Leadville, Colorado

Colorado Trip, Part 3 of 3.

Our last full day in Colorado was spent on a day trip to Leadville, the highest city in the United States.  It was a bright sunny day (like most of our days on the trip), a bit cool, and we took Rt. 6 E to Rt. 24 S, which would eventually take us to Leadville.  Our first stop was the small picturesque town of Minturn, which the Eagle River runs alongside.  There are lots of antique shops there, and I suspect a good number of people live there that work in Vail and other  nearby resort areas. Incorporated in 1904, Minturn was named for Robert Bowne Minturn, Jr, the Vice President of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad that founded the town. It's a much quieter place (at least in the summer) than Vail and Beaver Creek, for sure.

Continuing past Minturn, Route 24 climbs, twists, and turns as we ascended along what's known as the "Top of the Rockies Scenic Byway." Indeed, it is. Our highest part may have been through Tennessee Gap at 10,424 feet.  We stopped at a few places along the way to look and take some quick snaps.  The aspens were turning gold in some places, making for some amazing contrasts on the mountainsides.   I wasn't prepared for the broad high-altitude flat areas - some of which are rangelands.  One other point of interest was the place where Camp Hale was located. Now, a broad expanse of grasses and sagebrush, the former US Army base was where the 10th Mountain Division was formed, with the aim of training troops in mountain (9200 feet elevation) and winter warfare.  It was decommissioned after the war, but the CIA used it in the 1960s to secretly train Tibetan Guerillas.  Finally, in 1965 the camp was dismantled, and pretty much everything removed.  You can get a better idea of the area from Google Earth, and it's hard to imagine 14,000 soldiers there.  Leadville must have had a lot of business, as there were few nearby places to go for a drink.  Anyway, it was a nice little stop to look and ponder it all.

Finally, we arrived in Leadville, and I was immediately struck by three things -- the colorful buildings, the clear dark blue sky, and that I wished I had an oxygen tank. Leadville is 10,152 feet above sea level, and to this Great Lakes flat-lander I might as well have been in Nepal.  I was slowly getting acclimated to Avon, but going up a flight of stairs at a Leadville antique store left me panting. People were attracted to the area of present-day Leadville by the lure of placer gold in 1859.  Later, the town was founded in 1877 by  mine owners Horace Tabor and August Meyer at the start of the Colorado Silver Boom. The town was built on the desolate flat land below the tree line. Over the years, it has been tied to mining silver and molybdenum, with the ups and down in the economy as a result.  Tourism is a big business now, but nearby mines also contribute to the economy. At its altitude, you get a good feel for alpine and subarctic environments.

Walking around town was a Kodachrome (if there was still Kodachrome) experience.  Many brightly painted buildings along the main street, and the side streets featured small houses that were gaily painted, some with bric-a-brac, like Victorian mansions. However, most of the houses were less than 800 square feet!  I was unprepared for the visual feast, and I would love to return there for a couple of days to do the place justice with my Mamiya C330 and color film.

The entrance doorway to the Saloon. How many feet have
trod through here?

antique store window

We ate a great lunch at the Silver Dollar Saloon, which dates from 1879, and is one of the oldest bars in continued operation in the US.  There are lots of memorabilia in the bar, and if you are going to be in Leadville, you'll be missing a lot if you don't stop in.  We had planned on going to the Mining Museum, but by the time we were done poking around, it was only 30 minutes until closing time, so we instead went over to the train depot, where the Colorado and Southern Railroad Station still stands.  Not only that, they have a daily tourist run on the Leadville, Colorado & Southern Railroad. That will have to wait for another time, as our day was getting late.   We left Leadville, and took a much shorter and faster Route 91 back to I-70 and Vail, and got to see the mining operations near Climax.  Some difference from Route 24!  Leadville certainly bears a return trip for a few days another time.

The next day, we drove Bev to the Denver Airport so she could return to Michigan, and Adrienne and I continued S into New Mexico.  We had a fantastic week in Colorado.

More From Berkeley

I am still developing some film that I shot in Berkeley, CA almost a month ago.  This latest roll of Ilford HP-5+ was finished up a couple of weeks ago in Arbor.  I may have stated it before, but HP-5 has become my favorite 400-speed film.  This roll, developed in the last of my remaining Kodak HC-110, came out with beautiful gray mid-tones.  The Berkeley shots were taken between 7:30 and 8:30 am, and it was great getting out of the hotel and walking around with a camera before things started getting busy.

Here are a few for your enjoyment.

TIME Machine.

By SqueakyMarmot from Vancouver, Canada  via Wikimedia Commons

Well, sort of. I am going through more boxes of prints and negatives again.  I found this lovely little packet of images from a bona-fide Time camera that I took in March, 2007 on a roll of Kodak Gold 100.  Many things have changed in town since.  The Anberay Apartments on East University Avenue were later torn down and replaced with a high-rise apartment building filled with students spending a ton of $$ to live there.  The Village Apothecary on South University recently closed. Walgreens replaced the bookstore, which was a big loss to anyone needing art supplies.

Yes, a camera is a sort of time machine, and this TIME camera did okay and recorded some images that show some things that are no longer.  The people change daily, but buildings create the landscape, and when the landscape changes, it's all too easy to forget what was once there.  

If you are not familiar with the TIME Camera, it was a dirt-cheap plastic camera made to look like something slightly better. It was given away as a premium for subscribing to Time magazine back in the 1980s.  It has a single-element  fixed-focus 50mm lens with apertures of f/6, 8, 11, and 16.  A metal weight in the bottom gives the camera more heft.    It also has a hot shoe for a flash.  That's it.  

Onward To Findlay via US 127.

A week ago, my good friend Abby and I drove down to Findlay, Ohio to attend the Film Photography Project's (FPP) 2013 Photo walking workshop. We decided to go down via US 127 and hit some small towns along the way in NW Ohio.  This post is about the sights along the way, and a bit about FPP. I have yet to finish developing and scanning my film from the trip, so what you'll see here are some digi shots and Polaroids.
US 127 ends (or starts, depending on your point of view) just N of Higgins Lake in Michigan, where it merges with I-75, and terminates in Tennessee somewhere.  We took 127 S from US-12, and were able to visit Hudson, MI, which seems to have transformed itself.  I remember driving through there about 10 years ago, and the main street was filled with dilapidated old buildings with boarded up storefronts. This time, I saw that all of those places had been repainted, updated, and most had businesses of some sort in them.  That is a good thing to see.  With the prevalence of the internet, small towns can be attractive to artists and entrepreneurs, and those upstairs lofts can be used as apartments or art spaces, etc.  Anyhow, one thing in Hudson that captured my attention was the stone arch railroad bridge that crosses Bean Creek E of downtown.  That type of bridge is a rarity in Michigan, and it was used by the now long-defunct Lakeshore and Michigan Southern RR.  The tracks are long gone, but the stone arch remains. Built in 1871, it is a reminder of the amazing workmanship that built the rail infrastructure in this country.

After crossing into Ohio, our first stop  was the city of Bryan.  I am greatly impressed at how many of these small towns that are county seats feature beautiful late 1800s county courthouse, usually in a town square of some sort.  There is a very attractive downtown movie theater (the Bryan) that is still running, which I found pleasing. We didn't walk about a whole lot in Bryan, but the Four Seasons Diner caught our eyes, and we could not resist shooting their sign.  After a little discussion, we both realized we were ready for lunch, and the diner was calling to us.  The diner used to be called Lester's and it has a very photogenic sign with a coffee cup pouring coffee...with lights.  Unfortunately is was daylight, so it wasn't lit up.  That will have to wait for another trip in the dark, I suppose.  Lunch was more than I could eat, but it was very good.  I'm not calling out this particular restaurant, but it is a common theme -- portions are way too big.  I'd pay the same for half the amount of food.  

 

Quite satiated with lunch (I didn't even bother eating dinner that night), we drove S, and found the small town of Paulding.  There is a decaying old movie theater there, but no name could be seen.  Paulding had a nice mural on the side of an old building, which seems to be a common thing in Ohio.  It's certainly one way to add some color. The main street wasn't too bad, but there was some grunge to be seen (and photographed) on the side streets.

Brumback Library

Our next stop was in Van Wert, which has a beautiful Romanesque-style public library, the Brumback Library.  The interior is as wonderful as the exterior, and I could see how spending a few hours reading the paper and and so forth in there would be a nice weekly activity if I lived there.  The downtown has a lot of nice old buildings, we saw an excellent old coffee shop sign.  A classy old hotel downtown was also quite attractive. The weather was getting colder and nasty, so we continued onward to Celina, OH.  Apparently named after Salina, NY, Celina OH is another county seat, with a lovely courthouse with large columns -- unlike the other courthouses I have seen.

A Van Wert institution

Celina seems to have a strange conglomeration of architectural styles on the same block -- perhaps it was someone's idea to recreate an old-world look in a small amount of space?  Anyhow, they also have an extant movie theater (the Celina) which is a good sign.  The town also has a fire house with a rather phallic tower out front.  I didn't look inside to see if it has 3-story fire-pole to go with it.
By the time we were done in Celina, it was time to head to Findlay, so we got onto the highway and drove up I-75 to join our fellow photographers at the Film Photography Podcast workshop.  That will be the next post, so stay tuned.  I have many more shots of the towns, and of the FPP goings-on in my Flickr account, so take a peek there.

one of the many odd Celina buidings.