Alexander Joseph, Peak to Peak. Starting as early as 1966, when Jimmy Keith and his sister were young and new to exploring the mountains, his grandfather would take them to the local ghost towns. They would go to Caribou and areas outside of Idaho Springs. At that time, the history was still very much intact and were ghost towns in the true sense of the term, fully stocked homesteads and streets and cars missing only one important aspect: people. 

Jimmy Keith describes in olden days at the peak of the mining boom, eight thousand people lived in Caribou, most of whom were miners or those who supplied goods and services to the miners. Most of these miners were funded by patrons from the east coast who had invested in these miners with the hopes of getting rich with a gold or precious metal strike. 

Most of the miners found nothing and went home broke. They took only what they could carry with them, as it would be too expensive if not impossible to bring all their belongings with them. This created a moment of frozen time in the shape of old rickety cabins full of old timey stuff, populating the mountains and simply waiting for anybody who wished to find them to stumble into and step back in time. Jimmy described how he, his grandfather and his sister would step into unlocked abandoned houses with china still lining the shelves and clothes in cabinets. These homes were still set up as if somebody had just stepped out the door and would be back in a minute. These experiences of being able to see life as it was long ago stayed with Jimmy and would define the rest of his life.

After working during his teen years and early twenties selling army surplus vehicles in Wyoming and other rural snowy areas, Jimmy found himself back in the Nederland area in the early 1970s. He thought he would have the opportunity to further explore the ghost towns of his early adolescence and dreams. He was dismayed however, to find that in the few years since his grandfather had shown him these relics of a bygone era, pretty much all of what could be was ransacked. Also, many of the husks of cabins that remained were being squatted in by transients and hippies who had found their way up into the mountains.

In an effort to try to preserve as much as he could of what remained from the mining days in this mountain area, Jimmy started purchasing old gold mines. He did this not for the gold, or the mining prospects as there were none, but the antiques which lay littered atop them. Jimmy got into business selling these remnants of the past to those who understood and respected their value. He sold the machinery and other various treasures he could collect from his new properties. He also took out of commission train cars which were also filled with antiques and sold their treasures. 

Over the years, as there were fewer gold mines to buy, Jimmy focused more on the train car business. Some of the remnants of which you have most likely seen and know well as The Train Cars Coffee and Yogurt Company in Nederland and the mining museum. Also, the various houses which are made out of cabooses scattered like old secrets across the hills of Gilpin, Magnolia and other mountain neighborhoods. These are all mostly thanks to Jimmy and his railcar business.

Over the years Jimmy became friends and business associates with local miners and legends like Tom Hendricks, Harvey McCullum and Mark Smith. They helped him to store his antiques and were the only people in the area and perhaps the planet who knew how to maintain and fix these vehicles. With these men, Jimmy was able to further his understanding of and appreciation for mining history. Over the last few years while they have all sadly passed on, he came up with an idea to honor both these local legends and the history of this place as well. 

Now, using all his knowledge of antiques and his lifelong love of ghost towns as well as the people who built them, he has decided to make his own. Jimmy’s ghost town is at an unidentified, secret location, populated with memorials for his miner friends as well as relics from his many decades of local antiquing and collecting. 

“The idea is,” Jimmy says in his famous gravelly voice, “that you would ride a horse and would come upon this ghost town so that you can experience what I experienced over half a century ago.” 

Jimmy has been working on his ghost town for years and plans to continue to populate with his favorite pieces of history, mementos and homages to his personal local heroes such as the miners listed above. It is designed to recreate the old time feel of his childhood for the modern era and he hopes that all his work can stoke the feeling of adventure and wonder. He wants any lucky passerby or person in the know to experience that feeling that once stoked and has defined his career and life ever since.

(Originally published in the December 3, 2020, edition of The Mountain-Ear.)