Leadville, Part III: A Night at the Delaware Hotel

This creepy wardrobe was directly
across the hall from our bedroom.
Imagine how might look in dim light...

We stayed at the Delaware Hotel on Harrison Avenue—the main street in town both now and during Leadville's boom   years.  It's a rather eccentric place to say the least.  (Look at the lobby photos on the left!)  It felt like a place oozing with history.  If the walls could talk, they would surely tell many interesting stories...

A staircase ascended from the second
floor to another level above.
The lighting was dim even during the day. 

I kept thinking it would be the kind of place the TAPS crew would visit on an episode of Ghost Hunters.  Our room was on the second floor, with the staircase ascending to another level above.  We had a nice room.



While I never ran into Jason Hawes and his crew at the Delaware,  I did learn from a woman name Gail, who works at the hotel, that there is a regular tour of the cemeteries in Leadville.   She said that the tour guide, Roger Preddy (??sp??), is a local expert on the inhabitants of the places of the dead around these parts.  Ironic, since we came here to see if we could locate Laurie's great-grandfather's grave.  The tour would take place tomorrow afternoon at three; alas, by then we were scheduled to be in New Mexico.

Oh well, by then Laurie had pretty much determined that the grave she was looking for probably isn't in Leadville anyway, but there is perhaps a good point of contact if she ever needs to know more about the the cemeteries of Leadville and who might be buried there.