When Dr. D. O. Norton built a lake cottage south of what is now known as Lake Ramona in 1922, Myron Akin, Norton, and ten other families developed a group ownership plan for the forty acres surrounding the lake. The following year, many of the same locals (Akin, Norton, B. H. Princell, S. Marvin James, and George H. Shaw) incorporated the Red Feather Mountain Lakes Association to promote real estate and recreational development in the Lone Pine area.

Norton came up with the idea to name the community Red Feather Lakes after speaking with Princess Tsianina Redfeather after a local concert. Princess Tsianina Redfeather was an Indigenous singer and actress who gained fame performing for U.S. soldiers during World War I. To gain attention for their project, the promoters of the Red Feather Mountain Lakes Association claimed that the grave of Princess Redfeather’s grandfather was in the Lone Pine valley. They went as far as to produce a short film about the “discovery” of the grave and showed the film at the Lyric Theatre in Fort Collins in 1924 to advertise the real estate available in the region.

In the early twentieth century, entrepreneurs in the west, like those that made up the Red Feather Mountain Lakes Association, often used Native American culture, or stereotypes of Native culture, as a marketing tool to encourage tourism and migration to the region. American society saw Native culture as wild, exotic, and glamorous and many white Americans were curious to experience that culture on their vacations in the west. The Red Feather Mountain Lakes Association took full advantage of this marketing trend to sell more land lots and vacation rentals in the area. The promoters changed the names of the local lakes to keep with the “Native” theme—“Mitchell Number 1 was changed to Hiawatha, Number 3 to Red Feather, Number 4 to Apache, Number 5 to Nokomis, Number 6 to Papoose, Number 7 to Shagwa, Erie to Pocahontas, Snake to Owassa and a projected one to be called Minnehaha.” However, for unknown reasons, the public rejected Pocahontas and Owassa and those lakes kept their original names.

The Red Feather Mountain Lakes Association used a wide variety of advertising techniques to try and sell lots and cabins in the new town. They printed brochures and maps and hired salesmen on commission to distribute them around Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and even as far as Minnesota and New York. The organization also gave away 100,000 red feathers as an advertising ploy.

Considering that the area had only a handful of residences and no modern conveniences, the Red Feather Mountain Lakes Association’s goals for the new town were ambitious. In 1923, the association promised interested buyers “refreshments, water, electric conveniences, stables, and other advantages,” but none of these amenities existed yet. Another promotional organization, the Red Feather Hotels, Inc., planned to build a hotel, stables, dance halls, and garages. Over the next few years, these organizations worked as quickly as possible to construct the facilities that they had promised to potential landowners. They finished building a nine-hole golf course and a hotel overlooking Hiawatha Lake in 1924. The community rejoiced when a new clubhouse opened in 1928. Coaxed by the advertising and new construction, more and more people looking for summer vacation homes in the mountains purchased lots and cabins in the town. On May 28, 1928, a Fort Collins newspaper reported that there were two hundred and fifty cottages and twenty-four tourist cabins recently built in Red Feather Lakes. The new town was growing.

The fruition of a silver fox farm was one of the biggest successes of the new town. The promotional organizations thought the farm would be a big tourism draw to the area. It opened in 1925 when twenty pairs of foxes and a manger arrived from New York. The manager would invite visitors up to the cupola on top of the farm building to view the foxes below. The market on foxes declined in the 1950s and Ray and Mary Galloup Stenzel bought the property, now referred to as “Fox Acres.”

Despite the early success of the silver fox farm and other recreational facilities, the Red Feather Lakes promotional organizations faced many challenges and never sold as many lots and cabins as hoped. Some of the plans for Red Feather Lakes proved unrealistic and the geography of the area made many of the planned roads impossible to build.36 Construction costs, especially for the roads, were much higher than expected and the Red Feather Mountain Lakes Association soon faced financial troubles. Throughout the 1920s, other companies tried and failed to prosper from development plans in the area. In 1929, local residents focused their efforts on improving the lakes and fishing with the hope of drawing more people to purchase cabins or lots in the town. They raised two-thousand dollars to purchase fish from the Platte River hatchery that were then stocked in Red Feather Lake. Residents were determined to keep their beloved mountain getaway alive even if it never became the major vacation destination that the Red Feather Mountain Lakes Association hoped it would be.