By William Korn Leadville’s preeminence amongst the mining camps of the High Rockies attracted adventurers and opportunists from distant places including a significant population of Jews, many of whom were recent immigrants from western and central Europe. Predominantly arising from a culture of peddling and small shops, Jewish merchants became an important element in Leadville’s business district along Harrison Avenue. Enjoying the general prosperity of the boomtown, the Jewish community was sufficiently established by 1884 that it was able to commission the construction of a proper place of worship: the Temple Israel synagogue. [InContentAdTwo] Reflecting the assimilationist aesthetic of the ...
