Leadville's marvel was hot - until it melted

By Joe Garner

It was one of the most enthralling buildings ever constructed in Colorado - until it melted.

Leadville's Ice Palace turned to slush when spring came in 1896, but it still shimmers in the imagination, a classic from bygone Colorado.

Covering about half the area of the state capitol grounds, the 5-acre ice-block castle stands in paintings and models as a symbol of Leadville's audacity as one of the richest, rowdiest mining camps in the old West.

``They say that when the sun shone through the ice, it looked like 1,000 sparkling lights,'' said Tony Fox, chairman of a committee that failed in its attempt to build a scaled-down version of the ice palace for its centennial in 1996.

Visitors to the original Ice Palace wandered through the translucent maze, which featured a restaurant, a dance floor, a skating rink and Colorado products displayed in ice blocks.

The castle's inevitable demise in spring's thaw seemed to parallel Leadville's ongoing troubles. Mines surrounding the two-mile-high town closed over the decades, leaving Leadville down at the heels while some other mountain towns resurrected themselves as ski resorts.

``I would do anything to go back 100 years,'' Fox said. ``Unless we build one again, we'll never know what that looked like.''

All that was built in the centennial winter was a facade, for $10,000 in donations, with the twin towers and arched doorway of the original. The ice blocks were ordered from Denver, delivered in a refrigerated truck, erected with a forklift and dismantled in about three weeks.

The committee had envisioned a $1-million ice castle, maybe one-fourth the size of the original. It would be the centerpiece of a winter carnival to draw visitors to the mountain town 100 miles west of Denver that once was the state's second-largest city.

Although the 1995-96 campaign fell short of its goal, the community effort paid respect to the turn-of-the-century craftsmen whose pioneering efforts have yet to be duplicated.

No one in Leadville dreams any more about another ice palace, given the realities of cost, building permits and liability insurance for the public to go wandering under ice ceilings.

``My understanding is it still is the largest ice palace ever built,'' said Gloria Cheshier, executive director of the Leadville-Lake County Chamber of Commerce. ``Imagine the style of the people 100 years ago even to dream they could do it, and then to build it.''

Of course, there was a glorious gimmick: Tourists would rescue the town's flagging economy after a collapse in the prices of silver and other minerals.

Leadville was born after fabulous gold strikes in 1860.

For two riotous decades, fortunes made in the morning were squandered by midnight in the saloons, gambling dens and brothels.

Leadville's decline began in 1881, when some of the largest, richest mines began playing out after years of exploitation. Banks failed, mining nabobs decamped to Denver, sporting life seemed more lucrative elsewhere and fires consumed rows of the town's wooden structures.

Repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act and the depression of 1893 hastened the end of the silver era.

``Those were the days of panic and gloom for Leadville,'' rumbled the Herald Democrat, reviewing the events of the year. ``Ruin and bankruptcy stared every mining man, every smelting man and every businessman in the face.''

As the winter of 1895-96 approached, desperate townspeople proposed a mammoth ice castle to draw sightseers, create jobs and restore the town's shaken confidence.

The Ice Palace, usually photographed or painted gleaming in the mountain sunshine that eventually consumed it, opened Jan. 1, 1896. It closed March 28, even though skaters were able to twirl on the ice rink until June.

For the three months the ice palace was open, tourists flocked to Leadville to see the marvel that was part exhibition hall, part carnival, part state fair and part community center.

Despite special trains filled with visitors, the ice palace was a financial disaster for its investors, so they abandoned plans to build one each winter, according to the history Leadville's Ice Palace - A Colossus in the Colorado Rockies.

Leadville has teased itself ever since with the idea of a second ice palace.

``We're desperate out here,'' said city council member and former mayor Bob Zaitz. ``It's still the idea of promoting tourism. We've got more people living here now, but it's only because they can't afford to live in Vail or Summit County, where they work.''

For years, some townspeople have envisioned constructing a year-round conference or visitors center that could be coated with an ice veneer each winter. Others describe a conference center or visitors center built of glass bricks that would shimmer like the ice palace.

``There's no mention of another ice palace,'' Zaitz said. ``To build something out of ice would be a mistake. You'd spend all that money, and it would melt.''

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ICE PALACE FACTS