Walking Tour
Self-Guided Walking Tour
Lake City, Colorado National Historic District
There are over 200 historic buildings in the Lake City National Historic District, representing time periods of growth and expansion in American history.
The Lake City Historic Walking Tour is made up of 34 sites with interpretive plaques. Explore them on foot, bicycle, or by car. Each of the buildings has a story of its own, but together they represent two significant periods in the American story:
Western Frontier & 1800s Mining Boom
A significant portion of the buildings were constructed in the late 1800s, during the westward expansion of the frontier and the search for new mineral wealth. Many of Lake City's residences, civic buildings, churches, and outbuildings were built at this time.
Highlights of buildings from this time period include the downtown commercial district, including rare wood-framed commercial buildings; the location of Susan B. Anthony's visit to Lake City; and, the first church built on the western slope of Colorado.
Mid-century Tourism
Another set of buildings were a part of the booming tourism industry of the late 1930s to the 1950s. Several historic motor courts, comprised of small guest cabins and central courtyards, were built during this time to accommodate visitors who braved the rough roads in their automobiles in order to make it to Lake City every summer.
Virtual Walking Tour
Note: Photos are currently not available for this virtual tour.
There are currently 34 interpretive plaques in the Lake City Historic District. Each one has detailed information, stories, and photographs.
This online tour offers a sample from each of the real-world plaques. Click on any thumbnail below to begin. A large photo tour will pop up. Hover your mouse over the left or right of each photo and you will see navigation arrows. Click these arrows to move through the tour.
Gold strike in the San Juans! Word spread like wildfire that summer of 1874, and the following spring prospectors crowded into this high mountain valley. In August 1875, the Town of Lake City, named for nearby Lake San Cristobal, was formed.
As more and more families arrived, log cabins gave way to sturdy frame and brick homes. Soon general stores, hardware stores, barbershops, saloons, and hotels lined Silver Street. Within three years, boosters claimed the town had grown to 2000 residents. The rough mining camp had become a full-fledged town—a gateway to the San Juans.
History swirled in and around the grand false-fronted buildings which formerly filled the area now known as the Lake City Town Park.
Beginning in the mid 1870s, this block was developed as Lake City's principal commercial district. By the late 1870s, this block was filled with a colorful assortment of businesses, ranging from Chinese laundries and restaurants, to banks, saloons, assay offices, barber shops, jewelry stores, theatres, and doctors' and attorneys' offices.
The block's numerous saloons and gambling halls, where revelry went on around the clock, were supposedly visited by such well known figures as Jesse James, Billy the Kid, and “Poker Alice” Duffield.
By 1915, however, Lake City's days of all-night revelry were clearly at an end. In the early morning of June 23, 1915, a fire burned the remains of the buildings in the block along Silver Street. Over time, the area was gradually developed into a park, as it remains today.
John Simpson Hough used profits from his successful mining ventures to build the Hough Block between 1880 and 1882. The building has two sections, each approximately 25 ft. wide by 100 feet deep. This building and the Stone Bank Block, which sits diagonally across the street, are the most significant features of the historic commercial district of Lake City.
The degree of craftsmanship and materials used in the construction of the building are remarkable given the fact that Lake City existed in what was at that time a remote section of Colorado. The building's plate glass windows (the largest of which measured 6' 2” by 12') and approximately 7 1/2 tons of ornamental cast iron were freighted to Lake City.