Black History Month has a special meaning in Gilpin County, where Lincoln Hills was for decades the premier vacation spot for African Americans who were all too frequently Jim-Crowed out of other recreational opportunities.

Judge Gary Jackson, a retired attorney and Senior Judge of the Denver County Court, is himself, along with his family, part of the history of Lincoln Hills. While he will be making a presentation at the February 15 meeting of the Gilpin County Commissioners, we thought we’d make a start on his history – and that of Lincoln Hills and Wink’s Lodge – with the personal material he shared with us.

In 2020, the Gilpin County Historic Preservation Commission developed a report that traced the history of Lincoln Hills in the process of evaluating for landmark status Zephyr View Cabin, built by Jackson’s great-grandfather. That history places Jackson and his family in the middle of the vital narrative of Black history in our area. Zephyr View cabin was designated an historic building by Gilpin County on November 17, 2020.

From the HPC report: “One of the selling points [for Lincoln Hills] was that African Americans would not only have a chance to take advantage of the beautiful scenery and mountain recreation activities (something denied to them at other resorts in Colorado and the Rocky Mountain West), but they could also own their own property and build cabins. While some purchased lots outright as low as $40.00 per lot, others were able to buy on an installment plan, with $5.00 down and a $5.00 monthly payment.

“The ability to own property outright was an extremely attractive benefit of the Lincoln Hills lots. Property ownership is recognized as an important element of gaining entry into the middle class, as it increases not only personal but family wealth, thus benefiting future generations within a family.

“This was an added benefit to the ability to vacation free from discrimination. Although Denver’s African American citizens were economically better off than other larger cities, a very active branch of the Ku Klux Klan was active in Colorado in the 1920s. Even though an advertising brochure from the mid- 1920s noted that Lincoln Hills was “A Contribution to the Great State of Colorado with her fair laws that benefit all,” not all of the state was welcoming to African Americans. Lincoln Hills provided not only a respite from the city, but from the pervasive Jim Crow laws as well.”

Jackson’s family history started with his great-grandfather, William Pitts, the son of a slave master and an enslaved mother, who first came to Colorado in 1919 to visit his son recovering from a war injury at the VA hospital in Denver. Pitts was so enamored of the location that he bought property in North Cherry Creek and in Lincoln Hills.

Though born into slavery, Pitts had become literate, and had learned carpentry. Settled in Colorado, in 1926 he wrote to family who had migrated to Chicago that he would build them a home in Cherry Creek and Lincoln Hills if they would only move to Denver.

The Zephyr View cabin in Lincoln Hills took three years to build, from 1926 to 1929. When completed, it was located at what is now 31 Pitts Place, at the corner of South Beaver Creek Road, which was then the northern border of Lincoln Hills. Pitts’ nearest neighbor was Sam Cary, “a Black lawyer who had moved to Colorado from Kansas in the 1920s and practiced law in the Five Points area of Denver.”

Pitts then helped the Cary family to build their cabin, “as well as several of the cabins of Wink’s Hamlet, including the Wink’s Panorama Lodge and Wink’s Tavern.”

Depression economics, combined with Jim Crow policies that affected mortgage lending, meant that fewer than 17 cabins were built in the Lincoln Hills subdivision. The prominent structures in the area were the Camp Nizhoni Administration building, Wink’s Panorama Lodge, the Tavern, and his complex of rental cabins.

Although Black vacationers came to the Lodge from all over the country, travel was difficult. Trains would bring families to Denver, but the auto trip up to the mountains was by single-lane dirt roads. Judge Jackson remembers that Wondervu was “a Jim Crow town,” so Black travelers had no place to stop for gas or groceries from Denver to Pinecliffe.

In 1936, Jackson’s mother, Nancelia Jackson, attended Camp Nizhoni, the Black YWCA camp, next to Wink’s Lodge. She remembered it, and recorded it in her diary, as “a glorious experience.” The camp was located at Phillis Wheatley Way and Pactolus Road.

Jackson notes that, “Lincoln Hills was the only Black-owned recreation area west of the Mississippi from 1922 until 1965. It has a significant place in American history because of the courage and vision of the Black ownership, but also because the white people and governmental system of Gilpin County were welcoming to the Black residents and visitors.” He goes on to say “I have photographs and literature that describes up to 5,000 Black people who would recreate in Lincoln Hills from Memorial Day to Labor Day.”

At Zephyr View cabin over the years, some relatives enjoyed their honeymoons. There were memorial events, and social gatherings for the Black ski club and the “Sippers N Sliders.” The Sam Cary Bar Association, the association of Black lawyers and judges, met there, holding legal retreats. Jackson himself studied for his bar exam there in 1970. In 2008, the cabin held a gathering of delegates from across the country for the Democratic National Convention that selected Barack Obama.

Jackson summarizes, “Lincoln Hills and the Zephyr View cabin have been a shelter from harsh times and an oasis for Black people and our family. To me, residing in Zephyr View Cabin is an element of the American Dream for the Pitts/Scott/ Jackson/Elbeck family.”