About the Lula W. Dorsey Museum
The museum is located at the Estes Park Center of the YMCA of the Rockies, a conference center and family resort with facilities in Estes Park and Grand Lake, Colorado. The museum building dates from 1924 and was an extension of the 1902 Wind River Guest Lodge, which had been moved from the slope of Emerald Mountain to the main campus of the Estes Park Center. In 1977, when plans were announced to demolish the Wind River Lodge and replace it with the Walter G. Ruesch Auditorium, Lula W. Dorsey, a longtime visitor and friend of the Y from Dallas, Texas, lobbied to save a portion of the building as a museum. In October 1977, the 1924 portion of the lodge was moved to its current site. For six weeks in the summer of 1979, Lulabeth Melton (Lula Dorsey’s niece) and her husband Jack were in charge of restoring the building and setting up exhibits. The Lula W. Dorsey museum officially opened on July 29, 1979. Since then, the Dorsey Museum has provided a home for over 100 years of history of the YMCA of the Rockies.
