Construction Preparation Underway - 06/08/2005

Santa will have to find a new place to land his sleigh in Estes Park this coming holiday season. For the past several years, the mural display designed and constructed by Buell Porter in 1957, has been erected east of the Estes Park Visitors Center along Big Thompson Avenue. On Wednesday workmen from the Town’s Light and Power Department began the arduous task of removing buried standards that hold the 80-feet-long display to make way for construction of a new Visitors Center. Next to be removed is the hedge that served as Santa’s backdrop. Estes Park Convention and Visitors Bureau Executive Director Tom Pickering estimates that within the next two weeks fencing will be erected to enclose the construction area.