Black Hawk, Colorado, down the road..literally

[kcexpress69]

1. Central City, Colorado..The richest square mile on earth.

Well, it should come as no surprise..Black Hawk was the obvious next stop on the trip, since it's literally right next door to Central City. While the towns boarder each other, the elevation drops almost 500 feet. Like its neighbor, The population at one time numbered in the thousands. While it's not a ghost town, the numbers generally range in 150-200 full time residents. Unlike Central City, Black Hawk was never a mining town, but was popular with the smeltering companies. Its fortunes increased once the railroad came through and connected with its neighbor. Today, like Central City, Black Hawk is now overrun with gambling casinos. However, Black Hawk deviates from CC due to the ease of height restrictions. You will find the obvious changes in this thread. Let's take a look!!







Looking back up the road towards Central City










I see something poking up in the background..not sure what. It's a tiny town folks!! No Skyscrapers, here!!




Literally everything is restored in this town..Not much grit to see!!













This building is obviously new. But other new buildings constructed along the old main street are not quite as obvious.










Again, nothing to see here, except the conformaty of old buildings!!













Although you can pretty much tell, the new buildings blend in pretty well with the old ones













But further down the road, the changes are blatently obvious. The big wigs came in and started building larger casinos..what are you gonna do??










Not sure what this building is used for




Again folks..Nothing...to...see..here...........Ok fine!! The worst kept secret in Black Hawk!! I guess this where the town finally threw up its hands and said "Screw it", and built the tallest structure in Colorado outside of Denver. A 30-some story Hotel. Well, this is SSP afterall!!




I got down to the intersection at the bottom of the hill and was to pretty much the end. However, there is a road that runs along the outer rim of the town that had an excellent view!! I really wished I had figured out how to use the panoramic setting on my camera. This would have been perfect!! I'm ascending up the hill now.













One last picture of the majestic Ameristar Casino Hotel. I guess they had to cut away part of the hillside to fit that thing in there!!
















Well, that's it for Black Hawk!! But before I shut it down for the night, I thought I would post a few pics of Nevadaville, which is on the verge of becoming a ghost town. It's about a mile up the road from Central City. Elevation increases by several hundred feet, and the graveled road is narrow. At one time there was a mining company up here, but it's been abandoned for probably decades. The dying town has aproximately 5 people living there..So I took the liberty of taking a few shots.






























Well, that's gonna do it, but stay tuned!! There is plenty more to see!!

[TwasBrillig]

Nice pics. Interesting that the tallest building outside of Denver is in Black Hawk. Come on, Colorado Springs! Lol.

[whatsthepoint13]

Wow, what an unusual town and region. I love the juxtaposition of the modern buildings, rustic core, and the way the town is situated literally against the mountain. I wouldn't mind visiting. It's also really cool to see (near) ghost towns, like Nevadaville. Thanks!

[eleven=11]

those are good pics
the tall building looks good , reminds me of a casino i visited in north carolina
plan on visiting soon , but im waiting till the union station construction
in denver in done.

[whatsthepoint13]

I just found out that this is the town that banned bicycling in the city limits. I'm a cyclist, so shame on them! Haha

[ColDayMan]

Thanks!

[pablosan]

A great thread. Thanks.

[texcolo]

The school on the upper street (Church St) is the Black Hawk police station.
The church on Church St is being converted into the new town hall.

I've tested concrete on the new town hall building as well as the Ameristar Hotel.

Central City, Black Hawk and Cripple Creek are the only legal gambling spots in the state. They were created because the three towns were on the verge of going the way Nevadaville did. In fact, the city of Black Hawk owns half the houses you see on the hillsides, and are in the process of doing all the exterior repairs, and then selling the properties to homeowners at a discount. Black Hawk has barely a 100 actual residents.

What makes things even odder is that Central City and Black Hawk are in Gilpin County, and Cripple Creek is the only town in Teller County. So, not only were the towns threatening to become ghost towns, but the counties were on the verge of becoming ghost counties.

[kcexpress69]

Nevadaville has a small write-up on Wikipedia..At one time the town had over 1000 people in the 1880s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevadaville,_Colorado

[mr1138]

I love all the mine tailings in this area, even though I know they are in fact TERRIBLE for the environment. It's so spooky to see the decaying remnants of 19th century mining operations just sitting there rusting away, and to know that they are the legacy of the industry that built Colorado. At the same time those big yellow hills are highly contaminated, as can be seen from the lack of any vegetation successfully reclaiming the soil.

[xzmattzx]

Nice pictures. That highrise doesn't blend in well, but then again, an anomalous skyscraper can be interesting to discuss.

[Strange Meat]

Originally Posted by mr1138

I love all the mine tailings in this area, even though I know they are in fact TERRIBLE for the environment. It's so spooky to see the decaying remnants of 19th century mining operations just sitting there rusting away, and to know that they are the legacy of the industry that built Colorado. At the same time those big yellow hills are highly contaminated, as can be seen from the lack of any vegetation successfully reclaiming the soil.

I don't see what's so spooky about it.

But yeah it's definitely not good. A lot of mines aren't even depleted, but the cost of cleanup prevents changes in ownership.

Contaminated isn't really the right word, either. A lot of it is just chemical leaching of stuff that was previously locked up in the rocks. So it was always there, just never was able to be exposed to the snow, rain, and air. But still, not good. And what came out of our mountains helped build the nation, not just the state.

You can find mines all over. They're fun to hike around, and if you know what you're doing, you can find some cool minerals.

[AJW]

Wonderful shots. It all looks very quaint (?) and beautiful, until that Casino hotel popped up.