Georgetown
The Silver Queen Of Colorado A National Historic Landmark District Of More Than Two Hundred Victorian Buildings That Never Burned, Forty Five Minutes From Denver On The Interstate. Linked To Silver Plume By The Georgetown Loop Railroad And Its Devil'S Gate High Bridge. · Georgetown, Colorado
Georgetown did not burn, which is the single fact that explains it. Mining towns across Colorado went up in flames and were rebuilt in brick or not at all; Georgetown kept its volunteer fire companies, kept its luck, and kept more than two hundred Victorian buildings, which is why the whole centre is a National Historic Landmark district and why it looks less like a restoration than like a town that simply stopped in about 1893. It was the Silver Queen of Colorado, rich enough to support the Hotel de Paris, run by a French army deserter named Louis Dupuy who kept a wine cellar and a library and was rude to people he disliked. Above the town the Georgetown Loop Railroad corkscrews up to Silver Plume across the Devil's Gate High Bridge, gaining six hundred feet in two miles of track. The line was pulled up for scrap in 1939 and rebuilt in the 1980s, and it is forty-five minutes from Denver on the interstate - the easiest historic mining town in the state to reach.
6th Street, Georgetown, Colorado, 80444, United States
A year-round town of about a thousand people, forty-five minutes west of Denver on Interstate 70. THE GEORGETOWN LOOP RAILROAD IS SEASONAL, running roughly from late May to early October plus a Christmas service, and it is ticketed with the mine tour as an add-on. The Hotel de Paris Museum and Hamill House keep seasonal hours. Guanella Pass, the scenic byway south toward Mount Bierstadt, is CLOSED IN WINTER. The bighorn sheep viewing area beside the interstate is open year-round and is busiest in winter.