St. Elmo Ghost Town

St. Elmo is one of the best-preserved ghost towns in Colorado.  Founded in 1880, St. Elmo lies in the heart of the Sawatch Range, 20 miles (32 km) southwest of Buena Vista and sits at an elevation of 9,961 feet (3,036 m). Nearly 2,000 people settled in this town when mining for gold and silver started in Chafee County.  There were 150 patented mine claims within the area.  The Mary Murphy Mine was the largest and most successful mine in the area and recovered multi-millions worth of gold while it was in operation.  St. Elmo was originally named Forest City but was later changed because of the multitude of towns 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 same title

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 schoolhouse. The Denver, South Park and Pacific Railroad line ran through St. Elmo.  The train traveled on through the Alpine Tunnel, located nearby, which was once the highest railroad tunnel in the world, at an altitude of 11,523 feet.  It was the first tunnel to be built through the Continental Divide. Unfortunately, the line was plagued with accidents and storms during its 30-year life until, finally, the railroad company gave up on the dangerous and accident-prone tunnel. The last train came through in November 1910, which along with many mines becoming depleted and closing, created a major decline in the population of St Elmo. 

When my husband and I decided to visit the town of Buena Vista for our anniversary in October to enjoy the hot springs of Mt. Princeton in nearby Northrop, Colorado--click here--to read that post, I was also excited to add on a drive to see St Elmo.  I follow many Colorado photography groups on Facebook and have always been enticed by photos that I've seen of this town.

The Chalk Cliffs

The 15 mile Chalk Creek Drive--Chafee County Road 162--from Nathrop to St Elmo is paved in the beginning and turns into a well-graded dirt road for the last five miles. 

It was a scenic drive through the mountains, where the aspen trees were just beginning to turn their autumnal gold color.  We were surprised, as autumn color usually arrives in late September at the higher elevations in Colorado, but we had an unusually warm, dry summer which seemed to delay the change.

When we arrived at St Elmo one of the first buildings we saw was the General Store.  It is operated seasonally May through October, weather permitting, and sells souvenirs, antiques and snacks, cabin rentals, ATV and snowmobile rentals and tours, and a bed and breakfast.  We learned that all of St Elmo's buildings are owned by a private foundation that is, thankfully, concerned with stabilizing and preserving them. The community is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the St. Elmo Historic District

The School House and Town Hall are both owned and operated as museums by Buena Vista Heritage, but neither was open on our visit.

Some of the antiques for sale next to the general store.

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. It was said most of the population rode the last train out of town in 1922.

The last original residents that did remain in town were a sister and brother, Annabelle and Tony Stark, who lived in the house above. Their father and mother ran a hotel and general store and later the post office was located there. As the town deteriorated, so did their lifestyle and health, and they were removed for their safety when they were elderly, around 1958.  You can read more about them on this link.  

Please click on to enlarge

There was a poster with a brief history of St Elmo in one of the building's windows and I was able to zoom in on a photo of Annabelle feeding the chipmunks.

When I saw this sign in the town I smiled as I thought it was a cute joke...

...until multiple chipmunks ran out from beneath the piles of wood and began climbing on me, begging for a treat!   Obviously, Annabelle's chipmunk friends' descendants still live in St. Elmo and are a popular tourist attraction.

One of the seasonal cabins for rent in St Elmo.  Chalk Creek runs through the town and offers fishing opportunities, there are many hiking trails in the area and the old mining roads are now used for ATV and Jeep recreation.

We really enjoyed our visit to St Elmo--it was a step back into time, and I'm glad that efforts are being made to preserve it and its history.

We returned to Buena Vista for the night, with plans on driving over the newly reopened and refurbished Cottonwood Pass to Crested Butte the next day.  More about that wonderful adventure in my next post.

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The Boettcher Mansion on Lookout Mountain, Colorado

I'm sharing some places I visited this past summer that I did not have an opportunity to blog about,  while I am recovering from foot surgery.

Charles Boettcher (1852–1948) was one of Colorado’s most important early businessmen and philanthropists.  He owned many lucrative businesses, one of which was a cement company. He donated cement to a businessman building a road to the top of a prominent foothill west of Golden, Colorado, known as Lookout Mountain. When the property on top of the mountain became available Boettcher bought sixty-two acres and built Lorraine Lodge, now known as Boettcher Mansion, in 1917 as a summer retreat. It stands as a particularly elaborate example of the rustic foothills lodges that were popular among wealthy Denverites in the early twentieth century. (All photos in this post will enlarge if clicked on.)

Boettcher hired a popular architectural firm of the time; known as Fisher and Fisher, who designed many buildings in Denver. For “Lorraine Lodge,” the Fishers used local harvested stone and wood from the site to construct the massive retreat.  The estate, which included the main residence, carriage house, gazebo, and well house, emphasized traditional Arts and Crafts craftsmanship in its design. Large east-facing windows allowed Boettcher to take in the view of Denver, and rooms at the lodge could accommodate fifteen to twenty guests.

The grounds around the mansion are beautifully landscaped, both in the rear...

....and front.

Since the mansion was completed in 1917, many pine trees have grown and have obscured the view of Denver, but have added to the beauty of the location.

 Please click to enlarge--photos of Charles Boettcher and his granddaughter Charline Humphreys Breeden.

After Boettcher and his wife, Fannie, officially separated in 1920, the property became Boettcher’s personal retreat and for the next three decades, he stayed at the lodge each year from June to September, using it as a base for hunting and entertaining. Upon Boettcher’s death in 1948, the estate passed to his granddaughter, Charline Humphreys Breeden. Breeden raised her family at the lodge before making plans in the late 1960s to donate the house and surrounding grounds to Jefferson County for public use. When she died in 1972, the 110-acre property officially became county land.

Jefferson County built a nature trail on the grounds and opened the lodge to the public in 1975 as a combined conference and nature center. In the 1980s the entire property was managed by Jefferson County’s Open Space program, but in 1989 Lorraine Lodge was renamed Boettcher Mansion and became its own entity within the Jefferson County Parks Department. These changes were intended to help differentiate the mansion, which had become a popular conference and wedding venue, from the Lookout Mountain Nature Center, which moved into a new building on the property in the 1990s.

In the collage above you can see, what was know as the Fireside Room (left) in the mansion, is now a large banquet room that can accommodate 200 people.  Boettcher Mansion has become a popular wedding venue site

The Boettcher Mansion retains some of the original Stickley classic furnishings.

Many rooms inside the mansion can be used as meeting rooms for conferences...

...and there is also an up to date, state of the art kitchen inside for catering purposes.

There is also a gift shop in the mansion as well as many interesting framed historical photos, period newspaper clippings, and information in the hallways. In the upper right on the collage above, you can see a photo of Chief Colorow. He often roamed this part of Colorado and liked to camp on Lookout Mountain.  You can read more about him on this blog post--click here.

Boettcher Mansion and the Lookout Mountain Nature Center continue to share the open-space park at the top of the mountain, which has grown from Boettcher’s original 62-acre purchase to the 134-acre Lookout Mountain Nature Preserve.  

I really enjoyed my visit to Boettcher Mansion and learning more about its history, and I hope you did too!

Further information:

The Boettcher Mansion

900 Colorow Road

Golden, 80401

Phone: 720-497-7630

Hours

Monday - Friday

8 a.m. - 4 p.m.

(Nights, weekends, and holidays by

appointment or reservation.)

PS: I am reaching the end of my foot surgery recovery and hope to be back to wearing shoes again soon, and be able to get back to a normal schedule. We have so many wonderful places to hike in Colorado and I'm looking forward to being able to walk well again. I really hope this surgery will help to make hiking comfortable for me. Thanks for all your good wishes!

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The Stanley Hotel, Estes Park--America's Most Haunted Hotel?

As I wrote in my last post, my husband and I celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary in early October. After a special dinner celebration in a local restaurant with our family, we decided to also celebrate by spending a few days in one of our favorite places in Colorado--Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park. Estes Park and the surrounding areas were hit hard by flooding last September, when over 14 inches of rain fell on consecutive days, and the rivers swelled and overran their banks with water and mud. Tourism is one of Estes Park's major commodities, and they lost millions because the damaged roads and businesses from the floods halted one of their busiest seasons.  They worked hard under the motto "Mountain Strong" to rebuild, and we wanted to support their efforts by spending time there.   Estes Park is about 73 miles north of where we live, and to get there we drove the very scenic Peak to Peak Highway.  As you can see from the photos above, the views along this road are spectacular!  There was still plenty of autumn foliage remaining that made it even prettier.

As we drove into the town of Estes Park we saw the beautiful and historic Stanley Hotel standing on a hill in the distance.

We were excited to have a three-night reservation to stay at this hotel, and our excitement grew even stronger when we saw this enormous herd of wild elk grazing on the grass of the hotel's front lawn!

September through October is the "rut season" for elks, where elk bulls gather elk cows into harems, and aggressively guard their harems against other bulls. The bull elk for the harem that was in front of the Stanley Hotel this day was very busy herding his many cows to a place under the trees to eat and rest. He kept a close eye on them to keep them from harm.

The Stanley Hotel was built in 1909 by F.O. Stanley, the inventor of the Stanley Steamer. He had been sent west by his doctor, a few years earlier, as it was thought that mountain air would improve his health. He did feel better staying in the town of Estes Park and fell in love with the area.  He bought land from Lord Dunraven and built his magnificent hotel there--a complex of eleven buildings, some of which are still in use today.

The hotel is full of vintage photos, and historical markers.  F.O. Stanley can be seen in the collage above in the upper right.

As soon as I stepped onto the front porch of the hotel I could see why it is world renown.  Its views of the Rocky Mountains are outstanding! Longs Peak has particular prominence in the distance.  I took a short movie of the clouds passing over Longs Peak, while I was sitting on the front porch of the hotel, which you can view on my blog's Facebook page click here.

The main staircase inside the hotel.

Views from the back of the hotel, inside the main lobby, special side rooms, and the staircase.

Our very comfortable room was on the third floor in the front side section of the hotel and had three windows that looked out at the mountains and the town of Estes Park.

That evening we had dinner in the hotel's Cascades Restaurant.  Inside the restaurant, there is also a Whiskey Bar and Lounge that offers almost 600 different brands of whiskey!  The menu is American steakhouse style, with an emphasis on locally grown Colorado foods.  We had a view of the Stanley Hotel's backyard cascading waterfall from our window as we dined.  I enjoyed the Crispy Prawns as my appetizer, followed by Braised Boneless Short Ribs, while my husband had Burrata Mozzarella served in a wild mushroom fino sherry jus, followed by a Colorado Lamb Shank served over wilted Swiss Chard and Lentil Ragout.  Afterward, we both enjoyed Irish Coffee as our dessert.  It was a memorable and delicious anniversary dinner!

Some views of the Stanley Hotel at night. Our hotel room can be seen in the top right photo.

The Stanley Hotel has a long reputation for being haunted!   The hotel even offers tours that highlight all this paranormal activity. The novelist Stephen King was a guest in the Stanley Hotel in the haunted room 217, and he found the experience so unsettling that it inspired him to write his bestseller novel "The Shining."  I've always thought that The Shining was the scariest book I've ever read--it is much scarier than the movie version--and I was intrigued by the thought that this hotel could be haunted, although I really don't believe in such things.  Like all older buildings, we did hear squeaky stairs and rattling windows, but I slept very soundly all three nights, without any sight of a ghost.......
............. But wait.........look at what I found when I downloaded the following photos........

Please click on this collage to enlarge it for easier viewing. The photo on the left shows the back of Hotel Stanley's reception desk. When we were checking in I noticed that the old-fashioned room keys hanging on the wall grid behind the reception desk began to glow and flash.  I wanted to ask the reception clerk if that was a special effect of some sort, but because my husband was conversing with the clerk I did not want to interrupt and took this photo instead. Soon after I took the photo the keys stopped flashing, so I did not mention it to the clerk or my husband.  Imagine the chill I had when I finally saw this photo!  Do you see the streaky shadow to the left in the photo?  If you look closely you can make out a hand......or at least I can see that......do you?
The photo on the right is even creepier. My husband and I walked down to see the outside of room 217 --the room that is supposed to be haunted, and the room Stephen King stayed in.  I took a photo of the door and thought no more of it.  Can you see what I see in the flash reflection on the door? At a quick glance, I see a face!  Do you?  I can't say I believe in ghosts, but I did think these photos were pretty uncanny! What do you think?