Leadville, CO

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Today we ventured out into the very old town of Leadville, CO. Elevation: 10,430 feet. They call this area the Top of the Rockies. It is astoundingly beautiful. The weather is in the high 60's during the day and in the 30's at night. I got to wear my red cowboy boots today so I was a happy girl!

The first thing we did was walk the main street and visit all the shops. One of the antique shops was originally an old hardware store. The Western Hardware Store. They supplied all of the miners and local townspeople with all of their needs. They were famous for having over 1000 drawers along the wall and they still remain. They preserved it wonderfully. The floors creek when you walk on them and the ceilings are ornate. They also offer an entire wall of  penny candies. I had to dig into the MaryJanes, and they were soooo good! We also had to help the local economy, which BTW, is extremely poor, by stopping in the bakery and eating lots of brownies and these cookies called woopies. They were excellent.

We ended our main street stroll in 'the Legendary Leadville Saloon'. It is also preserved with the utmost care. All the flooring and booths, bar and telephone booth are original. I'm not sure why, but you are not permitted to  video tape inside, but you are allowed to take still pictures. It was very interesting and I can only imagine what it was like 100 years ago, with the saloon girls and the poker games and the gunfire.

We then headed up the mountain to an old silver mine called Matchless Mine. It was started by a man named Horace Tabor. He made, (and lost) a fortune from silver mines during Leadville, Colorado’s boom days. Its called the Matchless Mine because it would bring in over $2000 a day and could not be matched by any other mine.  It was very lucrative for almost 15 years but when it dried up, he was broke!  Along with his second wife and 2 children, they  moved to Denver. There he died of appendicitis and the eldest daughter. Elizabeth moved to Idaho to live with relatives. The youngest daughter took off for Chicago. The second daughters name is: Rose Mary Echo Silver Dollar Tabor. (Don't you feel badly for her when it came time to learn to write her name?)Baby Doe, Horace s wife, moved back to Leadville when he died and she was found dead of a heart attack and was frozen in her cabin in 1935.

There are other things that Tabor did also but Tommy informed me that I was becoming boring telling my stories so if you want to know more, google him! :)

On the way back to camp we noticed hundreds of tents set up like the army used to do in the civil war. When we inquired about it we were told there was a 100 mile marathon that ran through Leadville. It was pretty impressive.

I'm throwing in a picture of flowers - just because! I thought they were pretty! lol

Oh, and the ski runs that you see are from Steamboat Springs. And the picture of the lake was our campsite in Stagecoach State Park. (We made friends with our neighbors, what a surprise, and they caught trout. They gave us 2 of them. we gave them a bottle of  Jim Beam. We were both happy! It was the first time Tommy or I ever had, or cooked trout and it was incredibly good.)

Thanks for reading and have a good week.

Tomorrow we are heading down to Buena Vista and Salida. We hear really good things about these 2 towns and are excited to see them.