Story, Kathryn Retzler
Photos, James Burke

Silverton, Colorado [Summer 2001]

Built in 1882, the present-day Grand Imperial Hotel saw Silverton through the best and the worst of times. She survived, tenaciously, sometimes precariously, from her birth into a boomtown through numerous hard winters (where the thermometer plummeted to a minus 43 degrees and snow piled ten feet deep in the streets), the Silver Panic of 1893, the Great Depression of the 1930s, and more recently, the closing of the Sunnyside, the last mine to operate in town.

W.S. Thompson, an Englishman, and his partner, Dr. S.H. Beckwith, the original owners, first envisioned the Imperial would house business and government offices. That vision, like those of succeeding owners, soon changed. At the time, there were 23 saloons in town but only two hotels. Rooms were hard to find. Liquor and luck, often capricious, flowed freely. Silverton was still a "mining camp," mighty rough around the edges. It served as a supply and social point for the more than 10,000 people (mostly men) living in the San Juans—nearly a third of them in or near Silverton.

The building went up in the blink of an eye, its exterior fitted with locally made bricks and ironwork and front windows of French glass hauled in from Denver on the recently completed narrow gauge railroad. Amazingly (and without the dubious benefit of the EPA, FDA and other permitting agencies who rule new construction today—and with all of the work done by hand), this magnificent, 3 story, 22,500 square foot, grand lady was constructed and open for business in less than a year.

The Imperial opened in April, 1883. The county took over the second floor for offices and courtrooms (soon succeed by the county library and telephone company). A 40-room "Grand Hotel" run on the European plan was slated for the third floor. (Had that claim been true, the rooms would have been jail-cell sized; today’s two-floor hotel offers 23 rooms, each with private baths.) The Grand Hotel soon spilled into the retail space on the main floor, to accommodate a lobby and dining room. But when it opened, the Imperial’s ground floor was leased to two men’s haberdashery and two hardware stores (one of them the scene of a subsequent robbery which ended in death to the robber, on the spot where the lobby is today.) In ensuing years, the first floor was home to a barber (with facilities for bathing), a drug store, the Bank of Silverton, Iowa Mining offices, the Durango Meat Company, a soda fountain, candy company, Indian Curio store, the Post Office, the Silverton Standard newspaper, a dining room and bar, the long-lasting American Cafe and nearly as long-lasting Hub Saloon, moved up from the basement and infamous location of repeated robberies, one of which resulted in a fatality and multiple injuries from gunshot wounds, mostly from bystanders rather than the bad guys..Promiscuous pistol firing (together with gambling and prostitution) was an ongoing problem in frontier towns.

During the boomdays,the block across Greene (Silverton’s main street) from the Grand was a raucous place, offering nefarious amusements 24 hours a day, seven days a week.. According to the "Silverton Democrat" of December 6, 1884, "There are 27 saloons in this mining camp, nine of them in the block opposite the hotel (Grand)... At night the uproar is hideous.... The betting and drinking are pretty heavy when the miners are freshly paid up; they revel in a beer at 14 cents a glass or two for a quarter, and get much foam and glass for the money."

People weren’t the only problem. According to that same newspaper article, "Silverton swarms with dogs who invade the hotel halls and decorously come to their meals with their masters. They contribute to the general amusements by improvising a fight, Marquis of Dogberry rules, and as many rounds as possible about every hour of the day."

It’s a wonder that the hotel guests were able to sleep at all.

To add to the general din, by 1904, the Salvation Army had taken up residence on the corner of Greene and 11th, saving souls and keeping hotel guests awake with the continuous playing of their band. Meanwhile, the action never slowed down in the saloons, dance halls and gambling dens.

Over time, the town quieted down, the gamier businesses moving a block over to "notorious" Blair Street, and eventually, due to ordinances and dwindling trade as the economy changed, moving on or closing down. (The bars and bordellos flourished into the 1950s, however, lasting until most of the big mines shut down.)

As the Town changed, so did ownership of the Grand Imperial. The succession of owners and managers included: Al Danes (who sold out his interest within a week to partner), John Melton; Mozoni and Marzetti (who opened an elegant billiard room in the basement); the Coopers (who went bankrupt during the depression); Henry Frecker (a penny-pinching skinflint who bought the building during the depression and kept the heat so low he nearly froze the guests to death); Rosa Stewart (who hung out with the shady ladies and eventually operated the Avon Hotel); Edna Freckler, Henry’s daughter, who busied herself cleaning up Blair Street and soon found herself referred to by the locals a "Carrie Nation type, a real bitch."

In 1950, Winfield Morton a Texan with visions of turning the hotel into a grand hotel for Texans, bought the building from Edna. He changed the name to the Grand Hotel, and so his Texas friends would not have to hobnob with the locals, admonished them to stay away. They did as he bid, and in a little over ten years, Morton was bankrupt. Lou Parcel, Morton’s unpaid fuel supplier, took over the Grand and subsequently sold it to a large company from Colorado Springs. They could neither make a go of it or sell it, so the hotel was slated for demolition when the next owners, Don and Dorothy Stott took over. Their timing was right. Mines were booming again, especially the Sunnyside gold mine, and the railroad was hauling in trainloads of tourists. The Stotts prospered, and in turn, sold the hotel. Two more owners followed before the Foster family, present day owners, bought the Grand Imperial Hotel in 1993.

Today it has 23 rooms with private baths on the top two floors and a lounge and the original old bar restored by the Texan who talked too much, on the ground floor.

Today, the Grand Imperial Hotel sits on a fairly quiet corner. The saloons and gambling halls across the street are all gone, as is the Salvation Army band. The rooms are clean, attractive and comfortable, decorated with Victorian furnishings and accents. The lobby, with its tin ceiling, grand piano, Victorian wallcoverings, racy painting, and rich woodwork is reminiscent of a bye-gone (except for Silverton) era. The ground floor restaurant serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, and the bar, where a ragtime piano player entertains during lunch and on weekends, is a popular meeting place. During the annual "Step Back in Time" celebration in June, the Grand hosts the highly informal "Bordello Ball."

The grand old days may be gone, but Silverton’s grand old lady lives on. And for her overnight guests, in that fleeting moment before sleep sets in, the sounds of the past linger in the old halls, the tinkling piano, spin of the roulette wheel, clinking of coin and poker chip, and over it all, the laughter and music from long-gone dance halls just across the street.