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Early Hotels of Woodland Park
By Steve Plutt, October 9, 2026
The Crest Hotel was formerly located at the northeast intersection of Park Street and Lake Avenue, a site you may have passed while walking or driving in the Memorial Park area. The Crest opened as the town's first lodging house during the early timber and railroad boom.
It was built by Alfonso Dickinson in 1889, and according to the Ute Pass Historical Society, his building partner was Harry Marble.
Even though the exact details of how Dickinson and Marble first met have been lost to time, Dickinson and Harry Marble probably crossed paths as pioneering homesteaders and land investors during the rapid expansion of the Woodland Park area in the late 1880s into the 1890s.
However, other than a mining claim that Alfonso owned called the “Marble E.,” nothing could be found that ties Mr. Marble to Dickinson. But that’s not to say that he and Alfonso weren’t in a partnership regarding the land around the Crest, it’s just that no record can be found of it. Alfonso was in business with Mr. P. A. McCurdy, Mr. John A. Bougeat and Mr. Albert Schauble. They were all equal owners of the entire block of 12 lots, from Park St. east to Fairview and from Lake north to Bowman.
Alfonso was born in 1856 and as a boy with his family, relocated to El Paso County in 1870. His full name was Marcend Alfonso Dickinson and he was a housing contractor that was living in the Woodland Park area. He was active in his community and liked serving as an election judge in the Woodland Park Precinct.
His mother, Phebe Dickinson, had a 160-acre homestead just 1 mile north of Woodland Park in the old Paint Pony neighborhood of today. That homestead was passed down to Alfonso’s sister, Sarah. Sarah had married Woodland Park pioneer Anthony Eiswerth who was the namesake of the 1890s Eiswerth School at Paint Pony.
The Crest Hotel opened on July 27, 1889 and Colorado Springs pioneer P.A. McCurdy was its sole owner. It became a popular respite for travelers passing through Woodland Park. McCurdy started out in business in Colorado Springs, owning a large shoe store on S. Tejon Street along with many real estate interests.
Many of the Crest Hotel guests would stay for the entire summer. It boasted 15 rooms and a veranda all the way around the building, allowing guests to relax and enjoy the cool days and evenings.
The first floor was the parlor and a large dining room and kitchen. The rooms were all upstairs. The bottom floor was also used as a grand ballroom for their periodic dances. The Crest still only had outhouses for their guests.
The hotel was managed at different times by Mr. Robert Fernsworth then later, Mrs. Mary M. Norris and was successful for a number of years. But in 1908, the business was put up for sale, but never sold. The Crest Hotel, the first hotel in Woodland Park was razed in 1910 and the lumber salvaged and used in the construction of other homes in town.
The Woodland Hotel was located in between Lorraine Avenue and Browning Avenue, just west of Burdette Street. It was built by John Anisfield at a cost of $30,000 including its furniture. It opened in July of 1891 and held its grand opening on August 3, 1891.
Mr. Anisfield was born in Vienna, Austria on March 5, 1860. His given name was Jechiel Jonas Anisfield, and in 1876 he relocated to America alongside his parents, establishing their residence in Cleveland, Ohio. In his adulthood, “John” stood out as a real estate mogul and influential civic figure. In 1882 he established the John Anisfield Company, manufacturing cloaks and suits. This apparel business was remarkably successful and enabled him to generously channel his substantial wealth into numerous charitable endeavors throughout Cleveland.
In 1888, not long after the Colorado Midland Railroad came through the new town of Woodland Park, John happened to visit the area looking to invest. He found the Woodland Park area and could see its potential as a prime mountain resort destination. So much so that he partnered with Daniel Steffa and plotted out and created the Highland Addition in 1891, the same year that Woodland was incorporated.
The area where the Highland Addition was located was why Anisfield chose it. That is, the railroad had a Wye that left the main tracks and was in the middle of the newly formed Highland Addition. Looking at the map below, you will see the Wye.
As soon was the addition was plotted, John began building his large luxury hotel, “The Woodland” which capitalized on the nearby railroad tracks.
When completed, guests would arrive by train at the Wye where a horsedrawn carriage took them the last block to the hotel. The Woodland boasted 42 guest rooms with four baths available. It had a big lobby and two parlors and a large dining room.
This beautiful hotel was located at today’s 220 Burdette Street, where Schumacher’s Alignment & Tire store is currently found. John Anisfield was a big baseball fan and back in Cleveland, his clothing store business sponsored a team. So just across the street from his hotel here, he established a large baseball diamond that turned out to be the birth of the sport here in Woodland Park.
By making his investments and building the hotel, Anisfield turned the newly incorporated logging town into a major tourist destination that attracted wealthy vacationers.
Unfortunately, the hotel wasn’t profitable for long. It changed ownership, sat vacant for a couple of years and was last known to serve as a hotel in 1903. Then in 1910, after a $15,000 remodeling, it was transformed into a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients. Doctors C.L. Loffler and B.A. Blosser of Colorado Springs made the purchase from then owner John B. Orris.
Well, that was bad timing for the two doctors as tuberculosis wards, including sanatoriums, were largely phased out due to the success of bacterins and a combination of other medical advances.
The hospital ended up closing and in the fall of 1919 the entire building was torn down and the lumber used for construction of other buildings in town.
John Anisfield devoted his remaining years as a generous philanthropist back in Cleveland. He died in 1929 and was remembered as a friend of the unfortunate.
The Midland Hotel was Woodland Park’s newest and most modern hotel and was located where today’s Café Leo is. However, the building was first located on the other side of Midland Avenue and was used as the Midland Eating House. When the Colorado Midland Railroad added dining cars, their restaurant was put up for sale. With that, along came Andrew B. Hackman, better known as A.B. Hackman. Andrew bought the building from the Midland and moved it across the street and refurbished it into a hotel. His son, A.D. “Abe” Hackman was the manager. Rates at that time were eight dollars a week and it had room for 50 guests.
Contrary to local history records that say he was a Dutch immigrant who sailed here in the 1850s, every United States Census report as well as his Civil War Draft Registration records show that Andrew Boorse Hackman was born in 1837 in Franconia, Pennsylvania, which is 25 miles north of Philadelphia.
And it was from Pennsylvania in the late 1880s that Andrew and his wife Sophia moved to Colorado, settling in Woodland Park in their home that sat just about where Compassion Animal Hospital is today. Sophia died at 54 years of age in Woodland Park.
In 1893 Hackman’s son, A.D. “Abram” and wife Hannah along with 3-year-old daughter Leila, left Pennsylvania and came to Woodland Park during the height of the area lumbering era. In Woodland, Abram managed the hotel for his father.
The Midland Hotel was the stopping place at dinner time for the train passengers. The Hackman family described their hotel as “the poorest little hotel in the area, but we had white tablecloths and it was scrubbed clean.” Leila is quoted in 1976 saying that it was her mother’s German and Dutch cooking that attracted diners to their hotel.
The Midland Hotel was razed in the early 1940s and was a vacant lot until a 7-Eleven was built there in the 1970s.
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