During its peak, Leadville was the second largest city in Colorado with 30,000 residents. Compared with today’s population of 2,600, it’s amazing to think about the sheer number of people…
So much of Leadville’s fame, fortunes, and tragedies stem from its prolific gold and silver strikes. Its economic ebbs and flows mirrored mining activities and its current popularity as a…
Leadville’s well-recognized and historic red brick building wasn’t always the Heritage Museum and Gallery. Built in 1904, it was originally the city’s first library, a building famously funded by Andrew…
Located within an 1899 Victorian school building (Leadville’s original high school), the National Mining Hall of Fame & Museum has been hailed as “the Smithsonian of the Rockies” and “the…
Leadville has a vast history rooted in mining and the outdoors. Following are key events that have occurred since gold was first discovered in 1860. 1860 – Abe Lee Discovers…
The Evergreen Cemetery was established in 1879 after Leadville’s original cemetery was deemed unsuitable. It’s still used today and is divided into sections where members of various organizations and families…
Experience life as a miner with the Hopemore Underground Mine Tour, one of the last mine tours available in Colorado. Owner, and former underground mine worker, Bob Calder, takes visitors…
Elizabeth McCourt, born in Wisconsin in 1854, was noted for being extremely charismatic and beautiful. In 1877, she married Harvey Doe. Together, they moved to Central City to work the…
It’s hard to miss the “eye”—a stained glass window tucked under an arched eve—that makes the House with the Eye Museum the most curious piece of architectural history in town….
Prospectors seduced by the calls of gold and silver raced to Colorado in hopes of striking it rich. Following them were the merchants, proprietors, madams, and gamblers. Together, these new…
Molly May, one of the most influential brothel owners in the west, was born in 1850. In her twenties, she traveled as a prostitute with a performance act from Cheyenne,…
As word of the 1860’s gold discoveries in Leadville spread, boom towns rapidly sprang up, populations rose, and individual claims and large mining operations multiplied. Inevitably, railroads raced to construct…
Jefferson Randolph “Soapy” Smith was a con artist, gangster, crime boss, and saloon and gambling hall owner who rose to fame while in Denver from roughly 1879 to 1892. Though…
A host of vibrant characters has passed through Leadville, leaving stories of love, wealth, and vindication in their wake. The discoveries of gold and silver brought tens of thousands of…
At the end of the California gold rush, some prospectors came to the eastern Rocky Mountains, hoping for the same kind of success. Placer gold was discovered in Cherry Creek…
One of the west’s most fearless marshals came from a vagrant, lawless background, which probably made him better prepared to handle the trouble that fell upon Leadville during the great…
