GILPIN COUNTY – On Saturday, October 4, 2025, visitors to Lincoln Hills were treated to a rare experience that combined history, nature, food, and art into one unforgettable afternoon. 

The guided tour of Winks Lodge offered a look into one of Colorado’s most important landmarks of Black heritage, followed by a community lunch and a whimsical performance by the Central City Opera.

Walking through living history

Program Manager Madi Shaheen began the day by welcoming the group and introducing the site’s dual mission of education and preservation.

“Our goal here is to educate, and we get to use this amazing space, which is a historic landmark as well as our living learning lab,” she said.

Shaheen explained that the tour would begin with a short hike through the grounds, making stops at several restored structures while sharing stories from Lincoln Hills’ past. 

Founded in the 1920s, Lincoln Hills was the first Black-owned, Black-operated resort west of the Mississippi River.

It was envisioned as a sanctuary for Black families during an era of segregation. The 100-acre property became a haven for community gatherings, youth camps, and cultural exchange.

Leading the historical portion of the walk was Anthony Gesford, a master’s student in environmental science at CU Denver. Gesford began in May and has led about thirty tours this season.

“This land that we are occupying today was once occupied by several Indigenous groups, the Cheyenne, the Arapaho, and the Ute,” he told the group. “They were stewards of the land here. They took care of it really well, and they did some hunting, fishing, stuff like that up here in the summertime.”

By the early 20th century, Lincoln Hills had transformed into a bustling mountain retreat. Among its most prominent figures was Obery Wendell “Winks” Hamlet, who, along with his wife Naomi, helped build the community’s heart, Winks Lodge, completed in 1928.

Built from locally sourced stone and timber, Winks Lodge became known for its distinctive architecture, panoramic porch, and home-cooked meals served by Winks’ later wife, Melba, who was famous for what guests called “the best barbecue west of Kansas City.”

In 2024, Winks Lodge was officially designated as a National Historic Landmark, marking the first such recognition in Colorado to honor Black history.

Tavern with historic sign

The first stop on the tour was a weathered structure with a faded historic sign, once part of the vibrant life of Lincoln Hills. 

Originally built as a tavern, the building served as one of the earliest gathering places for guests traveling up from Denver. 

At a time when Black travelers faced strict segregation laws, Lincoln Hills offered a safe and welcoming stay for Blacks and interracial couples as well.

Only two hotels in Denver would allow Blacks to rent rooms and were often full, so those in need of accommodations would travel by train from Five Points to Lincoln Hills.

Visitors would hop off nearby and make their way to the tavern, where they enjoyed dancing, dining, and even ice cream, a rare treat at the time.

“So this was established as a kind of a sanctuary, and it was inclusive for anybody. As long as you were respectful of other people, you were welcome here,” said Gesford.

 Though time and the elements have weathered its exterior, the cabin still symbolizes the hospitality that defined Lincoln Hills in its heyday.

The tavern will become a welcome center, following renovations.

"Eventually, this building is going to, hopefully by 2030, be turned into a welcome center for Lincoln Hills. So it'll be the drop-off place and where we'll have different artifacts from back in the day and stuff,” Shaheen said.

Orange Cabin

Along the trail, we stopped at the Orange Cabin, the first structure built by Winks and his brother Clarence when they arrived at Lincoln Hills. 

Using locally sourced wood and stone, the brothers designed it in Winks’ signature architectural style, which featured wooden shingles, a wraparound porch, and log posts. 

The same design elements can be seen throughout other cabins on the property, giving the community a handcrafted look.

Jennie Mae Rucker Schoolhouse

The group also viewed the Jenny Mae Rucker Schoolhouse from a distance, a rebuilt replica of the one-room school where girls from Camp Nizhoni, a YWCA camp for young women of color, once studied. 

At the time, girls of color were not allowed to go to the YWCA camps in Golden, so Phyllis Wheatley established this safe haven in the mountains.

Nizhoni means "beautiful" in Navajo, said Gesford. “This camp was established for young girls of color to come here and learn about outdoor education, religious studies, science. They would do a bunch of different activities here.”

The camp ran from 1925 to 1947, offering lessons in outdoor education, science, and leadership when other YWCA camps barred Black participation.

Honeymoon Cabin

Further up the trail sits one of the most intimate and charming structures on the property, known as the Honeymoon Cabin. 

Built by Winks Hamlet at the request of legendary performer Lena Horne, the one-room cabin features a single twin bed, a wood-burning stove, and a small writing desk lined with books—truly a “honeymoon” suite.

Simple yet elegant, it reflects both Winks’ signature rustic style and Horne’s love for the peace and beauty of the mountains. 

The cabin was a private escape for the star, tucked away among towering pines, and remains one of Lincoln Hills’ most personal connections to the artists, writers, and musicians of the Harlem Renaissance.

Winks Lodge

As we approached Winks Lodge, the guides invited us to imagine a summer in its heyday, when jazz greats and writers such as Duke Ellington, Lena Horne, Count Basie, Zora Neale Hurston, and Langston Hughes would visit to relax between performances. 

A cast-iron dinner bell still hangs from the corner of the porch, an enduring symbol of hospitality. Melba Hamlet would ring it to let guests know that lunch or supper was ready, often serving homegrown vegetables and fresh fried chicken from the coop out back.

The coop, crafted from the awning of the Denver Theater, showed how resourceful the couple had been in running their mountain bed-and-breakfast. 

“It’s just another example of how innovative and repurposeful Winks was in his construction,” said Gesford. “Even using an old car to repurpose it into something else so it doesn’t go to waste.”

The remnants of the car, which had a working engine at the time, were likely repurposed as a generator or as part of a sawmill setup to support on-site building projects.

Winks Lodge is planned to become a walking museum by 2030, once evaluation and preservation work are complete.

Finding connection in the forest

We concluded our hike at a stone fireplace built in the 1930s by the WPA, the Works Progress Administration, where Shaheen led a short mindfulness activity among the towering pines. 

We were told to close our eyes, take deep breaths, and  “find a tree that you may feel like is inviting you.”

As I leaned against a slanted ponderosa, I responded with enthusiasm, “Already on it.”

“They’ve been around for a while,” she told us. “They’ve heard things, they’ve seen things. 

Many described feeling peaceful and connected to the land, a reminder of the refuge Lincoln Hills once provided to its guests nearly a century ago.

Lunch and a musical menagerie

After the hike, we gathered for a tasty lunch of taco salad or burritos, chatting in the outdoor classroom before the opera performance.

The Central City Opera took the stage with a playful program called A Musical Menagerie, a family-friendly concert of songs about animals. 

Performers sang in multiple languages, using stuffed animals as props to bring the stories to life. Children giggled as they learned words like “Fischlein” (“little fish” in German) and “Le Colibri” (“hummingbird” in French).

From a sloth’s slow serenade to a humorous ode to a “spider in the bath,” the program invited young listeners to view music as a form of storytelling and to explore opera in a joyful, accessible way.

Voices of the next generation

Among the crowd were siblings Sustoria and Jhareth Miller, students who joined the tour with their mother, a Lincoln Hills staff member.

“It was pretty cool,” Sustoria said when asked about the opera. “People can throw their voices so far, and so high.”

Her brother Jhareth added, “I learned that people are sometimes very loud.” Both said they’d be interested in going to another opera someday.

When asked their favorite animals, the answer was unanimous: cats.

It was their first time experiencing live opera, an introduction filled with laughter, stuffed animals, and amusement.

Preserving the legacy

Today, Lincoln Hills Cares carries on the legacy of the resort’s founders through environmental education, youth programs, and public tours. 

As Shaheen explained, “We are going to be opening up a lot more public tours in the future. This is kind of like the beginning of something that’s going to get really big, we’re thinking, especially with Winks Lodge becoming now a National Historic Landmark.”

As Shaheen reflected while gazing at Winks Lodge, “There’s an energy of happiness here. There’s this energy of just magic that I feel, and you can feel it too.”

With tours like this one, Lincoln Hills will continue to be known as a haven of culture, community, and recreation in the Rocky Mountains.