Review by Ed Quillen
Colorado History – October 1997 – Colorado Central Magazine
Buildings of Colorado
by Thomas J. Noel
published in 1997 by Oxford University Press
ISBN 0-19-509076-4
We know of some Coloradans — the Anasazi of Mesa Verde and the Four Corners — only by their architecture, and from that, we infer trading influences, social organization, economic hierarchies, and the like.
Every building offers such tales, and Tom Noel (a history professor at CU Denver whose works range from Saloons of Colorado to collaboration on Denver: Mining Camp to Metropolis) generally tells such stories well.
Buildings of Colorado is the fifth volume of a series, Buildings of the United States; the idea is to present a representative catalog of a region’s buildings — some common, some distinctive.
Thus this book is encyclopædic — no flowing narrative, but instead a series of entries organized first by river basin, then by counties.
Since I’m thanked in the credits, I’ll provide a sample by citing the entry for one place I went with Tom when he visited Salida:
Victoria Hotel and Tavern
A typical commercial building, this two-story red brick hotel trimmed in brick and stone has a splendidly preserved corner saloon. After a 1979 renovation, the hardwood floor, pressed metal ceiling, mahogany back bar with festoons and garlands, and antique Walter’s Beer clock match fairly well a large old photograph of the interior kept on the wall to settle arguments about how things used to be.
Salida gets about a dozen entries, ranging from the Mon-Ark Shrine Club (once a “female boarding house” run by Laura Evans) to the Smeltertown smokestack (at 355 feet the tallest smelter stack left in Colorado) to the Chaffee County Courthouse: “a dentiled terracotta cornice is the icing on this yellow brick Art Deco creation.” (For those of us who don’t use words like `dentil’ regularly, there’s a decent glossary in back).
Up the river, Buena Vista boasts about half as many entries, starting the pleasant observation that “Unlike most mining towns, which did not `waste’ land on parks, Buena Vista created McPhelemy Park…a tree shaded retreat along Cottonwood Creek.”
Its old courthouse is mentioned, along with the town hall, the Lariat Saloon, the Wright Sindlinger House (“a rare Colorado vernacular example of the Second Empire style”), and the visitors’ center, built as St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church.
Leadville, befitting its historic importance, gets many entries, among them the LC&S Railroad Depot, the King House, Western Hardware, the Tabor Opera House, the Pioneer Bar (“the oldest continually operating brothel in Colorado”), and the Silver Dollar Saloon.
Every noteworthy building I could think of hereabouts is mentioned: Hartman Castle and Taylor Hall in Gunnison, Hope Lutheran Church in Westcliffe, the old courthouse in Fairplay, the Saguache Hotel.
Noel includes “ghost towns” like St. Elmo, Vicksburg, and Tincup in his descriptions, as well as newer construction, such as Vail and the Crestone religious centers. And he doesn’t confine himself to buildings — bridges, tunnels, ditches, and the like often get entries.
Building materials receive a fair amount of welcome attention. Fairplay’s Summer Brewery, for instance, was built of sandstone quarried on nearby Red Hill. An early Denver ordinance specified that bricks had to be less than 8 inches long and kiln-baked, thus outlawing traditional sunbaked adobe.
As for flaws, some lie in the nature of the book — a paragraph or two is hardly enough in many cases, and it requires a compressed style full of technical terms. That’s bearable, because most people will read only a few entries.
But there are flaws in the history. For Climax, he notes that “as the use of steel and molybdenum mining declined, this company town was dismantled.” In fact, the company town was dismantled because it was in the way of increased production 35 years ago.
Noel misses the misspelled “Westcliff” on the Westcliffe School, and says the “D&RG constructed a depot” at Winter Park in 1934, when in fact it was the Denver & Salt Lake Railroad. In Saguache, he says “the original cell graffiti remain in this cell, which once accommodated the cannibal Alfred Packer,” when in fact Packer was held in a dug-out on the sheriff’s ranch.
Those are quibbles, though — this book told me much I hadn’t known before, and made me want to look for certain interesting buildings the next time I’m in Westcliffe or Leadville.
I can’t recommend this as easy reading, but as a reference, it should be more than useful, and often you run across lines that are entertaining: “This 17-mile irrigation ditch has scarred the landscape for so long that it has been designated a landmark,” for instance, or “Although power plants are often eyesores, this one is most photogenic.”
— Ed Quillen