Chapter I: Part 1

Unique Ghost Towns and Mountain Spots

Copyright 1961 by Caroline Bancroft. Seventh edition, 1973.

_All rights in this book are reserved. It may not be used for dramatic,
radio,
television, motion or talking picture purposes without written
authorization._

Johnson Publishing Co., Boulder, Colorado.

The Author

Caroline Bancroft is a third generation Coloradan who began writing her first history for _The Denver Post_ in 1928.

Her long-standing interest in western history was inherited. Her pioneer grandfather, Dr. F. J. Bancroft, was a founder of the Colorado Historical Society and its first president.

His granddaughter has carried on the family tradition. She is the author of the interesting series of Bancroft Booklets, _Silver Queen: The Fabulous Story of Baby Doe Tabor_, _Famous Aspen_, _Denver’s Lively Past_, _Historic Central City_, _The Brown Palace in Denver_, _Tabor’s Matchless Mine and Lusty Leadville_, _Augusta Tabor: Her Side of the Scandal_, _Glenwood’s Early Glamor_, _Colorado’s Lost Gold Mines and Buried Treasure_, _The Unsinkable Mrs. Brown_ and _Colorful Colorado_.

A Bachelor of Arts from Smith College, she later obtained a Master of Arts degree from the University of Denver, writing her thesis on Central City, Colorado. Her full-size _Gulch of Gold_ is the definitive history of that well-known area, which includes Nevadaville, the scene of the accompanying photo. She is shown with Daniel K. Peterson who drew the maps and took most of the contemporary pictures for the new booklet on ghost towns.

STEPHEN L. R. McNICHOLS
Governor of Colorado
1956-1962

The Cover

The Dumont boarding house in North Empire, unique for its ground-level dormer windows, was built about 1872 for miners working on the Benton lode, owned by John M. Dumont. In 1897, with a date still on the wall, it was bought by a Mrs. Bishop who painted the building a purplish blue. She operated it as a boarding house until about 1906 when she took over the Peck House (Hotel Splendide) in Empire. Still later, in the 1930’s, Waldemar Nelson lived in the “Blue House” and used one section as a machine shop. A forge was still there in 1960. Photo by Dan Peterson.

_UNIQUE_
GHOST TOWNS
and
MOUNTAIN SPOTS

by
CAROLINE BANCROFT

_Assisted
by_
DANIEL K. PETERSON
(Cartographer and Photographer)

_Illustrated_

Johnson Publishing Company
Boulder, Colorado
1967

_Personal to the reader_

I love the high country of Colorado—and in a less effusive manner, so does Dan Peterson. Partly for your enjoyment and partly for our own, this booklet represents the crystallization of our mutual enthusiasms. We hope that it will serve as a useful guide for you and others who thrill to the heights and diverse grandeur of our Colorado Rockies.

But first, a word of warning: if after reading this booklet, you add one act of vandalism, or carelessly cast one burning cigarette to the winds, or messily leave a beer can in a crystal creek bed, the whole purpose of our publication has been defeated. We have written about ghost towns out of love of their dramatic past and a reverence for their present fragility. If you follow in our footsteps to these mountain spots, we entreat you to go in the same spirit.

When I said this booklet represented a “crystallization” of our mutual enthusiasms, I could not have spoken more truly. Dan is still “hurting,” as he phrases it, because Gladstone, his favorite ghost town, had to be left out due to limitations of space. In order to appease his hurt, I have agreed that he can sneak in its location on the Silverton map and a short paragraph of description in the text.

And what have I had to sacrifice? Too many pets, such as Beartown, reminder of the brave history of Stony and Hunchback Passes; Mineral Point and its lonely sentinel, the San Juan Chief shaft house still perched across a fork of Poughkeepsie Gulch and seen as one jeeps up to thrilling Engineer Pass, and Mayday, where I have never been but am intrigued by its romantic sound.

Our booklet does offer you forty-two “ghost towns” in photograph and story, plus passing mention on a map or in the text of a few others. These forty-two are reached from twenty-two attractive mountain towns where it is possible to obtain good accommodations. All but three of our final choices may be visited by ordinary car. For Lulu City, you will have to walk a three-mile trail or ride a horse; for Bachelor, you may take your car most of the way but will have to walk the last mile or jeep the whole distance, and for Carson, you will have to go by jeep or horse from Lake City. For the most part our forty-two towns are easy to see and in their separate ways unique.

Here, another word of warning: there are almost no ghost towns any more. In the true sense of the word they are gone. If you had been able to ride a horse or were willing to punish your Model T Ford, I could have taken you in the 1920’s to dozens of true ghost towns no farther away than along the Front Range. Even in the late 1940’s, when jeeps first came in, I could still have guided you to many true ghost towns. But no more.

What has happened? Tourists (a mixed blessing) and natives who have no regard for Colorado’s appealing past, have stolen from them, vandalized them, destroyed buildings, and carted whole towns away. Another killer in the form of fierce high-country winters has levelled them under tons of heavy white snow or pulled them apart with snatching, tearing wind. Whether desecrated by humans or eroded by nature, I am constantly reminded of Charles Kingsley’s lines, painted on the Tabor Grand Theatre curtain:

_So fleet the works of men, back to the earth again,_
_Ancient and holy things fade like a dream._

In other cases the ghost towns have undergone a metamorphosis. Some settlements have changed into summer resorts because of the charm of their buildings or the picturesqueness of their settings. Sometimes their ghost town status was lost by a new industry moving in, such as the sawmill at Lenado; or a new motor road has been strategically built, such as the Peak-to-Peak Highway which redeemed Ward. These towns, although peopled only by ghosts for many years, once again throb with life today. Many of the summer-resort group are alive only in the warm months. When the aspens have lost their fluttering gold in the autumn, they return to ghost towns.

We have included some of each type. All were true ghost towns once, and all had ghostly reminders still extant in 1960. But if you, as you visit them, should fail to leave everything as you find it, there will soon be nothing left for anyone to see. A sad and forlorn example of what can happen in only a short time is the formerly beautiful Lee House at Capitol City. When I first saw it in 1955, the house was still a true mansion, and its atmosphere eerily evoked the great and pretentious dreams of its builder. But in 1960 despoiling tourists had changed it to a horrid ruin.

So go forth in the true spirit of adventure to see and to enjoy, and may this little book add to your enjoyment!

A plan for touring the whole state and a large folded-in map of Colorado serve as introduction to the special towns and separate tours that follow. On the large map, the towns suggested for starting points are shown as black dots and are numbered to correspond with the numbers of the individual tours. The ghost towns appear as red dots. On the smaller maps the starting points are shown as squares, and the ghost towns as solid circles. Dan has drawn them all with the double purpose of being accurate and helpfully clear.

But however clear the plan and maps, real enjoyment in visiting these sites can only be had if the viewer has adequate knowledge of the people who built these towns and the times they lived in. Before setting out on the trips recommended here, some general knowledge of the state’s history is a _must_. To this end no quicker method exists than a reading of _Colorful Colorado_, a good companion volume.

The photographs, employed throughout the present booklet as illustrations, carry credit lines which should be plain to all except where initials have been used. DKP stands for Daniel K. Peterson; CHS, for Colorado Historical Society, and DPL, for the Western History Collection of the Denver Public Library.

My own part in the production of this work needs no explanation. My first visit to a ghost town was in 1904 when, as a toddler, I was carried on horseback by my father to Alice (then a thriving little spot). Alice was my father’s headquarters for building a reservoir system from five high mountain lakes that emptied into a sixth. These lakes (one, _Lake Caroline_) lie some four to six miles beyond Alice.

Since that distant day I have never ceased to travel to Colorado’s mountain towns, and I frequently describe myself as a “hillbilly.” No matter where I have been, it has always been the mountains of faraway lands that have had the greatest drawing power for me—the Jotunheim range of Norway, the Highlands of Scotland, the Alps in France and Switzerland, the Apennines in Italy and the Himalayas in India.

Yes, I can say along with Keats:

_Much have I travelled in the realms of gold,_
_And many goodly state and kingdoms seen...._

* * *

Yet none speaks so well of romance untold
As our high ghostly towns, still and serene.

THE ALICE POST OFFICE STILL STANDS

⇐_PLAN OF TOURS_

TOUR STARTING POINT GHOST TOWNS AND MOUNTAIN SPOTS PAGE
No.
1. CENTRAL CITY Nevadaville, American City, Kingston 8
2. IDAHO SPRINGS Alice, North Empire 14
3. GEORGETOWN Waldorf, Sts. John 20
4. BOULDER Caribou 24
5. ESTES PARK Ward 26
6. GRAND LAKE Lulu City 28
7. STEAMBOAT SPRINGS Hahns Peak 32
8. GLENWOOD SPRINGS Fulford, Crystal City 34
9. ASPEN Lenado, Ashcroft 40
10. LEADVILLE Independence, Stumptown 44
11. FAIRPLAY Buckskin Joe, Como, Mudsill, Leavick 48
12. CRIPPLE CREEK Altman, Bull Hill Station, Goldfield 52
13. CANON CITY Rosita, Silver Cliff 56
14. SALIDA Turret, Bonanza 59
15. BUENA VISTA St. Elmo, Winfield 63
16. GUNNISON Tin Cup, Gothic 66
17. LAKE CITY Capitol City, Carson 70
18. CREEDE Spar City, Bachelor 75
19. DEL NORTE Summitville 82
20. SILVERTON Eureka, Animas Forks 84
21. OURAY Red Mountain, Ironton 88
22. TELLURIDE Pandora 92

From Central City

Nevadaville is unique for many reasons. It was part of the historic 1859 “Pikes Peak or Bust” gold rush. In 1861 the town was larger than Denver. In 1863 one of Nevadaville’s mines, the Pat Casey (later the Ophir), was sold by its illiterate Irish owner in New York to Wall Street speculators for a fancy sum which started a boom in Gilpin County mines. Stock shares of Nevadaville’s mines were thus the first of Colorado corporations to be quoted on the “big board.”

When John H. Gregory found the first lode gold of Colorado in Gregory Gulch on May 6, 1859, other prospectors immediately pushed up all the tributary gulches. By the latter part of May a number of good claims had been staked on Quartz Hill above Nevada Creek. This creek joins Spring Creek at Central City and together they join Eureka Creek to make the mile-long Gregory Creek. It, in turn, joins the North Fork of Clear Creek at Black Hawk. The closest source of water for the mines on Quartz Hill was Nevada Creek. A camp sprang up immediately, and was named Nevada City.

A great deal of confusion followed this naming. Some referred to it only as Nevada and some as Nevadaville. When the townspeople petitioned for a post office they were given Bald Mountain because of a similarity with Nevada City, California. Nevertheless, increasingly through the years, the residents continued to call it Nevadaville and few people today know of its other names.

The earliest good finds were the Illinois by John Gregory, the Burroughs by Benjamin Burroughs and his brother, and the Casey (or Ophir) by Pat Casey. The Burroughs and Pat Casey were among the founders of Nevadaville.

The town had a long and boisterous life. It was settled largely by Cornish at the western end and by Irish at the eastern. These two groups waged a prolonged and skull-cracking battle with each other until the 1890’s. Then they found it expedient to unite against an influx from the Tyrol of miners who threatened to undercut their wages.

The Cornish (Cousin Jacks) built two charming little churches, an Episcopalian and a Methodist. (Both are now gone.) The Irish drove or walked down to mass at St. Mary’s-of-the-Assumption in Central City, over a mile away. But however earnest their church attendance on Sunday morning, it never altered their beer drinking at Nevadaville’s thirteen saloons that afternoon nor the fights and murders that followed. Two of the latter, both Cousin Jacks killed by Irishmen, were notorious in the annals of Colorado law and were eventually carried to the Supreme Court.

I have told the town’s story at considerable length in _Gulch of Gold_ to which the reader is referred for rollicking details. Nevadaville’s ghost status began in 1920 and worsened for twenty-five years. On the bleak scrubby side of Nevada Hill more and more buildings fell down or were torn down. By World War II only two permanent residents remained, and finally there were none.

NEVADAVILLE HAD THIRTEEN SALOONS

This view looks northeast across Nevada Creek to the main street,
which continues at the right on down to Central City and Denver.

CORNISH COTTAGES COVERED THIS SLOPE

The population of Nevadaville was twelve hundred in 1900 when the
upper photo was taken. The Union Bakery wagon was delivering bread
and pastries; an ore wagon was heading up toward Alps Hill, and a
number of residents, both on this side of Nevada Creek and the
other, were interested in the photographer’s work. In 1960 no one
was around to be curious; the lower bridge was gone, but the slopes
were the same.

Nevadaville, similar to all gold camps in Colorado, had a renascence during the 1930’s when the price of gold rose from $20 an ounce to $35. During this period a number of its mines were re-opened including the Hubert, which was worked by Frankie Warren. Frankie was one of the delightful Cousin Jacks left from the old days and could tell dialect stories by the dozens. I spent a number of delightful evenings in Nevadaville listening to his reminiscences and was particularly amused by his ‘ant’ (haunt) stories. One of these was about the Bald Mountain cemetery (a charming spot west of the settlement and worth a side trip) where the parents of Estel Slater had installed his photo on his tombstone and covered it with glass. On moonlight nights a ghost moved in the cemetery. Frankie went up to investigate and discovered the reflected light. I, too, followed Frankie’s example and was startled by the effect—I hope they are still there for you to see. There is always the danger that they have been vandalized. But let us return to Nevadaville.

Of recent years hardy souls who did not mind coping with the meagre water supply have renovated the remaining houses. In 1960 parts of Nevadaville presented a spruce appearance. But the mines which were once rich and storied, contributing a large part of Gilpin County’s $106,000,000 production, are ruins. The ghostliness that they cast and the derelict Main Street were little affected by the neat cottages. It does not take much imagination on a still afternoon to hear a Cornish “tommy-knocker” or to see why Nevadaville rates first among the ghost towns....

Farther on toward the continental divide, past Apex and a sign erroneously marked _Private Road_, is American City. A mixture of occupied and deserted buildings, the town lies hidden on the wooded side of Colorado Mountain overlooking a glen. A number of the deserted cabins and pretty sites may be bought from the county for back taxes. But others are in fine repair and lovingly cared for. Be wary in American City not to cast yourself in the role of “trespasser.”

American City’s history is not long and dramatic like Nevadaville’s. But its story is unique for glamor, gayety and culture. After the crash of silver in 1893, desperate efforts were made to find as yet undiscovered gold, and new strikes were made in the Pine Creek Mining District of Gilpin County. By 1895 Apex had reached sufficient stature to be listed in the Colorado Business Directory, as the district’s principal town, having two hotels and a general merchandise store. By June 1896 the _Denver Times_ was saying, “American City is very dressy.”

A year later the _Denver Republican_ described the main stockholders of the American Company who were from Illinois and Iowa. It added that this company was in good financial condition, was running two shifts of miners and had opened a library in their office in American City which “now numbers 503 books and the miners appreciate the courtesy on the part of the company.”

AMERICAN CITY HUGS THE TREES

The mill (which was built by a master carpenter of the German
shipyards) was in ruins, but the Hotel del Monte (second in the
trees) stood.

On July 3, 1897, a newspaper called the _Pine Cone_ began publication at Apex and carried frequent delightful items about American City. Captain E. M. Stedman, one of the principal stockholders, was also manager. On April 28, 1900, it reported that he was becoming an expert at “skeeing” since “he made the distance on Tuesday from his residence in American City to Apex, about a mile and a half, in five minutes.”

One of American City’s proudest possessions was its mill built by Gus Meyer in 1903. Meyer was a master craftsman from Germany and did contract work in Denver. He was the boss carpenter on the Barth Block. Because of his excellent work on the business building, William Barth gave him $100 in gold coin in addition to his contract money.

In the succeeding years up to around 1910 the Stedmans frequently entertained at house parties, using their own palatial cabin and overflowing into the cabins of other Eastern stockholders as well as the Hotel del Monte. My mother and father were present at a number of these affairs, and I can remember the fuss of getting all the luggage packed with a correct riding habit and a number of evening gowns for Mother to dress for dinner. It was indeed a glamorous place.

Then the gold petered out, and American City was abandoned. For years it was almost lost to view and to memory. Only the late wealthy Mrs. John Anthony Crook maintained a summer cabin there. In the 1930’s she was the lone resident. Finally a few others followed her lead until the town was partly saved....

Nugget, on the way to Kingston, had a few remnants in 1960. But uncared for, the fierce elements were wreaking havoc on the buildings as they also were at Kingston. The havoc was more serious at Kingston because of the beauty of the dormer-windowed boardinghouse close to the London mill and mine and because of the unusual latticed log cabin down on Secreto Creek at what is humorously called South Kingston.

In the late 1890’s and early 1900’s there were many residences along the ridge that runs between Pile Hill and Kingston Peak, and down the banks of Mosquito Creek. In 1960 some of these were still partially standing and many of their foundations were intact; but all were deteriorating fast. Kingston, like American City, was purely a mining, milling and residential town and depended on Apex for commerce, merchandise and a newspaper. But the details of its history are lost. Kingston is unique because of its mystery.

KINGSTON IS IN TWO SECTIONS

Shown are the London boardinghouse, mill and mine (far right). More
miners lived down in Secreto Gulch to the left of this high ridge.

_From Idaho Springs_

Alice was rich in gold—particularly placer gold. But oddly and uniquely, no one found these placers until long after other Clear Creek placers had been worked out. Apparently no prospector was thorough enough in his search on upper Fall River and its little tributary, Silver Creek, to make a strike during the placer excitements of 1859 and the early 1860’s, although some silver was uncovered. When rich gold was finally found in 1881, the discovery was made by a party working west from Yankee along the road that ran from Central City, the county seat of Gilpin County, past the side of Yankee Hill, down Silver Creek and Fall River, and on to Georgetown, county seat of Clear Creek County.

Alice was described in Denver’s _Rocky Mountain News_ August 24, 1881, as a colony of fifteen or twenty tents near Silver City, a camp slightly higher up Silver Creek. Colonel A. J. Cropsey of Nebraska was the superintendent of the Alice Mining Company, and he was banking sums of twelve and fifteen hundred dollars every two weeks in the First National Bank at Central City.

The summer and fall production proved so successful that the following February the capital stock of the company was increased from $1,000,000 to $2,000,000; a second ditch was built to bring water for hydraulic mining; log cabins and a mill were erected; the eleven-mile road to Idaho Springs was improved, and the company banked $2,500 or $3,000 in Idaho Springs every fortnight.

Hydraulic mining continued through the early 1880’s and proved consistently profitable so that Alice absorbed Silver City (if it had ever been anything more than a cluster of tents). As the placers were worked out, lode mining developed in a number of mines, especially in tunnels that led away from a pit torn out by hydraulic hoses. The population was around thirty-five until after 1903 when it rose to fifty or sixty. In 1908 a more modern mill was built, and production continued steadily until 1915 when the mill shut down. Soon the ghosts took over.

Four people lingered on, including the E. J. Harpers. He had been postmaster in 1904 (see the photo at the end of my introduction) and had conducted business from one end of their own cabin. She served meals at the other. On inspection trips to the Loch Lomond reservoir my father and I used to tie our horses outside this cabin and have a delicious lunch. In 1960 it was being used as a summer cottage but its exterior lines were identical with Father’s 1904 photo.

In 1934 Alice, like many other Colorado gold camps, experienced a renascence. (This was because of the price of gold rising from $20 to $35 an ounce.) The sturdy log cabins were re-roofed; the mill started, and the pit was turned into a real glory hole. Today Alice is unique because of its abandoned glory hole—the only summer resort-ghost town to boast of one within its town limits....

Returning to Clear Creek and driving farther up its course, is another tumbling tributary, a creek also coming in from the north. Originally this creek was called Lyon’s, but now Lion. It flows through the town of Empire about which the splendid historian, Ovando J. Hollister, said in 1866, “Of all the towns brought into existence by the famed Cherry Creek Sands, Empire bears away the palm for a pretty location and picturesque surroundings.” This statement is particularly true of North Empire, about a mile and a half up Lion Creek and its fork, North Empire Creek.

Bayard Taylor (the renowned nineteenth century lecturer and travel writer) and William N. Byers, founder and editor of the _Rocky Mountain News_, also visited the two towns that same year and were much impressed with their settings. Byers reported North Empire as “a hustling busy little hamlet right amid the mines. It has three or four mills.”

He also mentioned by name a number of prosperous mines, especially the Atlantic owned by Frank Peck who was later the founder of Lower Empire’s Peck House (now the Hotel Splendide). Byers was interested by an arastra in the gulch which was operated by water power and “was pointed out as a paying institution.”

Lower Empire was organized in the spring of 1860 by a band of prospectors who came up from Spanish Bar (then on the south side of Clear Creek close to its junction with Fall River). The first gold was discovered on Eureka Mountain, northwest of Empire. A find of rich placers and lodes soon followed on Silver Mountain, north of Empire. It was these mines that caused North Empire to spring up on the side of Silver and the flanking mountainside to the east, Covode.

_Too late to alter: now proved to be Russell Gulch._

ALICE BOASTED OF ITS GLORY HOLE

In 1911 two mills, the Anchor and Princess Alice, and six mining
companies were operating when this view was taken. It looks
southwest along the road that runs past the Glory Hole and
eventually to the Loch Lomond Reservoir system, built and owned by
G. J. Bancroft in the early 1900’s. The 1960 view of the Glory Hole
shows three roads at upper right: two up to Yankee and St. Mary’s
Glacier, and one off to Idaho Springs.

NORTH EMPIRE CLUNG CLOSE TO THE MINES

The town was built on the side of Covode Mountain nearly opposite
the Silver Mountain mining properties and equidistant between the
two boardinghouse relics, the Dumont and the Conqueror. The 1960
shot of the Copper Cone (or Gold Fissure) mine was taken from
approximately the same location, but looking north rather than east.
The various levels of streets and a few foundations may still be
seen through the trees.

North Empire led a prosperous existence during the 1860’s and ’70’s but died out during the 1880’s. Then in 1890 John M. Dumont, who had made money at Mill City (now Dumont after him) and Freeland, bought the Benton lode (named for Thomas Benton, the mountain man). Dumont attempted a resurrection of the town. The collapse of silver in 1893 added momentum to his efforts, and North Empire enjoyed a lively life for over a decade.

Again it was left to the blue jays and mountain rats until the 1930’s when once more the mines and mills throbbed. When World War II drafted its miners, the mills shut down and the mine shafts filled with water. The town died forever—or until the price of gold again changes.

Nonetheless, the picturesqueness of North Empire’s setting, commented on by all, lives on. The view to the south over Empire and Clear Creek to the meadow made by Bard Creek, on over Union Pass to the valley where Georgetown lies hidden, and on up to Guanella Pass against the skyline, is unsurpassed for its soft charm. North Empire remains unique for its picturesqueness.

THE CONQUEROR’S MINERS LIVED WELL

The south wing of the Conqueror’s boardinghouse was built by W. S.
Pryor in 1910. The original wing (at the right) dates from the
1870’s. Unfortunately, vandals have since burned down this
picturesque relic.

_From Georgetown_

Waldorf is unique because, single-handed, it was caused and named by a mining magnate who built his own little railroad—the Argentine Central—to create the town.

Edward John Wilcox was another of the many colorful characters Colorado has produced. He was full of quirks and idiosyncrasies. A former Methodist minister, he decided he could serve the church better by making money and tithing than by staying on with any of his former parishes in Longmont, Denver or Pueblo. Success attended his decision, and by 1905 he was the owner of some sixty-five mines on Leavenworth Mountain, south of Georgetown. But the mines were high in the East Argentine district where it was difficult to transport machinery in and ore out.

So on August 1 (Colorado Day), 1905, Wilcox began building his railroad, starting over eight miles away at Silver Plume and planning to grade switchbacks over Pendleton Mountain, the western wing of Leavenworth. By Colorado Day of the next year, the railroad had reached nearly eight miles beyond Waldorf to a point almost at the top of Mount McClellan. A second ceremony was held which included driving a gold spike. (The first had been held on reaching Waldorf.) Immediately afterward trains began operating to haul freight and tourists. But not on Sunday. Wilcox would not degrade the Lord’s day!

A post office was opened in Waldorf at 11,666 feet in altitude claiming to be the highest in the United States, and Waldorf was prepared for a great future. It had already had a considerable past, if not under the name of Waldorf. The silver mines in both the West and East Argentine districts had been working since 1866 and been supporting two mills. One mill and a camp called Argentine (from the Latin word for silver, _argentum_) were fairly high in Leavenworth Gulch on the way to Argentine Pass. Their location was beside the stagecoach road from Georgetown to Montezuma. But now a large boardinghouse, several residences, a store and a depot clustered about the Waldorf and Vidler tunnels and their mills. Thus the new camp of Waldorf was born.

Everything went well at first for the town and railroad—even despite the ban on Sunday tourists. The little railroad made a great impression, and Wilcox was as proud as a racehorse stable owner as he added little Shay engines to his rolling stock. Early in 1907 a British syndicate offered $3,000,000 for his holdings around Waldorf including the railroad. Wilcox refused despite the enormous profit involved.

But 1907 turned out to be a bad year. A depression started gathering momentum in the East. During the last six months of the year the price of silver fell thirteen cents, and Waldorf ore was not worth hauling. By 1908 Wilcox was badly in debt and was forced to liquidate where he could. According to the railroad historians, Elmer O. Davis and Frank Hollenback, Wilcox sold his $300,000 railroad for $44,000. The new management took over in 1909 and made a bid for the tourist trade which naturally included trains on Sunday.

Still the railroad did not pay, and was sold again in 1912. Ironically, the buyer was William Rogers of Georgetown, the same Rogers who had suggested the idea of the railroad to Wilcox in the first place. Now he had his railroad all built and operating for only $19,500! Rogers founded a new company.

But the mines had never come back after the blow of ’07. The tourist trade was not adequate to support the railroad with no freight to haul other than coal for the power company’s maintenance station at Waldorf. The last Shay engines were sold in 1914, and gasoline engined cars replaced them. Even this drastic measure did not suffice. The income for the 1917 summer season was too lean for the company to continue. In 1920 permission was granted for abandonment, and the next year track was taken up.

Waldorf was truly dead. Since then, from time to time, assorted lessees have operated the Waldorf tunnel and the Santiago mine northwest of Waldorf on the side of Mount McClellan. While they were working, they took over some of the old buildings for a year or two as residences. In the 1950’s Waldorf had two bad fires which destroyed the last of the big buildings and the habitable dwellings. In desperation the man who was working the Santiago mine in 1958, erected a Quonset hut for his home.

It stands as a sad commentary on these high towns where water is so precious and the menace of fire, an ever-present reality. Most Colorado mining camps have experienced terrible fires more than once, and Waldorf is no exception.

WALDORF WAS A RAILROAD MINING TOWN

The upper view was taken with a telescopic lens and shows the Vidler
mill in the foreground, the track from Vidler tunnel and one of its
ore cars to the right, a team of horses to the left, and at Waldorf
proper, a railroad coach and a boxcar on a siding. In both photos
the road around to the Santiago mine and its power line across the
hill are prominent. The Argentine Pass horseback trail goes off to
the left.

The hut’s shiny newness makes Waldorf unique for still another reason—our only ghost town with a Quonset hut!...

To reach Saints John, less than eight miles away as the crow flies, you have to take a long circuitous route. But it is a scenic ride, and the pastoral seclusion of Saints John should be worth the trip. The town lies between Glacier Mountain on the southeast and Bear Mountain on the northwest. It snuggles along the banks of Saints John Creek which runs into the Snake River at Montezuma. At the head of Saints John Creek is Bear Pass which leads over into the Swan River, a tributary of the Blue, and on to Breckenridge.

It was from that direction that discovery of Saints John was made. A prospector by the name of J. Coley came over Bear Pass from Breckenridge in 1863 and found silver ore on the crest of Glacier Mountain about a thousand feet up from the town. He smelted his find in a crude furnace with a flue built from a hollow log encased with rocks and clay obtained from the lode for mortar. The outlines are still there.

According to Verna Sharp, Montezuma historian, Coley took his ingots into a bar in Georgetown and showed them around. Promptly other miners came flocking in and made more finds on Glacier Mountain. They called their little settlement Coleyville until a group of Free Masons arrived in 1867. This group altered the name to Saints John, for John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, patron Saints of Masonry.

The camp already had a sober upright character and had welcomed a number of traveling preachers. Prominent among them was Father John L. Dyer, the Methodist minister who is remembered in Colorado for his fine book, _The Snowshoe Itinerant_, as well as for his good works. Father Dyer came by the way of Swan River in 1865 and staked some claims on Glacier Mountain. His route was chosen for the mail between Montezuma and Breckenridge which began tri-weekly service in 1869 and was carried by horseback via Saints John.

In 1872 some of the claims on Glacier Mountain were combined into one property by a company backed with Boston financing. To handle the ore, the Boston company built the best milling and smelting works their Eastern engineers could devise. Later they acquired all the mines on the north side of Glacier Mountain. Their next project was to erect a suitable company town in place of the ramshackle camp. Their plans called for a two-and-a-half story boardinghouse, a company store, an assay office, an ornately trimmed guest house, a mess hall, a foreman’s home, a superintendent’s home, and residences for the miners. (But oddly there was no school, and the children had to walk to Montezuma.) In 1878 the company town of Saints John was completed.

Unique among mining camps, it boasted that it had no saloon. Instead there was a library of three hundred volumes, donated by Boston friends. Eastern and European newspapers were also sent regularly from the home office. The culture of this pretty, silver town was to be emulated by the gold town of American City—but not its sobriety.

The superintendent lived in town about seven months of the year. During his absence his house was cared for by the manager of the boardinghouse. She permitted a few of the residents to view its wonders. The house was completely furnished with Sheraton furniture, Lenox china, plush draperies, oil paintings, and _objets d’art_ on what-nots added the last touch of elegance.

But then came over-production of silver, followed by the silver panic of 1893. The Boston Mining Company shut down, and the superintendent walked out of his home without bothering to lock the door, leaving the furnishings intact. The house was still standing in 1960 but the contents had long since been stolen or vandalized.

The Saints John mine was re-opened and worked in the 1940’s and early ’50’s. But no one lived there. The town of Saints John has been a true ghost town for over half a century, and is unique in our collection for its former decorum, for its being the only company town of the lot, and for its pastoral prettiness.

PRETTY SAINTS JOHN WAS SECLUDED

The superintendent’s house was in the best condition of buildings
left standing in the former company town. Note fine smelter stack at
right.

_From Boulder_

Caribou’s fame lives on despite most of its buildings being gone because it had the richest silver mine of the Front Range and because bullion from Caribou formed a $12,000 walkway in April, 1873, for a President. This was at Central City when President U. S. Grant stepped from his stagecoach into the Teller House.

Two mines, the Caribou and the Poor Man, were discovered in August, 1869, by two prospectors working out of Black Hawk. According to historian Don Kemp, they were searching for the location of a float where Samuel P. Conger had picked up a sample of rock. Conger had been on a hunting trip near Arapaho Peak and been attracted by the baffling quality of some unusual boulders.

The two prospectors were lucky. They found the float, staked claims, and set to work during that fall and winter. Their first shipments brought $400 a ton and caused a rush to the area. Many other mines were found, and a city was started—Caribou City. Subsequently, the Caribou mine was sold in two lots for $125,000 to A. D. Breed of Cincinnati. Breed resold the mine and his mill in 1873 to the Nederland Mining Company of Holland for $3,000,000.

Caribou continued until the Silver Panic, and a few residents lingered on into the twentieth century. But after the Caribou mine shut down in 1884, the population fell off. None of the other mines hired such large crews, and gradually they, too, closed. Efforts were made from time to time at re-opening; but because of excessive amounts of underground water, the ventures all failed.

Still, Caribou’s silver riches were once glorious and even trod upon by a President!

WINDY CARIBOU NEARLY BLEW AWAY

In the 1870’s and early ’80’s Caribou grew to a population of nearly
five hundred residents. It established law and order, built a
Methodist church, opened a school, organized a Cornish band,
instituted regular stage service to Central City, and added props to
buildings in an effort to withstand the frequent gales. The above
ably depicts the wind problem. The lower photo shows Caribou as it
looked in 1960 from the same angle on Goat Hill. Arapaho Peak and
Baldy are in the background. In the lower photo only the dump (upper
left) remained of the famous Caribou mine. The stone foundation
(right) and another (too far north to show) were constructed later
in an effort to solve the wind problem without props. Whenever old
pictures were available, the layout of this booklet endeavors to
follow a “then” and “now” presentation.

_From Estes Park_

Ward, at an altitude of 9,253 feet, was named for Calvin W. Ward who discovered gold in the vicinity in 1860 after prospecting up Left Hand Creek. From 1865 to ’67 when the Ni-Wot and Columbian properties were booming, it had a population of six hundred. (In both pictures on the facing page they may be seen as the two big mines or dumps, high on the mountainside to the left.)

The camp stayed in minor operation during the ’70’s and ’80’s and thrived in the late 1890’s. It was then that the penniless Horace Tabor, who had been one of the richest men in Colorado, tried to stage a comeback. His fortune had been made in Leadville silver; now he tried Ward gold. He owned a mine called the Eclipse. (The dump may still be seen on the Lodge-of-Pines property.) With a borrowed $15,000 from W. S. Stratton of Cripple Creek, he and Baby Doe set to work, living at the mine. But they were unsuccessful, and it was with relief that during January, 1898, the news reached him in Ward of his appointment as postmaster of Denver.

Six months after Tabor left Ward, a narrow gauge railroad, the Colorado & Northwestern (later D.B.&W.), arrived. It attracted many tourists. An added inducement was that the train stopped long enough to take the stageline to scenic Lake Brainard.

The trains also hauled ore for a while but this business fell off. When the big blizzard of November, 1913, and a cloudburst in July, 1919, damaged the track, abandonment soon followed.

Ward was deserted in the 1920’s. But the building of the Peak-to-Peak highway in the late 1930’s saved it. The town has survived as a summer resort although its year-around population is only fifteen.

It is unique for having been the scene of Tabor’s brave stand.

WARD DELIGHTED SUNDAY EXCURSIONISTS

In 1902 Ward had a population of three hundred fifty and advertised
that it had six stamp mills in operation as well as good schools and
churches. The Columbia Hotel opened that year on the street just
below the charming Congregational Church (prominent on the hill).
Just above the church on the highest street level was the railroad
depot of the Denver, Boulder and Western, now a cafe on the
Peak-to-Peak highway.

_From Grand Lake_

Lulu City is the first of our ghost towns to carry the inevitable “city” in its formal title. Adding “city” to the name of any little group of four or five log cabins was a habit dear to the hearts of the pioneers who took part in the trans-Mississippi West movement. Filled with optimism, they envisaged any stopping place as a sure metropolis. Witness the number of minute settlements with the imposing adjunct dating even from 1858, the year before the gold rush to Colorado. For example there were Montana City, Denver City, Golden City and Boulder City. Of these the first settlement disappeared completely, and the three survivors dropped the grandiose appendage.

Lulu City, like Montana City, is the disappearing type. In 1960 it was not completely gone, but almost. It was platted in 1879 by Ben F. Burnett who named the town for his oldest daughter. Lulu had only one good year, but hung on until 1883. After that a few die-hard prospectors remained. In the four years of Lulu City’s belief that its abundant silver ore would be rich, it had a large hotel, a store, several saloons, homes and a small red-light district. Mixed in with the silver ore found in the mines on the mountainsides to the west, was a little placer gold flecked through the sand of the long meadow. But neither the silver nor the gold were worth much. Lulu City’s post office was discontinued in January of 1886.

According to Mary Cairns, whose 1946 book _Grand Lake: The Pioneers_ pictured much more of Lulu City than can be seen today, one of the town’s prospectors was so discouraged he said:

“Some day you’ll see nothing but a foot trail along this street. Raspberry bushes and spruce trees will be growing through the roof of the hotel yonder.”

LULU CITY BECAME A GHOST EVEN BY 1889

Impossible to imagine now: When the town was platted in a park at
9,400 feet altitude, it had one hundred numbered blocks and nineteen
streets. The Forest Service and National Parks System have no regard
for history and are letting all the nineteenth-century buildings
within their boundaries deteriorate as fast as possible. The two
high mountains in the background are Lulu and Neota, and the cut is
the Grand Ditch.

BEAR TRAP

One of the few remaining sights in Lulu City is this unusual device
for deluding Mr. Bruin. A piece of meat was set inside. While he was
nosing his food, a trip hammer released the door which fell and
caged him well.

His prophecy has come true in full measure—only you can’t see the hotel at all! If you count carefully, you can discover the foundations of twenty-three buildings in the main part of town. Some five hundred feet farther north, there is a lone remote ruin in a grove on a point jutting west. This belonged to the town prostitute.

Lulu City’s most distinctive relic is at the southern entrance to town—a former bear trap which gives Lulu City its uniqueness today.

The town also had uniqueness in the past. It took part in one of the bloodiest county-seat wars in Colorado history, a war that resulted in the death of four men on July 4, 1883. This carnage was followed by the suicide of a sheriff and the escape of an undersheriff.

Grand County, when created in 1874, was a very large county. Hot Sulphur Springs was the only settlement of any size in the area and was given the county seat. Shortly afterward, gold and silver were found in the mountains which led to the founding of Lulu City, Gaskill and Teller. This mountainous section decided that they should have the county seat and that it should be at Grand Lake. They agitated for an election on the change of county seat and won in 1881.

Many antagonisms and animosities were built up in the course of this contest that kept on festering. Two years later one county commissioner was allied with the sheriff and deputy sheriff while the two other commissioners were allied with the county clerk. In the midst of a Fourth of July celebration, when the morning was already full of noise of firecrackers and of people sending shots of jubilation out over the lake, a mortal fight began at an ice house near the Fairview Hotel.

By the time people on the hotel porch reached the ice house, two men were dead and two were dying, one of whom claimed he had been attacked by the deputy sheriff. The sheriff and the deputy sheriff fled. The deputy sheriff disappeared, and his end is unproved. Less than three weeks later in a hotel room in Georgetown, the sheriff committed suicide. Mystery still cloaks the cause of the actual shooting.

Although no one of the six was a resident of Lulu City at the time of the tragedy, the undersheriff had been previously, and all the men had been visitors. The dismal affair sounded the death knell of Lulu City.

Not many years afterward the many bears and mountain sheep had the townsite all to themselves, and the bears could laugh at Lulu City’s renowned trap.

CHRISTMAS TREES CHOSE CABINS FOR BOXES

A quaint sight and a complete fulfillment of the old prospector’s
prophecy are these spruce trees growing inside former residences.

_From Steamboat Springs_

Hahns Peak is the lowest in altitude of our selected towns—8,163 feet—and the farthest north—almost to the Wyoming line. It is now solely a summer resort, but a summer resort fully conscious of its mining history. Two monuments fill a grassy plot in its main street.

One is a large hose nozzle which bears a plaque commemorating the work that the “little giant” (as the nozzle was called) did in a former placer operation. The other reads in part: “This monument is dedicated in honor of Joseph Hahn and other pioneers of this great basin. In the summer of 1862, Joseph Hahn, and two unknown companions discovered gold at the foot of this great peak....” After the Civil War Hahn returned with two friends who named the peak for Hahn. In the spring of 1867, while Hahn was returning to Empire for supplies, he died in Middle Park of exhaustion.

Most of Hahns Peak’s production was placer gold, and close to $1,000,000 was extracted around 1901. Previously in the 1870’s the placers were worked with almost no profit because of the cost of building three ditches. There was also a silver-lead mine high on Hahns Peak, the Tom Thumb.

The most amazing bit of the town’s history occurred in the winter of 1898 when Hahns Peak (then the seat of Routt County) was the scene of a real “Wild West” TV script. Sheriff Charles Neiman, after a sensational and tricky chase, succeeded in incarcerating two outlaws, Harry Tracy and David Lant, in the Hahns Peak jail. By a ruse they escaped, leaving the sheriff for dead; were recaptured and escaped again. The astounding story is told with full details by Wilson Rockwell in _Sunset Slope_ and gives Hahns Peak its unique TV character.

HAHNS PEAK COMMEMORATES ITS FOUNDER

The store at the left is labeled C. E. Blackburn, General
Merchandise. Blackburn was in business there during 1902 and ’03. In
1904 he was also postmaster. Previously the same building had held
the bank. The large building in the center of the photograph (with
two windows facing this way) was the Larson Hotel. The three-roofed
building was the courthouse. It obscures the jail which stood behind
it in 1898, in a direct line with Hahns Peak. On a night that was
twenty-eight degrees below zero, Lant and Tracy, outlaws and
escapees from the Utah penitentiary, beat and bound the sheriff and
left him senseless in the jail. They crossed the street to the
livery stable and stole the tired stage team. Courageously captured
a second time by the same sheriff, the outlaws escaped again and
left Colorado. Details of their story make a thriller. The upper
photo was taken by a panoramic camera and makes the main street
appear much wider than it really is. It also diminishes the height
of Hahns Peak in the background. A number of buildings are identical
but appear different because of the two types of cameras. Poverty
Bar, the placer and flat which was worked with hydraulic hoses and
yielded close to a half million dollars, is off to the left behind
the Blackburn Store in the upper photo and the school house in the
lower. Herman Mahler, Hahns Peak’s oldest resident, worked the
placer around 1913. In 1960 he was still faithful to the town for
five months of the year. Hahns Peak is completely deserted through
the long harsh winter months.

_From Glenwood Springs_

Fulford was originally two towns, Camp Nolan and Polar City. They date from the spring of 1887 when prospecting began up East Brush Creek from Eagle. In June of that year William Nolan accidentally shot himself, but his friends continued to call the camp after him because he had been the original leader. It was located on a small slope beside White Quail Creek before it joins Nolan Creek. As rich mines were opened up on New York Mountain, some bearing free gold, Camp Nolan grew until there was no more room.

Newcomers settled farther down in a meadow through which Nolan Creek runs and called the new settlement, Polar City. This name commemorated one of the richest mines on New York Mountain, the Polar Star. Other good producers were the Iron Age, Richmond, and Cave.

Both towns grew side by side until New Year’s Eve of 1891. At that time it was the custom of all miners “to take to the hills” on the last day of the year, and 1891 was no exception. Any tenderfoot would immediately ask, “Why?”

The answer lay in the mining laws which stated that any claim, not proved up on by midnight of the fiscal year, was open for relocation. Anyone intrepid enough to get there and drive new stakes could own the property. Miners would eye a good claim enviously and keep tabs to see if the owner was doing the required amount of work. If he was not, woe to him! A new claimant would be driving stakes on his mine while he toasted in the New Year at some saloon.

In 1891 Arthur H. Fulford was a popular resident of Eagle, well-known there and in Denver. He had mining interests throughout the county and knew of a good property across New York Mountain and down Bowman Gulch that would be open for re-staking. Accordingly he made an engagement to meet a friend in Camp Nolan the last day of the year so that they could make the difficult hike together.

FULFORD HAD AN UPPER AND LOWER TOWN

The Lanning Hotel and the Daggett Store may easily be located in
both the “then” and “now” shots. In the upper photo New York
Mountain (with two elevations) is in the background. White Quail
Creek may be seen running down its sides to join Nolan Creek whose
banks show in the foreground, this side of Lower Fulford. The road
which connected the two towns crosses the hill behind the prominent
hotel and store.

The two friends greeted each other enthusiastically at the Lanning Hotel (which at that time was in the upper town) and had a sumptuous noon meal. They toasted the New Year and promised themselves great riches from the location they were about to make on the sly. But one hitch developed.

The friend had ordered new skis to be made by hotel-keeper Henry Lanning who was the master craftsman of the camp. As they dined, Lanning informed them that the skis would not be ready until the next day. The friend said he would follow in the morning, bringing supplies for a leisurely return trip, and the two men selected a place to rendezvous. Fulford set out alone.

UPPER FULFORD HAD A STURDY ASSAY OFFICE