. President, we need such and such a sum for such and such a program. I say, sorry, we don't have the funds. They say, We have reliable information that the Soviet Union has already allocated funds for their own such program. Therefore if we don't get the funds we need, we'll fall behind the Soviet Union. So I give in. That's how they wring money out of me. They keep grabbing for more and I keep giving it to them. Now, tell me, how is it with you?' ''
'' 'It's just the same. Some people from our military department come and say, Comrade Khrushchev, look at this! The Americans are developing such and such a system. We could develop the same system, but it would cost such and such. I tell them there's no money; it's all been allotted already. So they say, if we don't get the money we need and if there's a war, then the enemy will have superiority over us. So we discuss it some more, and I end up by giving them the money they ask for.' ''
'' 'Yes,' '' he said, '' 'that's what I thought. You know, we really should come to some sort of an agreement in order to stop this fruitless, really wasteful rivalry.' ''
''But we couldn't agree then, and we can't agree now. I don't know. Maybe it's impossible for us to agree.'' *
The
1960s
JFK himself spends little time at Centennial, instead it’s mostly used by the families of various cabinet officials. Lyndon Johnson however finds himself spending more and more time there as a way to seek solace from the tumultuous events of his administration.
The
1970s
On June 12th 1971 Tricia Nixon marries Edward Cox in a ceremony at the Lodge. However President Nixon begins to spend more and more time at Centennial as his presidency unravels around him during the crisis of Watergate. He ends up spending the last two weeks of his presidency there. On August 6, 1974, Edward Cox called Michigan Senator Robert Griffin, a friend of Nixon’s who was urging resignation. Notifying the Senator that Nixon seemed irrational, Griffin responded that the President had seemed fine during their last meeting. Cox went further and explained, “The President was up walking the halls last night, talking to pictures of former Presidents — giving speeches and talking to the pictures on the wall.” Senator Griffin was flabbergasted and even more taken aback when Cox followed that bombshell with a worried plea for help, “The President might take his own life.”
White House Chief of Staff Alexander Haig also worried about suicide. A few days earlier, the despondent President and his Chief of Staff were alone when Nixon started talking about how disgraced military officers sometimes fall on their sword. To Haig, the Army General, Nixon said, “You fellows, in your business, you have a way of handling problems like this. Somebody leaves a pistol in the drawer.” Haig was stunned. Then sadly — bitterly — Nixon said, “I don’t have a pistol.”*
It's only on August 9th that Nixon returns to DC in order to offer his televised resignation speech and by the 10th Gerald Ford is now president. (No idea if I should continue)
*
https://medium.com/@Anthony_Bergen/...ow-wilson-s-hidden-health-crisis-5800f8fafb06
*
https://ofshipssurgeons.wordpress.c...-and-asheville-north-carolina-asbury-park-nj/
*
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_West_Agreement
*
https://aboutcampdavid.blogspot.com/2010/12/camp-david-underground-bomb-shelter.html
*
https://www.nytimes.com/1982/11/01/us/on-arms-remembering-khrushchev.html
*
https://medium.com/@Anthony_Bergen/...rs-of-richard-nixon-s-presidency-40ffbeac6c44