The Griffin Memorial Hike - Silver Plume, CO

Clifford Griffin
Son of Alfred Griffin ESQ. of
Brand Hall, Shropshire, England
Born July 2, 1847
Died June 19, 1887
And in Consideration of his Own Request
Buried Near This Spot

On Saturday, we hiked up the Clifford Griffin memorial above Silver Plume, Colorado. Griffin ran the Seven Thirty Mine on Silver Plume Mountain in the 1880s. His fiancee died the day before their wedding and to escape his grief he joined the Colorado gold rush in Silver Plume, CO. He lived in a cabin up there and played the violin every night to an appreciative audience in the town of Silver Plume below. The story ends tragically when he takes his own life in a grave of his own making after playing his last notes on violin.

There's a huge monument to him on a moderate hike above Silver Plume, and it is definitely one of my favorite hikes in the area. The hike itself is littered with debris from the mine and weaves its way above the town of Silver Plume through several aspen groves, a gulch full of avalanche damage, and over some rocky slopes. You can find more info on the hike via Hiking Colorado's Summit County (screen-caps here and here if you want to print out the info for the hike). It's a short drive from Denver - located close to Georgetown - I'd highly recommend it. Interestingly, we hiked to Griffin's memorial just one day after he died - in fact, we were there the same day that the miner's discovered his body 122 years ago.

Nevadaville Revisted.

Last weekend we took a drive on the Peak to Peak byway from Central City to Estes Park, Colorado. We made a stop in one of the closer ghost towns to Denver called Nevadaville. It's hard to believe that during the peak of mining prosperity in the area more than a thousand people lived here. Here are several then and now comparison photos.

I've posted about Nevadaville previously and the art of Andre Yi.

Nevadaville, 19001937

February 2009

Sherriff Leonard Nichols -last resident of Nevadaville (photo ca. 1931-1935)

Main Street Nevadaville, February 2009

Colorado Trading & Investment Co. ca. 1894-1898
1939

February 2009

Main St., Nevadaville, Spring 1939Main St., Nevadaville, February 2009

Black and white historical photos from the DPL Western History and Genealogy archive.

Nevadaville

Nevadaville, CO photos by Nathan Abels

Chances are you've never heard of Nevadaville, CO. I hadn't either before this last Friday when we took a short day trip along the Peak to Peak byway. The Peak to Peak byway is a road established in 1918 that was intended to connect Pike's Peak and Long's peak, but only covers the area roughly from Golden, CO to Estes Park (55 miles). It could be covered pretty quickly, but if you did that you would be missing out. Our first detour was a stop in Central City - a town far more interesting than the built-up casinos of neighboring Blackhawk, CO. From Central City, we followed a dirt road one mile uphill to Nevadaville, CO. According to Ghosttowns.com, Nevadaville was once a thriving town of 4,000 residents in the late part of the nineteenth century but as of ten years ago only six people called Nevadaville home. From the looks of it, six residents is probably a high estimate in 2008. The photos I took there (above) are not much to look at, and do the setting a bit of an injustice. The photos do show remnants fo mining operations - evidence of which can be found all over Nevadaville. The town has a very short (aprox 5 buildings) main street of sorts in which a fire house/city hall rests and a few large-windowed storefronts lie abandoned.

photos by Dolores Steele

Numerous empty structures litter the surrounding hills and large deposits of the gold-gray colored dirt from mining fill the valley. It was a strange place, and since moving to Colorado this was the fullest ghost-town we've encountered in terms of standing structures. I find these time-capsules in the mountains to be quite fascinating and I'd recommend taking the Peak to Peak byway to anyone along the Front Range. It's an easy day trip with lots to see. More of my pics from the trip can be found here.