Article by Lynda La Rocca
Leadville – February 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine
ONE-HUNDRED-AND-TWENTY-FIVE years ago, no one could agree on a name for it. Today, no one can agree on a direction for its future. When it comes to Leadville, only one thing seems certain: You can’t keep this place down. And as Leadville celebrates its 125th birthday this month, the “Cloud City” is thumbing its nose at those who say the party’s over.
The frontier West’s roughest, richest silver-mining city was little more than a collection of canvas tents and roughhewn cabins at the end of 1877, when settlers — some sources say as few as 300, others as many as 1,000 — gathered together in what was then known as the “Carbonate Camp” to observe the Christmas season and plan for the future. Within days, a committee had begun the process of incorporating, establishing a governmental organization, and setting election dates. By early 1878, bickering over an official name for the place was in full swing.
“Old-timers,” like future silver baron and U.S. Senator H.A.W. Tabor and his first wife Augusta, knew the area as Old Oro City or Slabtown. But the majority felt that a lead-silver camp with such promise deserved a more impressive-sounding name than “Slabtown.” Some wanted it called Harrison, after Edwin Harrison, the president of several smelting and refining companies and a Lake County mining pioneer. Others lobbied for Agassiz, in honor of Harvard University Professor Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz, who had visited Colorado Territory before his death in 1873 and marveled at its geology.
Still others proposed Carbonateville, Cerussite, or Lead City, although the latter was quickly shot down because it had already been used to christen a town in the Dakota Territory. While a number of individuals, including H.A.W. Tabor (who has been credited with creating, funding, or improving upon nearly everything connected with early Leadville), are alleged to have suggested “Leadville,” the person who actually came up with that moniker has vanished into the mists of time and poor record-keeping.
Still, Leadville had a nice ring to it, so Leadville it was. A special election on February 4, 1878, tallied 103 voters in favor of its incorporation with one curmudgeon opposed. That same election also swept the ubiquitous H.A.W. Tabor into office as the first mayor of what is still North America’s highest incorporated city at 10,152 feet above sea level.
Thus began Leadville’s rollicking roller coaster ride of mining booms and busts, which continued until the last big bust in 1982 when the giant Climax Molybdenum Company mine discontinued active mining. While that may have cost Leadville its identity, the city never lost its spirit.
And beginning on February 7, that spirit will be on display when Leadville’s 125th Birthday Celebration kicks off with music, games, balloons, a super-sized birthday cake, and a fireworks display. This month-long party, the brainchild of local businesswoman Carrie Kroschel, will continue on subsequent weekends with a “Black Tie and Blue Jeans” dance, a play about some of the famous and infamous characters who have visited or resided in Leadville, a 1950s-style sock hop, and a golf tournament played in the snow.
“People tend to think of Leadville in terms of what it was in the 1880s when mining was booming, or what it’s been since the early 1980s when its mining industry collapsed,” explains Kroschel, who moved here in 1995 and owns The Memory Maker shop on downtown Harrison Avenue. “My idea for the birthday celebration was to let people know that there’s more to Leadville than just those two time periods, that we’re still alive and kicking, and that there’s plenty to do here all year long,” she adds.
Kroschel, who laughingly admits to having second thoughts about taking on a project of this magnitude, has been assisted by a handful of volunteers, and a $2,500 donation from the city of Leadville for the fireworks display. She’s also dipped into her own funds, which she hopes to at least partially recoup through sales of a 125th birthday commemorative coin.
Available at The Memory Maker and various locations around town, the coin has a silver-colored surface with a gold-colored rim and depicts mining and mountain scenes, along with Leadville’s elevation and birthday dates. The birthday celebration serendipitously takes place during a month when other activities not connected with the birthday festivities are already scheduled.
THESE INCLUDE A Valentine’s Day wine-tasting at the National Mining Hall of Fame & Museum, an ice-fishing tournament, and an appearance by The Second City improvisational comedy troupe. It concludes the weekend of March 1, which coincides with Leadville’s annual competition in the West’s wildest sport, that combination of horseback riding and skiing on a snow-packed obstacle course known as skijoring.
But it’s not easy putting on special events in Leadville and Lake County these days. City and county coffers are stretched to the limit, and although local businesses generously contribute what they can, festivals can cost a lot.
Yes, I know, it takes money to make money, but I suspect that a lot of cupboards in Leadville are close to bare.
And unfortunately, a similar squeeze is affecting the Leadville/Lake County Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber continues to support or sponsor long- standing, traditional community events like the Christmas Victorian Home Tour, skijoring, and the annual August Boom Days festival, but its staff is made up of only one full-time and two part-time employees who can’t take on everything.
“So we’re relying on volunteers to handle many other or first-time events right now,” explains director Carolyn Popovich. This enables Popovich, who assumed her post last June, to focus on the Chamber’s mission statement of helping to build and stabilize economic development in the community and enabling small businesses to prosper. Toward that end, she plans events like January’s seminar on obtaining health insurance for small businesses and individuals.
“We have limited resources and we want to help the people and the businesses that are already here,” says Popovich. “My opinion is that we must preserve and continue to develop what we’ve already got.”
Economically, these are hard times for Leadville, and for thousands of other American communities large and small, but Leadville has survived hard times before. This February the city celebrates 125 years of surviving, good times and bad, and it’s planning quite a party. Everyone’s invited.
Leadville’s 125th Birthday Celebration begins at 6:30 p.m., Friday, February 7, with a fireworks display at Ice Palace Park. Immediately afterwards, a community birthday party will be held at the National Mining Hall of Fame & Museum ballroom, 120 W. 9th Street, with music, games, balloons, and birthday cake. These events are free and open to the public.
From 8 p.m. to midnight, Saturday, February 8, the “Black Tie and Blue Jeans” dance will be held at the National Mining Hall of Fame & Museum ballroom, featuring music by “Revolver,” a ’60s and ’70s rock band. Free snacks and a cash bar will be available. Per person ticket prices are $5 in advance at The Memory Maker; $10 at the door.
At 7:30 p.m., Friday, February 21, Ghosts in the Graveyard, a play written by local playwright Carol Bellhouse about Leadville’s history and its famous and infamous residents and visitors, will be performed at the Old Church, 8th Street and Harrison Avenue. Admission is free.
On Friday, February 28, at approximately 3 p.m., the Lake County High School Golf Team and the school’s National Honor Society are holding a 9-hole “snow golf” tournament for teams or individuals on the skijoring course on downtown Harrison Avenue. The course will incorporate skijoring obstacle course features. It’s $5 per round.
From 8 p.m. to midnight, Saturday, March 1, there will be a 1950s-style sock hop at the Lake County High School gymnasium; $5 per person at the door, includes food; ’50s-style dress is encouraged.
For tickets or additional information, contact Carrie Kroschel at travelwithcare@hotmail.com or The Memory Maker, 460 Harrison Avenue, Leadville, CO 80461, 719-486-3718.
Lyda La Rocca lives in Twin Lakes and often works in Leadville.
