Back when I was a kid I remember folks talking about how much President Eisenhower loved fishing the Fraser River. We thought it was cool that he came to Colorado once in a while. His wife Mamie spent part of her time growing up in Denver and Colorado Springs. Here’s a report about the proposed “Eisenhower Memorial Reach” from Tonya Bina writing for the Sky-Hi Daily News. From the article:
State Rep. Randy Baumgardner (R-Cowdrey), is sponsering the bill that could authorize the Colorado Department of Transportation to accept and expend gifts, grants, donations and federal funds for sign placement on US Highway 40 in downtown Fraser, directing motorists to the river’s newly designated “point of interest.”[…]
The effort to designate the Fraser River’s two-mile stretch from the bridge-crossing at Rendezvous Road to the bridge-crossing at County Road 8 was spearheaded by the Grand County chapter of Trout Unlimited. TU plans to pay for additional signage to direct visitors to the Eisenhower statue along the river and to talk about the river designation, according to chapter president Kirk Klancke of Fraser. The designation, Klancke said, “is to draw attention to the fact that the Fraser River is a pristine environment, pristine enough to have drawn the leader of the free world back in the ’50s.”
Naming this reach of the Fraser after 34th president Dwight David Eisenhower makes a “historical and political statement,” Klancke said. River advocates hope the resolution highlights “what’s being sacrificed for the sake of municipal water supplies,” he said…
According to a draft of the resolution, Eisenhower first made his way to Byers Peak Ranch in the Fraser Valley as late as 1952 and returned each year until his heart attack in 1955. Eisenhower enjoyed fishing in the Fraser River and its tributary St. Louis Creek, which he referred to as his “home water” when visiting Colorado.