You won’t be in Breckenridge very long before you start hearing about Tom’s Baby.
Tom’s Baby wasn’t human, but few mothers could have adored their babies as much as Tom did his. This baby was the largest gold nugget ever found in Colorado, weighing 1 to 3 pounds, 7 ounces on the Troy weight scale (1 to 2 ounces per pound). It was discovered just outside this present day ski resort at a locale called the Gold Flake Mine in 1887.
The story goes that Tom Groves, an otherwise anonymous miner, took his find and caressed it, wrapping it in a blanket and cradling it like a baby as he walked into town. And Tom’s Baby soon became legend in these parts.
This was a genuine hardscrabble gold mining center for much of the 19th Century, and history here is real.
After a short while in town you might know Breckenridge heroes Tom Groves, Barney Lancelot Ford, Kitty McAdoo and William Harrison Briggle better than your next door neighbor.
Businesses, private homes and churches all boast original Western Victorian hallmarks such as false fronts, pediments and dental work, that style of gingerbread formed like a satisfying smile.
“Aspen without the glitz,” is what one local booster calls this community of 1,500 year-round residents 90 minutes from Denver. Furs and celebrities are not what Breckenridge is about. Consider earthy history.
Now it’s white gold that makes Breckenridge thrive with a ski area boasting more than a hundred trails and 18 lifts spread over four mountains. Yet residents here are proud of their gritty Wild West past and have developed it with the same eagerness in which the mountains were first shaped for skiing 35 years ago.
In Tom Groves’ time, those walking down Main or Ridge Streets would have encountered braying and breeding burros at all hours of the day, and burro barns still stand along Adams and Washington Streets. Only livestock was permitted to move about on the grass. Children played on boardwalks and the streets, and one elderly Breckenridge native recalled how he was spanked as a child for frolicking on the cushy grass.
Nowadays you will see skiers and other tourists where the burros once were, and if you are around at the right time you will find Joan Estelle or Susan Foreman leading a dozen or so bundled-up people through town. Group walking tours through the historic district are offered, and by the time the trek is finished you will feel as if you are intimately acquainted with the residents of yesterday’s Breckenridge.
Of course, there is lucky miner Tom Groves.
There is also Barney Lancelot Ford, a freed slave whose Washington Avenue cottage is now privately owned. We heard about the time he developed a mine at a time when African-Americans weren’t permitted to hold such property. Turns out that the lawyers holding the mine for Ford bilked him out of every cent it was worth. Ford eventually became a successful restaurateur and Colorado hero, and his image is eternalized in stained glass in the state capitol in Denver. Since he owned a restaurant, he never put a kitchen in his home. To this day there is none.
There is Kitty McAdoo, an ambitious woman who gave birth to 11 children in the little Greek Revival-style house at Washington and Ridge Streets. She is considered one of the first full-fledged newspaper women in Colorado.
There is saloon keeper Fred Marz, replete with bushy beard and mustache. The building that housed his saloon is now home to the Gold Pan Bar Restaurant at the corner of Main and Lincoln Streets, and the pea green tavern still has its original swinging doors.
There is William Harrison Briggle, a bank cashier whose Romanesque Revival house with the dollar bill green trim is now a museum. Inside are a piano pockmarked by a bullet hole, a relic from a miner’s boarding house, and common Victorian ornaments like framed hair art on the wall.
And there is taxidermist Edwin Carter, who as a consequence of his job died of arsenic poisoning. Carter’s home is also a museum visited on the walking tour, and in winter it’s another welcome place to hunker down and warm up.
Intrigued by wildlife, Carter maintained a collection of Rocky Mountain fauna which would become the nucleus of the Denver Museum of Natural History. The museum didn’t get all his trophies and the heads of a mountain buffalo and a deer stare blankly from walls of his home. Keeping them company on the Carter House walls are vintage photographs of old Breckenridge, including one of Tom’s magnificent Baby.
People are still making history here–at least their own history. There are three 19th Century churches tucked in the mountains, and couples find them cozy places to take their wedding vows. Then again, some weddings are performed outdoors among packed powder. In a photo of a wedding ceremony in Municipal Judge Jim Stanley’s office, you can see Sorel (snow) boots under a bride’s wedding dress.
Marriages are fast and easy. The state doesn’t require a blood test, witnesses or a waiting period. A press release calls Breckenridge the Las Vegas of the Rockies.
The Vegas of the Rockies? God forbid! But there’s little to worry about. Breckenridge is Colorado’s largest national historic district, and zoning regulations are strictly enforced.
Says town historian Rebecca Waugh, “We feel history goes beyond politics and (The Summit Historical Society has) never been an organization that could be bought. I couldn’t sleep at night knowing they’d torn up this beautiful town.”
Then again, the mountains are in a different category. They were developed in 1961, reviving what was a moribund economy. Expansion has proceeded to the point that Breckenridge became one of the first North American ski resorts to offer European-style limited access skiing in 1990 when it opened the Imperial Bowl on Peak 8. In 1992, limited access skiing was permitted on Peak 7.
Thanks to its four mountains, Breckenridge Ski area draws a mixed clientele. Peak 9, with its wide slopes, lures families while the steeper and intense Peak 8 is favored by more resolute skiers. Persons into ski cruising gravitate to Peak 10 with its long runs.
The most recent news in these parts is the proposed merger of Breckenridge and Vail ski areas. Breckenridge, along with Keystone and Arapahoe Basin, will join forces with Vail, Beaver Creek and Arrowhead. Multi-area passes to all six places are a possible byproduct of the merger, if approved by the federal government. The merger is still pending.
Other winter sports options? Blades hit the ice regularly on Maggie Pond at the base of Peak 9. Snowboarding instructors introduce novices to their way of glissading downhill. Evergreen, Colo., residents Craig and Felicia Watson have snowboarded at Breckenridge for several years.
“There’s a certain realness to Breckenridge. It’s not glitzy like Aspen or Vail with pseudo-mountain charm and doesn’t look like the same architect designed all the buildings. You can feel the history here,” offers Felicia.
The Watsons favor Breckenridge’s family atmosphere, but those who have chosen marriage here will vouch for romance. At least six businesses offer sleigh rides, and who knows how many engagements became official on a sleek sleigh pulled by two bell-bedecked horses? A Colorado sleigh ride might be the perfect activity for winter nights when a warm feeling of nostalgia settles over you and you just want to jump head first into a Currier and Ives lithograph.
That’s only fitting. When Breckenridge was thriving the first time around, Currier and Ives were still alive and producing lithographs. Any resident of that time would certainly recognize the old town today.
DETAILS ON BRECKENRIDGE
Getting there: Shuttle vans run from Denver International Airport to Breckenridge. Airport Shuttle of Colorado (800-222-2112 or 970-925-2400) charges $39 each way on weekdays, $42 on weekends; Resort Express (800-334-7433 or 970-468-7600) charges $39 each way.
Tours: Historical walking tours in winter are for groups of 10 or more. You need not be part of a civic or religious organization; just gather 10 friends or fellow tourists. At two hours the tour might be long for young children. Call 970-453-9022.
If you cannot get a group together, you can follow the self-guided walking tour detailed in the Breckenridge Vacation and Travel Planning Guide, available in town or by mail from the Breckenridge Resort Chamber (see below).
Accommodations: There are dozens of places to stay in Breckenridge. A sampling follows, all rates per room, double occupancy.
– Williams House B&B (970-453-2975 or 800-795-2975), five rooms, all private bath, full breakfast and afternoon refreshments, $95-$145; also full Victorian cottage, $175-$225.
– Ridge Street Inn B&B (970-453-4680 or 800-452-4680), six rooms, four with private bath, full breakfast, $70-$135.
– The Lodge at Breckenridge (970-453-9300 or 800-736-1607), $135-$225, packages available.
– Breckenridge Wayside Inn (a motel; 970-453-5540 or 800-927-7669), $40-$89.
– The Village at Breckenridge Resort (970-453-2000 or 800-800-7829), $145-$180 per room, studios and condominiums also available.
Dining: Breckenridge Brewery, 600 S. Main (970-453-1550), pasta, fresh fish, steaks, beers brewed on premises, entrees $2.75-$15.95.
– Cafe Alpine, 106 E. Adams (970-453-8218), grilled Rocky Mountain trout, Vietnamese stir fry, also Spanish tapas bar (appetizers and wine), entrees $14-$21.
– Gold Pan Restaurant & Bar, 105 N. Main (970-453-5499), known for Mexican-style breakfasts, bar style menu rest of day (hamburgers, hot dogs, pizza), $1.25-$6.95.
– Hearthstone Restaurant, 130 S. Ridge (970-453-1148), jalapeno wrapped shrimp, vegetable pasta, prime rib, entrees $12-$28.95.
Information: Breckenridge Resort Chamber, P.O. Box 1909, Breckenridge, Colo. 80424; 970-453-6018, central reservations 800-221-1091.
