August 7-9, 1998: The Texas Folklife Festival in San Antonio
	July 21-26, 1998: Summer Trip to Colorado (Page One)
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NOTE:
This is the continuation page for our summer trip to Colorado.

Leadville, Colorado (7/25)

Today, our plan is to drive leisurely down the east side of the Sawatch Range, visiting Leadville and also a ghost town we'd read about before the trip. We want to end up near Royal Gorge at Canon City, Colorado.

We slept in a bit at the Silver Inn, since this was our first night in a motel after camping a couple of nights in a row. After getting organized and out the door, we decided to head to Leadville via Colorado Highway 91. To get to it, we backtracked a few miles southwest on I-70 to the exit for that highway and then took it south. The drive was quite pretty through the mountains, and after an hour or so we began to see the signs for Leadville before heading down into the town.

Leadville, the only municipality in Lake County, is situated at an elevation of 10,152 feet- hence its nickname of "The Two-Mile High City." Actually, it is the highest incorporated city in the United States. It is a former silver mining town that lies near the headwaters of the Arkansas River in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, the city includes the Leadville Historic District, which preserves many historic structures and sites from Leadville's dynamic mining era. In the late 19th century, Leadville was the second most populous city in Colorado, after Denver. Today, there are only about three thousand inhabitants.

The history of Leadville begins during the Pikes Peak Gold Rush in 1859, when a town called Oro City sprung up and soon had over 5000 inhabitants (including one Horace Tabor, one of the first prospectors to arrive). But the placer gold mining was hampered by heavy black sand in the sluice boxes (the Lord taketh away), and Oro City declined quickly. However, in 1874, geologists discovered that the sand was actually cerussite, and carried a high content of silver (the Lord giveth). The cerussite was traced to its source where large deposits were found, setting off the Colorado Silver Boom. By 1880, Leadville was one of the world's largest and richest silver camps, with a population of over 14,000.

In 1879, Tabor, who had maneuvered himself into prominence as "the Silver King," built the Tabor Opera House. (In the 20 years since his arrival he'd amassed a fortune of 10 million dollars and was known for his extravagant lifestyle. He also became Leadville's first mayor.) In 1882, it hosted Oscar Wilde during his lecture tour- just the first of many celebrities to visit. For ten years, Leadville stayed at the apex of prominence- until the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act in 1893, which led to a collapse in the price of silver. The town declined after that, although some mining companies came to rely on income from the lead and zinc deposits nearby.

Over the years, the district is credited with producing over 2.9 million troy ounces of gold, 240 million troy ounces of silver, 1 million short tons of lead, 785 thousand short tons of zinc, and 53 thousand short tons of copper. World War II caused an increase in the demand for molybdenum, and deposits were also found near the town. At one time, the Climax mine produced 75 percent of the world's molybdenum. By 1980 it was the largest underground mine in the world, and taxes paid by the mine provided Leadville with good schools and libraries, and provided employment for many of Leadville's residents. It currently is the most efficient mine producing the metal in Colorado.

Highway 93 ended at US Highway 24 north of town, and so when we came through the city we were on that road. Leadville was very picturesque, and when we noticed an ice cream shop open, we decided to stop for some and walk around while we enjoyed it.

The Leadville Historic District was designated a National Historic Landmark District in 1961. It includes 67 mines in the mining district east of the city up to the 12,000 foot level, and a defined portion of the town area, with specific exclusion of various buildings. Principal historic buildings in the district are: Tabor Grand Hotel, St. George's Church, Temple Israel, Annunciation Church, Tabor Opera House, City Hall, Healy House, Dexter Cabin, Engelbach House, and Tabor House, as well as mining structures and small homes.

Had we known, we would have stopped by City Hall and picked up a brochure which would have guided us on a walking tour of this historic district. But, even so, we did pass by two of the buildings on the tour.

The Old Church The Tabor Grand Hotel

On the northwest corner of 8th and Harrison sits the Presbyterian Church, affectionately called “The Old Church” by locals. With its open Gothic-styled belltower, the church has been a landmark on Harrison Avenue since its impressive dedication ceremonies on December 22, 1889. The decorative glass sections of the windows are of various types, the most common being hand-painted glass of the Persian technique.

On the northwest corner of 7th and Harrison, sits the Tabor Grand Hotel building. Built during the two year period of 1883 to 1885, this four story brick building was designed by noted architect of the period, George King. The hotel has had many names including the Maxwell, the Kitchen, and the Vendome. The newspaper of the day carried the following quote when the Hotel opened: “Leadville now has a hotel which in elegance of its appointments is second to none in the west and in which citizens and tourists will find all the luxuries and conveniences of the older cities.” The building was renovated and re-opened in 1992 with shops on the lower floor and apartments on the upper floors.

The closing of the Climax mine in the 1980s was a major blow to the town's economy. In addition, the many years of mining left behind substantial contamination of the soil and water, so that the Environmental Protection Agency designated some former mining sites in Leadville as Superfund sites. The town is now 98% cleaned up and the Superfund designation is about to expire. The town has made major efforts to improve its economy by encouraging tourism and emphasizing its history and opportunities for outdoor recreation.

The National Mining Museum and Hall of Fame opened in 1987 with a federal charter. The town's altitude and rugged terrain contributes to a number of challenging racing events, such as the Leadville Trail 100 series of races. It is often used as a base for altitude training and hosts a number of other events for runners and mountain bicyclists. Boom Days, held on the first full weekend of August, is a tribute to the city's mining past, and there is a winter festival as well. For some reason, Leadville also holds more parades than any other US city (including the quirky "St. Patrick's Day Practice Parade").

The Arkansas River (7/25)

We left Leadville in the early afternoon and continued south on US 24. The highway took us through a long, north-south valley, and we could see mountain peaks on either side of us as we drove.

As we drove south, the land began to rise somewhat, and we noticed a beautiful creek close to the highway at points, and when we first saw it, we got out a couple of times to have a look at it. This was another situation where driving with the truck windows open was very pleasant, as the air was cool and the sight and sound of the water refreshing. After a few more miles, we saw a sign for the Twin Lakes, and there was a point where we could stop and walk around that area. At one point, we hiked about a quarter mile into the trees to a small mountain lake that had a beaver lodge out in the middle of it.

Continuing south, we finally found out the name of the stream; it was the Arkansas River. We did not learn until later that this little mountain stream would, further down its course become a major tributary of the Mississippi River. The Arkansas generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the US states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The river's initial basin starts in the Arkansas River Valley, which begins south of Leadville and which we were driving through now, with waters coming from snowmelt in the Collegiate Peaks on our right as we head south. Then it flows east into the Midwest via Kansas, and finally into the South through Oklahoma and Arkansas.

We might, in retrospect, have called this entire vacation our "River Headwaters Trip." We began by camping beside the small stream that becomes a boundary between nations- the Rio Grande. We crossed the headwaters and drainage area of the Gunnison River when we drove north of the National Park. Driving along I-70 towards Silverthorne, we paralleled a relatively small stream, but one that would eventually create the major feature of the American Southwest- the Colorado River. And, now, we are seeing and hiking down to the small stream, no more than twenty feet wide, that would eventually become the mighty Arkansas.

The difference between the Arkansas River out out windows now, and the Arkansas River when it flows past Little Rock to the Mississippi could not be more stark and interesting:

The Arkansas River in Colorado

The Arkansas River in Arkansas

At 1,469 miles, the Arkansas is the sixth-longest river in the United States, the second-longest tributary in the Mississippi–Missouri system, and the 45th longest river in the world. We are driving now through its origins; the mouth of the river is at Napoleon, Arkansas. Its drainage basin covers nearly 170,000 sq. mi. In terms of volume, it discharges 41,000 cubic feet per second into the Mississippi. Where we are now, though, my estimate is (using the dimensions of the room in which I am currently sitting) that the volume of water tumbling over the rocks beside the road is much less than one percent of that.

This part of our drive down US 24 was really incredible, and for more than an hour, we marvelled at the mountain stream beside us, getting out frequently to walk down to the river to take pictures. You can click on the thumbnail images below to see many of the pictures we took along the way:

Like yesterday, this was one of the most pleasant drives of the entire trip.

The Ghost Town of St. Elmo, Colorado (7/25)

Another twenty or thirty miles of driving and we came to County Road 162 that led off to our right and up into the mountains. This was the route to St. Elmo, Colorado, our next stop.

Leaving Highway 24 on the county road, we first drove about six miles through the right side of the valley. The terrain was fairly open, and there were lots of small farms about. Then the road began to ascend the slopes of Mt. Antero and, as it did, the terrain became heavily forested (as we entered the San Isabel National Forest). This national forest is in two sections, separated by the valley that is the headwaters of the Arkansas.

The road also became more winding, but it was not a difficult drive, and became more pleasant when yet another mountain stream flowed beside the road for a while. At one point, we came out into a clearing where eagle-eye Fred spotted something up ahead and had me slow down to a crawl. We did not scare it off, and Fred got an excellent picture of some local wildlife. The part of County Road 162 through the mountains was about eight miles, until we came out into the small cleared valley where St. Elmo was situated.

St. Elmo, in Chaffee County, was founded in 1880, and lies in the heart of the Sawatch Range at an elevation of 9,961 feet. Nearly 2,000 people settled in this town when mining for gold and silver started. The mining industry started to decline in the early 1920s, and in 1922 the railroad discontinued service. The community is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the St. Elmo Historic District, and it is one of Colorado's best preserved ghost towns.

Originally named "Forest City," the name was later changed when it became apparent that it could be confused with the multitude of towns (many in Colorado) with the same name. The name St. Elmo was chosen by Griffith Evans, one of the founding fathers, who was reading a novel with the that title.

On St. Elmo's Main Street

The town was at its peak in the 1890s, when it included a telegraph office, general store, town hall, 5 hotels, saloons, dancing halls, a newspaper office, and a school house. The Denver, South Park and Pacific Railroad line ran through St. Elmo. There were 150 patented mine claims within the area, but the majority of the people who lived in St. Elmo worked at the Mary Murphy, Teresa C., The Molly or the Pioneer Mines. The Mary Murphy Mine was the largest and most successful mine in the area; it recovered over $60,000,000 worth of gold while it was in operation. While the other mines eventually shut down, the Mary Murphy Mine continued to operate until the railroad was abandoned in 1922.

Once the mining industry shut down, St. Elmo drastically declined in population. Miners searched elsewhere for gold and silver and the business district in St. Elmo closed down as well. Few people continued to live in the town. Postal service was discontinued in 1952 after the death of St. Elmo's postmaster.

Look at the picture at right to see St. Elmo today, and click on the thumbnail images below for some other views (one of which would seem to show that there are many more chipmunks than people on Main Street at any given time):

Even though St. Elmo is considered a ghost town it is still inhabited, and many tourists (like us) visit the town every year. The old mining roads are now used as Jeep and four-wheeler trails, and there are also many good places to fish along Chalk Creek, which runs through the town. The general store (Fred is standing in front of it in one of the pictures above) is open during the summer, when tourists can rent four-wheelers or buy items. When we visited, many of the buildings were still intact (you can see most of them in the picture of me above). Sadly, four of those buildings you can see in the picture burned down in 2002. The Buena Vista Heritage Association is rebuilding the town hall to its original state. But you can see where it was (and where our pictures were taken, on the recent aerial view below:

We left St. Elmo about three-thirty in the afternoon for the hundred-mile trip to Canon City where we would spend the night.

We retuned to Highway 24 and continued south to Salida, where we turned east on US Highway 50. This took us out of the forested mountain areas and across a more arid, less-forested stretch, until we arrived in Canon City about six in the evening. We thought that we might find a place to camp, but did not see anything enticing, and so we simply checked into a motel called The Parkview right in downtown Canon City.

We ate dinner at a local restaurant and walked around town for a while before turning in. Tomorrow, we will spend the morning at Royal Gorge.

Royal Gorge (7/26)

On the last morning of our trip, we got up pretty early so we could get out to Royal Gorge and have a fair amount of time to spend before heading home.

The Royal Gorge (also known as the Grand Canyon of the Arkansas) is a 10-mile-long canyon on the Arkansas River that runs from a few miles west of Cañon City up northwest towards Salida. With a width of 50 feet at its base and a few hundred feet at its top, and a depth of 1,250 feet in places, the canyon is a narrow, steep gorge through the granite of Fremont Peak. It is one of the deepest canyons in Colorado. The path of the Arkansas River was already set when the granite uplift that would eventually form the Rocky Mountains began. About 3 million years ago as the mountains began to rise from the surrounding plains, the Arkansas River – then only a small rivulet – began to wear away at the stone it flowed across. Scientists estimate that the mountains surrounding the canyon rose at a rate of approximately one foot every 2500 years. Over the millennia, this small stream grew, cutting a deep channel for itself through the surrounding granite. The gorge's peculiar shape, contrasted to broad canyons such as the Grand Canyon, can be attributed to this long, direct erosion through hard rock.

Before European settlement, Native Americans of the Ute people wintered in Royal Gorge for its protection from wind and relatively mild climate, and members of Spanish conquistador expeditions of the 17th century or fur traders may have seen Royal Gorge in their traversal of the area. The first recorded instance of a European arrival, however, is the Pike expedition of 1806. Zebulon Pike's group built a crude shelter in the gorge and explored the area, descending on horseback over the frozen Arkansas River.

Nearby Cañon City was founded in 1860, but it was the discovery of silver and lead near Leadville that prompted a race to build rail access to the area. While I would have thought that it would be easier to build a rail line up on the plateau above the gorge, railroads competed to use the bottom of the gorge itself for their tracks.

Royal Gorge was two narrow for both of the railroads that were competing to build their lines to use, and there was, apparently, no other reasonable access to the South Park area. So the crews of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway and the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad took to fighting the "Royal Gorge Railroad War", two years of essentially low-level guerrilla warfare between the two companies. Federal intervention prompted the so-called "Treaty of Boston" to end the fighting. The D&RGW completed its line and leased it for use by the Santa Fe.

The first trains passed through the gorge in 1879 after the years of court battles between the two railroads were concluded, and freight and passenger service continued for some years. Freight service declined when other, less-costly routes were opened.

In the 1890s Royal Gorge was used as a passenger route for transcontinental rail travel. As many as four trains per day went through the gorge, though in time the establishment of alternate routes through the mountains made the Royal Gorge fall from favor for transcontinental use, and passenger train service on the main line was discontinued in 1967. The Royal Gorge Route Railroad now operates excursion trains through the Royal Gorge throughout the year. The train travels 12-miles through the canyon from Cañon City, Colorado to Parkdale and return.

Looking down into the gorge, you can easily see the railway tracks that were laid in the nineteenth century, and used up until the latter half of the twentieth. Though we did not see one, there are excursion trains that still use those tracks. Click on the thumbnail images below for some other views of the railroad right-of-way down in the gorge:

With the decline in business use of the railway line through Royal Gorge, Cañon City found that it, too, was in decline, and the city looked for ways to halt the slide. The city got the idea to maximize the tourist use of Royal Gorge, extending the use beyond just the tourist trains that ran through the bottom.

The Royal Gorge Bridge

The decision was to build a bridge across the Gorge, and in 1929 Cañon City authorized the building of the Royal Gorge Bridge. The bridge was constructed in six months, between June 5, 1929, and late November 1929, at a cost of $350,000. To pay for construction, it was built as a toll bridge. It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.

The bridge was not constructed for transportation purposes; instead, it was built with the intent that it serve as a tourist attraction, and has continued to be one of the most-visited tourist attractions in Colorado since its construction. In fact, a road had to be built to get to the bridge and go a short ways across it; this road is designated as Fremont County Road 3A. The Royal Gorge Route Railroad runs under the bridge along the base of Royal Gorge.

Click on the thumbnail images below for some more views of the bridge that we took- some from the north side and some from the south:

At 955 feet above the river, the bridge held the record of highest bridge in the world until 2001, when it was surpassed by a brige built in China (that is 1200 feet above the floor of the gorge below it).

The Royal Gorge Bridge from the North Side

The bridge forms the kernel of Royal Gorge Park, a theme park owned and run by the city, and there are a number of things to do- including a gondola ride across the gorge. Of course we walked out onto and across the bridge, and you can click on the thumbnail images below to see some of the pictures we took:

The aerial tram was built in 1968, and many of the other attractions were built in the years immediately following the construction of the bridge. But most of the attractions that are there now (or were there in 2013), including the carousel, Old West town, petting zoo, the Royal Rush Skycoaster and the Soaring Eagle Zip Line, were built after our visit.

Sadly, a wildfire devastated the entire park in 2013. While the bridge suffered only minimal damage (some wooden deck planks burned), all but four of the park's 52 buildings were destroyed. The Incline Railway was severely damaged and the Aerial Tram was destroyed. Intentions are to completely rebuild the park.

The Funicular The Funicular

In the summer months, whitewater rafting is a very popular activity in the Royal Gorge. Tourists travel from around the world to tackle the Class IV rapids of the Arkansas River and enjoy the scenery of the gorge. River recreation in the royal gorge is regulated by Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area (AHRA) and daily user fees are required to launch at all of the recreation sites upstream of the Royal Gorge. There are many commercial rafting companies which are licensed by AHRA to run the Royal Gorge and summer weekends can see hundreds of rafts packing the river.

Another neat thing to do is (was) to take the funicular down to the river itself. Like most funiculars, there are two cars; one is coming up while the other is going down, and the weight of each is used to propel the other. The cars had a wire mesh so no one could fall out, and it got in the way of my picture from our car. I took the picture when we were about two-thirds of the way down, and you can see that view here.

Once the car got to the bottom, we walked out onto the platform and then down some stairs to a walkway that led along the river for a few hundred feet.

At the Arkansas River in Royal Gorge Looking Up the Funicular from the River

It was fun to walk around beside the river down here at the bottom of the gorge; actually, it's the only way to appreciate how narrow the gorge is at the bottom, and understand why the competing railroads thought only one of them could succeed in building a line down here. You can see all of that in my picture of Fred at the bottom of Royal Gorge.

The walkway did not take you directly under the bridge, but I got as close as I could, aimed the camera up at the underside of the bridge, and took the photo below:

When we had finished seeing what we could from the bottom of the gorge, we took the next car back up to the top, walked around and out onto the bridge one more time, and then, about noon, got into the truck and headed off for home.

The Trip Home (7/26)

We had a full day and evening of driving ahead of us if we wanted to make it back to Van Alstyne by late tonight, and we would need to make good time. Fortunately, we did.

We drove up Colorado Route 3A back to US 50, and then headed east back through Cañon City. From there, it was about 40 miles to Pueblo, Colorado on US 50. We stopped to fix some lunch there and then hopped on Interstate 25 south.

Two hours later we were getting off I-25 in Raton, New Mexico, and onto US Highway 87 southeast back towards Amarillo, where we found ourselves about three and half hours later- about 4PM. There, we took I-40 east for just a few miles, exiting onto US Highway 287 headed southeast.

Another three hours found us in Wichita Falls where we stopped for a Mexican meal at a place we'd eaten a few times before. Then, about 8PM, we began the last leg home- 20 more miles on US 287 to US Highway 82 and then a three hour run straight east and over to Sherman, Texas. From there, we just had a short jog down US Highway 75 to Van Alstyne. We found ourselves back at Fred's house just about midnight.

This trip to Colorado was another great one, and we'd noted some places we wanted to return to on an upcoming trip.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	August 7-9, 1998: The Texas Folklife Festival in San Antonio
	July 21-26, 1998: Summer Trip to Colorado (Page One)
	Return to the Index for 1998