Leadville
AKA the 'Cloud City' is at about 10,200 ft. elevation and the highest incorporated city in North America. It was once a rough and rowdy mining town with a population of 30,000. It went through a few mining booms and busts: gold, silver, zinc, and molybdenum (the most recent). Now we're at around 2,800 population.
Leadville is a charming little town with character (and characters!). Compared to the resort area towns such as Silverthorne where you may only see your neighbors a couple times a year (70% of Summit County residences are second homes), Leadville is a true community.
We love being five minutes from the middle of nowhere. There are old mining and logging roads all over Lake County so we have lots of places to explore. The winters are long up here: there's usually snow on the ground from the end of October through May.
Leadville Prose
From Salt Lake City one travels over great plains of Colorado and up the Rocky Mountains, on the top of which is Leadville, the richest city in the world. . . They are miners—men working in metals, so I lectured them on the Ethics of Art. I read them passages from the autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini and they seemed much delighted. I was reproved by my hearers for not having brought him with me. I explained that he had been dead for some little time which elicited the enquiry ‘Who shot him?’ They afterwards took me to a dancing saloon where I saw the only rational method of art criticism I have ever come across. Over the piano was printed a notice: ‘Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best .’
Impressions of America
Oscar Wilde, 1882
