“Summit: A Gold Rush History of Summit County, Colorado,” by Mary Ellen Gilliland (Alpenrose Press, 336 pages, $33.95).
This time of year, we think about exploring our mountains. Summit County is Denverites’ most popular mountain destination, and Mary Ellen Gilliland’s “Summit” explains part of the lure. Despite the enormous growth in Summit County, there is still plenty of history left to explore – historical sites, preserved old buildings, remnants of ghost towns and relics of mining days.
Mining dominated Summit County for the better part of a century. Gold was discovered there in 1859, and after the free gold was panned out, lode mining came in. Far more destructive was hydraulic mining, which washed away mountainsides as companies searched for the precious metal. You can still see the destruction that hydraulic mining caused, from Interstate 70 near Silverthorne, Gilliland writes, and one of the huge nozzles is mounted in front of the Summit County Courthouse in Breckenridge. Then came gold dredging, in which boats dug up streams, leaving behind massive rock piles that line gulches near Breckenridge.
There also was the “warm stove mine” and the “hot air smelter,” which operated out of a store on Breckenridge’s Main Street, Gilliland relates. And there was the 7:30 mine, whose name was changed to the 7:40, because the workers were always late.
Summit County history is as much about people as mining, as Gilliland shows. Pug Ryan was an early-day desperado who robbed a group of men at a hotel in Breckenridge, then plugged two deputies in a shoot-out. As Ryan’s partner lay dying, Ryan rifled his pockets.
And there was Ben Stanley Revett, Summit’s dredge king. He built a huge home near Tiger, which still stands. Revett’s wife found Summit County too rough. When the Revett daughter complained that a spring yielded “not one damn drop,” Mrs. Revett decamped to California.
Summit County’s premier historian, Gilliland has included much of the information in “Summit” in her booklets, published over the past 25 years. “Summit” is a comprehensive work, both history and guide, that is a combination of formal research, oral history and personal observation.
“Historic Georgetown, Colorado: Self-Guided Walking & Driving Tours,” by William E. Wilson. (Historic Georgetown, 96 pages, $3.95.
“Georgetown greets the eye and moves the imagination,” a Central City newspaper noted in 1867. It still does. Georgetown has preserved so many outstanding examples of its Victorian architecture that it is a historic district. Author William E. Wilson picks 200 sites for this fact-filled walking tour. In addition to a brief history, each site is illustrated with a photograph.
The best-known residence is the Hamill House, built by a mine investor. It is now a museum. Other elegant houses are still homes. John Adams Church, who operated a reduction mill, hired Robert Roeschlaub, who was responsible for many of Denver’s mansions, to design a Gothic revival clapboard house on Rose St., the thoroughfare into town. Thomas Cornish, operator of the Terrible Mine, put up a brick mansard with hot and cold running water. There were smaller houses, such as the Gothic brick Nelson house, built by a saloonkeeper. It later was turned into the Catholic rectory. And the Carpenter Gothic Hurd-Fish house became the scene of a murder. Or maybe it was a suicide.
Wilson includes commercial buildings, churches and mining structures, as well as walking-tour maps in this pocket-size booklet.
“Labels, Leadville and Lore: 1870’s-1890’s History from a Tin Can,” by Douglas H. Rhoades (15018 Three Lakes Road, Snohomish WA 98290) $34.95.
Repairing an old house in Leadville, Douglas H. Rhoades came across 70 old food cans, some dating back to 1876 and most with paper labels intact, and he was hooked. Of such stuff are books spawned.
“Labels, Leadville and Lore” is a story of the cans and bottles, buttons and assorted stuff found around Leadville that will make readers want to plan a trip to the old mining town just for a treasure hunt. Rhoades tells how he found the discarded items, then launches into the history of tin canning history. He rounds out the book with a bit of Leadville lore.
Sandra Dallas writes a monthly column on new regional fiction.
