Georgetown Things to Do

Hamill House is a Gothic Revival-style building. Once the home of the town's most famous silver baron, William A. Hamill. The house, completed in 1879. The museum is filled with 19th century furnishings and the grounds are lovely.

You simply can't leave the area until you drive Guanella Pass. I would place it in the top 10 scenic drives in the state. The pass isn't cleared in the winter months, so check that's it's open and weather conditions are good at the Georgetown visitor center before beginning. This is about a 22 mile drive, but leave yourself at least an hour. The are steep and winding and you're often sharing the road with hikers, mountain bikers, horseback riders, ATVs, etc. It's easy to locate, just follow the signs; they're posted all over town.
The drive:
*Roughly 1 mile up, an awesome bird's eye view of Georgetown
* Cabin Creek Pumped Storage Hydroelectric plant
* Clear Lake - fishing, trails, camping available - four-wheel drive road Forest Road 248 in the area, leads to the ghost town of Waldorf
*Reach the 11,666 foot summit - lots of trails here
*Duck Lake on the right
*enter Geneva Creek Canyon - lots of camping sites
* Drive ends in the small town of Grant

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Not just a museum, this is still Georgetown's primary power source. It was built in 1900, and was designed to harness water power. It used steam power briefly, but that was discontinued. Today, the plant has two water-powered generators, using water from the reservoir about a mile away. Its maximum capacity is about 1.6 megwatts of AC power.

Visitors can see the machinery at work, and question the docent. This is the only plant of its type that I've seen still in operation.

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While visiting Georgetown, you might just take an hour or so to explore its historic downtown. This is one of Colorado's most picturesque towns, with many examples of 19th century Western architecture.

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Adolphe Francois Gerard was a French immigrant who came to the US shortly just after the Civil War. Joining the Army, he was shipped to Wyoming, where he deserted. Changing his name to Louis Dupuy, he became a miner in Georgetown.

An injury ended his mining career. So he scraped together enough money to buy a bakery. Soon, he made it into a hotel. By the 1890s, it was among the most luxurious hotels in Colorado. It had electricity and running water, plus a first-class kitchen serving local and foreign delicacies.

Dupuy died in 1900. In 1954, the National Society of Colonial Dames of America in Colorado bought this place and made it into a museum. See this old hotel, and learn about luxury travel in the Old West.

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Georgetown was built to extract silver from the mountains. A tour of the Lebanon Silver Mine shows what kind of hard and dangerous work that was. Tours take visitors deep into the tunnel, cut into hard rock, to reveal where and how the mineral was mined.

You can purchase a ticket for the Georgetown Loop and the Silver Mine at once, for one price. They naturally complement each other. Just don't go into the mine if you have claustrophobia.

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If you have time for only a short visit, and want to see just one thing, make it the Georgetown Loop Railroad. This is one of Colorado's best scenic train rides, even though it's rather short.

Built in 1884 to serve the silver mines, this narrow-gauge railroad travels over unusually steep grades and around very sharp curves. It was quite a feat for that time. The line was reconstructed and re-opened in 1984. Since then, it's been one of central Colorado's top attractions.

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The Georgetown Loop Steam Railway has been operation out of Georgetown for thirty years. This was very nearly the last year, due to difficulties negotiating with the Colorado Historical Society. However, a last minute reprieve (which hasn't even been reflected on the Railway's website, the train will operate in 2005.

The railroad takes you through spectacular Rocky Mountain scenery and over a 95 foot Devil's Gate Bridge. The train ride is one hour and 10 minutes. Operates from late May through early October.