Gold Hill Inn - Gold Hill, Colorado - Pubs and Inns on Waymarking.com

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Gold Hill Inn - Gold Hill, Colorado

in Pubs and Inns

Posted by:  Big B Bob

Assisted by:  boB B giB

13T E 465103 N 4434863

n 1989, 47 buildings, including the Gold Hill Inn, were formed into the Gold Hill Historic District and placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

From The Gold Hill Inn website:

In January 1859 a group of prospectors panned & dug their way up Four Mile Creek looking for traces of gold. As they approached what is now the town site of Gold Hill, they discovered the first real proof that their search was profitable.
The town site began to grow, upon the formation of Mountain District #1 Nebraska Territory. First, the miners built a settlement of log houses and shacks, followed by the service buildings, school, stores, and boarding houses. In 1872 the Wentworth Hotel, a three-story luxury log building, was constructed with the idea of attracting tourists to the town.
The Wentworth Hotel hosted many early personalities such as Clarence Darrow and Eugene Field
who wrote several poems about Gold Hill including, " Casey's Table D' Hote ".
In 1920, the hotel became the Bluebird Lodge, and was run as a private vacation spot for women from the Chicago area who were teachers, nurses etc…. Mrs. Sherwood was the original creator and was a protégé of Jane Addams of Hull House and also a humanitarian. The vacation spot became so popular, that in 1924 a dining hall, also log, was needed, and built next to the Bluebird Lodge. By the late fifties the "single" vacation was no longer desirable or necessary since the "rights" of women had improved.
Many of the women had acquired their own cabins in Gold Hill.
In 1962 the hotel and dining hall was bought by Barbara and Frank Finn from the Holiday House Association.
The dining hall became the Gold Hill Inn and the adventure began.


From Wikipedia:

Gold Hill is a census-designated place (CDP) in Boulder County, Colorado, United States. The population was 210 at the 2000 census. This settlement is located to the northwest of Boulder, perched on a mountainside above Left Hand Canyon at an elevation of 8,300 feet. Originally a mining camp, it was the site of the first major discovery of gold during the 1859 Colorado Gold Rush and remained an important mining camp throughout the late 19th century, with a population approaching 1500 at its height, before falling into decline. It has been revived somewhat in recent years as a quiet isolated haven, with no paved streets, but easily accessed by dirt roads. The town contains numerous historic wooden structures, some restored in recent years, as well decaying ruins from its mining heyday. It has a small museum and two-room schoolhouse, the Gold Hill School, which since 1873 has been the oldest continuously operating public school in Colorado. Other businesses include a General Store and a restored inn listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The town is laid out on a small grid of dirt streets.

Gold Hill is accessible from nearby Left Hand Canyon Road via Lick Skillet Road, the steepest county road in the United States. Easier approaches to Gold Hill include Sunshine Canyon Road from 4th and Mapleton in Boulder, Gold Run Road from Salina (on Four Mile Canyon Road), and Gold Hill Road from the Peak-to-Peak Highway (State Highway 72) south of Ward. All of these roads are susceptible to heavy snows during the winter which at times render Gold Hill inaccessible to vehicles not equipped with chains or four wheel drive.

Gold Hill is sometimes labeled a ghost town, which is an inaccurate designation. Gold Hill is part of unincorporated Boulder County, and while it does not have a municipal government, it does have an active town meeting with elected officials.

The community is located above Gold Run, the first lode discovery of gold in Colorado (at that time the area was part of the Nebraska Territory) on January 15, 1859. The discovery occurred nearly simultaneous with prospecting in Gregory Gulch and Clear Creek, but these latter discoveries were not exploited until later that Spring. On March 7, 1859, the Gold Run discovery became the first mining district in region (named either the Mountain District No. 1, Mining District No. 1 of the Nebraska Territory, or the Nebraska Gold Hill Mining District, according to various historical sources). Word quickly spread among miners in the region, prompting a flood of new arrivals and the establishment of Gold Hill as the first permanent mining camp in present-day Colorado. By autumn, a quartz stamp mill was erected at the base of the hill, the first such piece of equipment in the region, one that had been transported by ox cart westward over the Great Plains. The first productive vein was the Scott, followed quickly the Horsfal, Alamakee, and Cold Spring. Nearby placers were also worked for the gold in stream beds.

By 1861, the year of the organization of the Colorado Territory, the surface deposits of gold in the vicinity of the town were largely played out, resulting in a temporary exodus of prospectors and a population decrease. The town was somewhat revived later that year by the construction of the Hill smelter at nearby Black Hawk, allowing the treatment of lower-grade ores.

The discovery of tellurium in the area in 1872 prompted a second boom, bringing the population to nearly 1000 once again. At its height, the town had a newspaper and number of hotels, including the Mines Hotel, built in 1872 and recently restored as summer tourist destination. The Mines was immortalized in verse by poet Eugene Field, who stayed at the hotel while working as a newspaper man in Denver. The town population dwindled in the early 20th century as the mining tapered off. The town has experienced two major fires in its history, but it nevertheless retains many of its historic wooden structures.

Real Ale: no Bar Food Available: yes Restaurant: yes Children Allowed: All areas Dogs Allowed: no Garden: no Accommodation: yes Beer brewed on site: no Website: [Web Link] CAMRA Listed: Not Listed General comments: Not listed

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Date Logged Log User Rating   07/29/2012 kaiwarrior visited it