Today Paul got up at some ungodly hour and missed breakfast so he could go to Copper Mountain where he wanted to attend a ski clinic. I arose at the usual hour and ate breakfast! I thought it would be a good idea to rest my knee today.
Later in the morning I went out to take some photographs round the town. There is an old railway engine near the Ice Rink which I really wanted to photograph. The railway arrived in Breckenridge in 1882. South Park & Pacific Railroad Company laid narrow gauge railway tracks over what is now Boreas Pass Road. Narrow gauge is apparently cheaper to build and easier if the route twists and turns. The town relied on the railway, but with the decline in mining, the railway was not profitable and closed in 1937. Today you can view the original narrow gauge railway cars, including a rotary snowplow, an engine, a coal tender and two boxcars. This is the rotary snow plough from the back - I have no idea why I didn't take a decent photo from the front of it, I'll have to try again some other time.
The rotary plough is a circular arrangement which you may be able to see sticking out sideways at the front of the rail car. It was like a big circular fan - it had, at times, to cut a way through many feet of snow.
Engine No. 9 below is apparently a good example of a late 19th century steam engine, built in 1884 and in use until 1937.
You can see it has a wedge shaped snow plough on the front. It also has a special smokestack, installed in 1917, to catch sparks and cinders and prevent fires along the track.
At the nearby Ice Rink, there is an interesting sculpture.
The snow was several feet deep around it, so I failed to get near enough to read the plaque and see what it represents.
I took the bus into town and looked at shops before having lunch. Then I went to the Welcome Centre which is also a museum. I need to go back there, there's a lot more to see. However, I had a walking tour of some of the historic buildings, which was fascinating. There are quite a number of buildings dating from the 1880s and 1890s, some on Main Street and others up the hill behind it. This is one of the oldest, dating from 1880, on Main Street.
Main Street was so busy, with it's being Spring Break and warm weather, it was almost impossible to take photographs because there were so many people and so much traffic. I did find a quieter spell to photograph this old building.
You can see it's the 'Gold Pan Bar'. Apparently, I need to look inside too, it has many original features, but there wasn't time today.
We walked up the hill to Ridge Road, where there were also interesting old buildings. This was one of the original banks; it was called the Exchange Bank.
The lady outside is the tour guide, who leads the walk.
Nearby was a building that was originally an assay office, where the miners took the gold they found.
This is the office where the biggest nugget ever found in the area, Tom's Baby, weighing 13.5 lbs, was taken to be assayed in 1887. The building was recently a restaurant, but is currently for sale.
Further along the road is the house that belonged to one of the foremost citizens of Breckenridge around 1900.
It's the big blue one you can see on the corner. It has had the windows changed, and a strange circular verandah built on the left, but is otherwise substantially the same. When this solid citizen's son grew up, he ordered him a house in kit form from the Sears Roebuck catalogue. It's the little yellow one on the left of my picture. It isn't very beautiful, but I just loved the idea of ordering a house kit from a catalogue. I wonder if you can order one on the Internet today? I know you can buy a house in kit form today - I watched it on 'Grand Designs' but I think the buyers on the programme went to Germany to see what they were getting, they didn't buy it from a catalogue.
The walk lasted from 2.30 to 4, and then I walked back to the Inn for tea, being quite tired.
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