We took I-70 west from Denver through the Rocky Mountains, sometimes literally cutting through the mountains via the Twin Tunnels, Hanging Lake Tunnel, Beavertail Mountain Tunnel, and the Eisenhower Tunnel.
Eisenhower Tunnel: longest (1.7 miles) & highest (11,158 ft) tunnel in the US. Price tag: $108 million.
My brother Chris was doing the driving; Jimmy was riding shotgun, although I was the one doing all the shooting from the back seat courtesy of my trusty Nikon.
We were headed to Leadville, a former silver mining boom-town two hours away. Our destination was as good as any other in Colorado, more an excuse to experience anew the enormity of this rugged landscape, the unmatched beauty of millions of years of upheaval followed by millions more of glacial freeze and thaw; the journey is always at the heart of travel in Colorado.
Weaving in and out of Glenwood Canyon and across the Continental Divide via the Eisenhower Tunnel, I fell silent as one vista after another vied for my attention along this “road to nowhere.”
We were headed to Leadville, a former silver mining boom-town two hours away. Our destination was as good as any other in Colorado, more an excuse to experience anew the enormity of this rugged landscape, the unmatched beauty of millions of years of upheaval followed by millions more of glacial freeze and thaw; the journey is always at the heart of travel in Colorado.
Weaving in and out of Glenwood Canyon and across the Continental Divide via the Eisenhower Tunnel, I fell silent as one vista after another vied for my attention along this “road to nowhere.”
Nowhere is looking pretty good to me.
So said newspapers in the mid-1900s when Colorado’s then Governor, Edwin C. Johnson, proposed extending I-70 across the entire state of Colorado; across the Rocky Mountains and the Continental Divide to Grand Junction 240 miles away.
His extension proved one of the most expensive rural highways ever built in the United States, $490 million ($800 million in today’s dollars). And yet the construction of I-70 through Glenwood Canyon earned 30 awards for the Colorado Department of Transportation, including the 1993 Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers.
A Denver architect who helped design the freeway said, “I think pieces of the highway elevate to the standard of public art.”
I think, in Colorado, the gallery is always open, not just on I-70.
We exited I-70 and merged onto CO-91 heading south; eventually we took CO-24, where the vistas just went on and on and on, all the way to Leadville.
His extension proved one of the most expensive rural highways ever built in the United States, $490 million ($800 million in today’s dollars). And yet the construction of I-70 through Glenwood Canyon earned 30 awards for the Colorado Department of Transportation, including the 1993 Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers.
A Denver architect who helped design the freeway said, “I think pieces of the highway elevate to the standard of public art.”
I think, in Colorado, the gallery is always open, not just on I-70.
We exited I-70 and merged onto CO-91 heading south; eventually we took CO-24, where the vistas just went on and on and on, all the way to Leadville.
Add or subtract a million years and the picture won't change much.
In Colorado, bald is exceptionally beautiful!
We arrived in Leadville, the highest incorporated city in the United States (elevation 10,152), just in time for lunch. Timing is everything, don't you think?
Leadville's Historic District has seen a lot of fortunes come and go since the gold rush of 1860.
The Silver Dollar Saloon, circa 1879, looked to be serving up a bit of history as well as grub.
I think some of the food was prepared in 1879.
The history was better than the grub.
It didn’t take much to imagine Doc Holliday sidling up to the bar for a drink. After all, he’d spent a few years in Leadville back in the 1880s.
It didn’t take much to imagine Doc Holliday sidling up to the bar for a drink. After all, he’d spent a few years in Leadville back in the 1880s.
Where's Miss Kitty?
Strolling all eight blocks of Leadville’s Historic District, I thought for sure I’d catch sight of Margaret Tobin helping customers from the dry goods store where she worked as a seamstress. Of course, I heard once she snagged a husband from the ranks of Leadville’s mining speculators in 1886, they moved to Denver where she hopped onboard the Titanic to become the ‘Unsinkable Molly Brown.’
No, not Molly Brown, just the delightful receptionist at the Delaware Hotel.
I did spot Buffalo Bill playing cards rather than scouting grub for the United States Army. After
all those years of riding the circuit in his ‘Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show’ he was probably looking for a little R&R.
all those years of riding the circuit in his ‘Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show’ he was probably looking for a little R&R.
That's quite the poker face.
And there were these two dudes, obviously looking for trouble. Oh wait, they were looking to catch a ride out of town. But we just got here!
I felt like a Queen for the day traveling with my two favorite guys, my brother Chris and sweetie Jimmy.
I was disappointed to find the Tabor Opera House closed. This cultural icon, lauded as one of
the most costly and substantially built structures between St. Louis and San Francisco, was the vision of Horace Austin Warner Tabor, a well-known mining magnate, Lieutenant Governor of Colorado from 1878 to 1884 and U.S. Senator from January 27, 1883 until March 4, 1883, following the resignation of Henry M. Teller.
Tabor became a millionaire thanks to his holdings in two extremely profitable Leadville mines, the Little Pittsburg (no h in the spelling, deliberately) and the Matchless Mine.
the most costly and substantially built structures between St. Louis and San Francisco, was the vision of Horace Austin Warner Tabor, a well-known mining magnate, Lieutenant Governor of Colorado from 1878 to 1884 and U.S. Senator from January 27, 1883 until March 4, 1883, following the resignation of Henry M. Teller.
Tabor became a millionaire thanks to his holdings in two extremely profitable Leadville mines, the Little Pittsburg (no h in the spelling, deliberately) and the Matchless Mine.
As the World Turns, Leadville style.
That might have been the end of the story, but as is often the case, life is stranger than fiction.
Tabor’s life, particularly his divorce and subsequent marriage to Elizabeth “Baby Doe” McCourt in 1883 in a public (and, to some, a very scandalous) wedding ceremony in Washington, D.C. was the classic social faux pas on a very grand scale. The back lash was just as grand. Tabor’s subsequent bids for governor of Colorado in 1884, 1886 and 1888 were all unsuccessful. And when the Sherman Silver Act of 1893 was repealed, he lost his fortune. I hate when that happens. To add insult to injury, he died of appendicitis in 1899.
But the story doesn’t end there. Before Tabor’s death, he told Baby Doe to hold onto her share of the Matchless Mine. Didn’t happen! This was the Wild West, after all. Thirty-six years after Tabor’s death, Baby Doe was found frozen in the tool shed outside the Matchless mine where she’d lived penniless as Tabor’s widow.
Tabor’s life eventually became fodder for American composer Douglas Moore’s most famous opera, The Ballad of Baby Doe, which premiered at the Central City Opera in Colorado in 1956.
Gee, I wonder if Moore’s opera has played in the Tabor Opera House; certainly lots of fool’s gold along with silver in Leadville, Colorado.
Then again, my life could be fodder for a modern-day soap opera at the very least. I’ve been through a divorce; two if you count my parents’ divorce when I was a teen. I had my appendix removed several years back. I’ve just never had the rags-to-riches-back-to-rags chapter. No riches to speak of, inheritance or otherwise. I never ran for office either. I did run a 5K in the Susan G. Koman Race for the Cure a few years back. But I digress.
Before heading out for some serious exploring, we checked into our room for the night, the Delaware Hotel.
Tabor’s life, particularly his divorce and subsequent marriage to Elizabeth “Baby Doe” McCourt in 1883 in a public (and, to some, a very scandalous) wedding ceremony in Washington, D.C. was the classic social faux pas on a very grand scale. The back lash was just as grand. Tabor’s subsequent bids for governor of Colorado in 1884, 1886 and 1888 were all unsuccessful. And when the Sherman Silver Act of 1893 was repealed, he lost his fortune. I hate when that happens. To add insult to injury, he died of appendicitis in 1899.
But the story doesn’t end there. Before Tabor’s death, he told Baby Doe to hold onto her share of the Matchless Mine. Didn’t happen! This was the Wild West, after all. Thirty-six years after Tabor’s death, Baby Doe was found frozen in the tool shed outside the Matchless mine where she’d lived penniless as Tabor’s widow.
Tabor’s life eventually became fodder for American composer Douglas Moore’s most famous opera, The Ballad of Baby Doe, which premiered at the Central City Opera in Colorado in 1956.
Gee, I wonder if Moore’s opera has played in the Tabor Opera House; certainly lots of fool’s gold along with silver in Leadville, Colorado.
Then again, my life could be fodder for a modern-day soap opera at the very least. I’ve been through a divorce; two if you count my parents’ divorce when I was a teen. I had my appendix removed several years back. I’ve just never had the rags-to-riches-back-to-rags chapter. No riches to speak of, inheritance or otherwise. I never ran for office either. I did run a 5K in the Susan G. Koman Race for the Cure a few years back. But I digress.
Before heading out for some serious exploring, we checked into our room for the night, the Delaware Hotel.
No elevator in Leadville's "Crown Jewel!" Factor in the altitude & we were huffing & puffing to get to the 2nd floor.
Would you believe Jimmy and I were booked in the Molly Tobin Brown room? More soap opera material!
Perhaps Jimmy and I should book passage on the next Titanic scheduled to go out again soon.
Every room of this Victorian time-piece, originally built in 1886 by the Calloway brothers (from the state of . . . you guessed it, Delaware), was dedicated to notables in Leadville’s history. I wonder if there’s a Baby Doe room.
Santa apparently didn’t warrant his own room. He was relegated a corner of the hallway,
Santa apparently didn’t warrant his own room. He was relegated a corner of the hallway,
Thought I'd get a head start on my wish list for Santa.
along with all the other antiques lining the walls.
I felt young again hobnobbing with all these antiques.
All the period furniture was for sale, including the tables and chairs in our room. Would be tough getting those into my suitcase for the flight home.
I wonder if they've heard of Minnie Pearl.
My personal favorite was this confessional in the breakfast area. Confession is good for the soul, but apparently not for the pocketbook; the asking price on this heirloom was $7450.
This would make a great conversation piece; always was, anyway.
With our bags safely stowed and our curiosity bubbling like soap from an opera, we headed out to see what Leadville had to offer.
Stay tuned for more drama in the continuing saga of the wild Wild West.
Stay tuned for more drama in the continuing saga of the wild Wild West.
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