Betting on Tourist Dollars in Three Historic Colorado Mining Towns

As the snow whips through the twisting streets of this born-again Rocky Mountain gold-mining town, hundreds of twentysomethings have lined up to play slot machines in the 119-year-old Teller House. No seats remain at the bar, and there’s a half-hour wait for the dining room.

A mile down the road in Black Hawk, a blackjack dealer named Andrew Berkowitz dashes toward Otto’s Casino, beside the Black Forest Inn. “It is our hope,” says Berkowitz, a Tom Selleck look-alike, “that the casino will help the restaurant.” But at dinner that night, 22 of 26 tables are empty.

Five hours to the south in Cripple Creek, the pot at the poker table at Johnny Nolon’s Saloon has grown to $120. But across the street, the Imperial Hotel is closing its doors for the winter.

Gambling was introduced Oct. 1 in these three down-at-the-heels Wild West towns, made legal in a statewide referendum last year. Under the law, 28% of the state and local taxes collected from gambling will be used for historical preservation. The law allows slot machines, blackjack and poker with a maximum $5 bet.

The plan to legalize gambling here was based on the phenomenal success of the South Dakota town of Deadwood, another historic mining town in high-level isolation and advanced decay. When Deadwood legalized gambling on Nov. 1, 1989, backers of the plan calculated that $4 million a year would be wagered. Now, two years later, $565 million has been bet. And Main Street will soon be completely restored.

Gambling thus far has been a mixed bag in the three Colorado towns, but a bonanza for the tourist.

“Prices have actually gotten lower,” said Greg Moates, the guide at the Lost Gold Mine in Central City. “The Teller House has these buffets now, all you can eat for $6.85. There was nothing like that before gambling.”

I visited the three towns early this month after a weekend in Las Vegas. The contrasts were dramatic. These are tiny towns, with narrow and winding streets and 19th-Century buildings, many in disrepair. Outdoor neon lighting is forbidden; inside neon lighting must be 10 feet from the street, by law. While Las Vegas casinos will put up just about anything to catch your eye--waterfalls, volcanoes, giant Bavarian castles--no building in these Colorado towns is permitted to change in any direction but reverse. The goal is to use gambling revenues to take these towns back to the way they looked in the last century.

First, to get our bearings: Central City, population 400, is an hour west of Denver, half the time on Interstate 70 and the rest on mildly difficult and very scenic mountain roads along Clear Creek. Black Hawk, population 300, is a mile east of Central City. Both towns thus far have drawn nearly all their gamblers from nearby cities, mainly Denver. Large numbers of visitors are students from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Cripple Creek, population 800, lies two hours west of Colorado Springs, which is 68 sluggish freeway miles south of Denver. Like Central City and Black Hawk, it looks like a Western movie set that’s been abandoned, but there the differences end. Cripple Creek is hard to get to--at the end of a long and tortuous road--and its pool of gamblers is drawn from Colorado Springs, a very popular resort town and upscale retirement mecca. Its gamblers are much older, on the average, than those in Central City and Black Hawk.

Central City’s gambling operations are the slickest of the three. Security people open the doors at the Swiss-run Teller House, money-changers are everywhere. Casinos across the street handle the overflow crowds. Ice cream and candy stores nearby are thriving, and the inn a few yards away is usually fully booked.

In Black Hawk, gambling is doing very well, and the trickle-down to other businesses has begun, though only on the low end. At the $48-a-night Coyote Inn, “business has picked up on weekends,” manager Camille Gersic said. Both bars are busy from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m., she said, and so is the restaurant.

The jury is still out on Cripple Creek. Since you can’t stay in a quality hotel there overnight this winter, business is restricted mostly to daylight gamblers.

For the not-very-serious gambler, there’s much to be said for gambling, Colorado-style. The rules for playing blackjack are clearly posted above each of the six tables in the Teller House. The crowd is so young that more than half the players have had their IDs checked. And the atmosphere is relaxed: Young women wander from slot to slot carrying buckets of quarters, and finally board the shuttle to Black Hawk with buckets still in hand.

Conversation aboard the shuttle drifts from rock music to the Denver Broncos to midterms. “You know what makes a great drink?” one woman asks. “Peach schnapps and milk. Tastes just like a Creamsicle.”

The shuttle dumps its passengers at the Gold Mine Casino in Black Hawk, where the women dig into their buckets and buy beer at the bar, then again wander from slot to slot.

This is a crowd that eats nachos for dinner, and only one passenger--me--walks over to the Black Forest Inn. I know I’m not in California anymore when my waiter tells me the night’s specials: roast elk or Canadian snow goose in brown sauce. Each is $21.95, or a combination for $23.95.

Served with marinated red cabbage, a well-seasoned potato and wild plums and grapes, the goose is wonderful. Other diners say they’re happy with the sauerbraten at $17.95, or, for what the menu calls a “ladies’ plate,” $15.50. This is a smaller portion, the waiter explains.

There’s only one hotel in the Central City/Black Hawk area recognized by Mobil or the American Automobile Assn., but it’s a knockout: the Golden Rose Inn, built in 1874. You enter through a large parlor with an antique foot-pumped organ as well as a piano. The wallpaper in each guest room is hand-printed. Baths are marble and brass. Guests use the hot tub for half an hour maximum, in guaranteed privacy.

The Golden Rose is not a bargain. Rooms with private bath start at $95, up from $82 before gambling. Suites go up to $195. There’s no parking. The night I was there, the temperature went down to minus 2. I slept that night in thermal underwear and my clothes. In the morning, they turned the heat back on.

There’s no gambling at the Golden Rose Inn, a surprise when you consider that the Colorado experiment is based on the success of legalized gambling in Deadwood. I was in Deadwood the month after gambling began, an experience I repeated in Colorado. In Deadwood, the old historic hotel was at the center of the gambling drive. Once gambling was legalized, the Franklin Hotel kept its room rates down and filled its first two floors with slot machines and blackjack tables. Parking was free. Even though the mercury dipped to 26 degrees below zero, the Franklin kept its guests toasty warm. Deadwood became an overnight destination, not a day trip.

How close to the Deadwood example is Cripple Creek? For fine, antique-furnished rooms and a bit more lovingkindness than the Golden Rose Inn, the 95-year-old Imperial Hotel in Cripple Creek charges $55, including free parking. Meals, served in a breathtaking dining room with copper fixtures and stained-glass windows, include a $5 buffet breakfast with eggs Benedict, and a very California lunch with choices such as a turkey sandwich with Monterey jack cheese and tiny Italian peppers on sourdough for $5.95. Or fresh albacore with water chestnuts and pasta, same price. Fresh flowers grace every table.

Unfortunately, the Imperial Hotel closed the day after my visit . . . and won’t reopen until May. “We stayed open an extra month,” bartender Bill Fennessey said two weeks ago. “But they say we’re not getting enough business to pay the staff, or to pay for the heat.”

Nevertheless, on the day it closed, the Imperial Hotel was full, and prospective guests were being turned away.

I asked Dawn, the morning desk clerk, for an explanation. “We make most of our money on the dining room, and this crowd doesn’t use it,” she said.

Now Fennessey is tending bar across the street at Colorado Grande, a casino and restaurant newly restored by five investors from Nevada, who spent $3 million to convert what had been at various times a post office, a medical building and a Masonic lodge ballroom.

Colorado Grande looks like Las Vegas, with a gold ceiling, huge crystal chandeliers and Golden Nugget-style faux Oriental rugs. In the dining room, the special is a prime rib dinner for $4.95. On the night I ate there, trout was $5.95, and wine was $1 a glass. The chef came out and asked me if I was enjoying my meal, something that never happened at a bargain dinner in Las Vegas.

Was the Nevada touch working here? The four blackjack tables were busy, but only a third of the 92 slots were in use.

Down the street, The Brass Ass, a combination gift shop and casino, was empty.

“We were doing well until the weather turned bad,” said Bill Moseley, the floor supervisor, referring to the recent storms that blanketed the region with unusually early snow. “But these old folks won’t drive that long, winding mountain road from Colorado Springs if it’s cold or snowing.”

The drive, though tricky and covered with slick ice for six months of the year, is beautiful, with Pike’s Peak in sight for close to an hour. This is sports car country, with hairpin turns, S-turns and Z-turns every few minutes.

The biggest draw in Cripple Creek is Johnny Nolon’s Saloon & Gambling Emporium, which has the only poker table in the state. Texas hold ‘em is the game.

Moates of the Lost Gold Mine in Central City explained why no other casino in the state offers poker: “For the amount of room a poker table takes up, you could put in a dozen slots, and not pay a dealer. Even in blackjack, the turnover of money is much quicker, so it’s more profitable.”

Gambling aside, the best reason for visiting Central City, Black Hawk and Cripple Creek remains what it has always been: history.

In 1859, gold was discovered in Central City. Soon the population equaled Denver’s. It was called “the richest square mile on earth.” Sinful Black Hawk grew up as its nearby Las Vegas. Both towns are filled with historic structures, the jewel being the sandstone Central City Opera House, built in 1878. Murals and crystal chandeliers decorate the interior, which was restored in the early 1930s. The opera house is still in use today, during the summer. Tours are available the rest of the year. Sarah Bernhardt performed there, as did Otis Skinner and Edwin Booth.

Cripple Creek, too, had its day in the sun, beginning in 1891, when $25 million worth of gold was mined in one year. Only five years later, the town burned down. Soon Cripple Creek was rebuilt, and many of the “new” buildings are still standing.

Will the Colorado plan succeed in restoring fortune to these three depressed Colorado towns? Rhonda Kritner, who worked in restoring the (Unsinkable) Molly Brown House in Denver, said, “There are supposedly enough safeguards to make sure they do it right. There’s no question that they need the money. The Opera House in particular needs a lot of work.”

And without gambling? Moates of the Lost Gold Mine in Central City said, “In 10 more years, we would have become a ghost town.”

In the future for Colorado gambling towns are ski/gambling packages for Central City and Black Hawk, and golf/gambling packages for Cripple Creek. The Central City and Black Hawk packages would be linked to Aspen, Vail, Breckenridge and Copper Mountain, and the Cripple Creek packages would be linked to Colorado Springs.

Colorado Springs is the site of the luxury Broadmoor resort complex, with nine dining rooms and three 18-hole golf courses. The Broadmoor is on nearly everyone’s list of the 10 best resorts in America.

Colorado Springs, at the foot of Pikes Peak, is well worth a stopover. The Garden of the Gods is here, a park containing massive formations of red sandstone. Easter sunrise services are held here every year. The Old Colorado City Historic District in the heart of town looks much like the gambling towns would like to. The Western Museum of Mining and Industry, displaying operating machinery used in early gold and silver mines, with instructions and demonstrations, is open through the winter.

In the summer, you can drive to the top of Pikes Peak. Likewise in the summer, the opera season begins in Central City, and Cripple Creek puts on a very popular melodrama. The Cripple Creek and Victor Narrow Gauge Railroad opens on Memorial Day for 45-minute rides through four miles of abandoned mines.

Will these three old mining towns bring in the big tourist bucks? Because of their low-stakes betting policies and the fact that no more than 35% of any establishment’s space can be devoted to gambling, we are probably not looking at three little Las Vegases here. But we won’t know until the spring thaw.

GUIDEBOOK

Colorado’s Gambling Towns

Getting there: Continental flies nonstop to Denver for $218, and with a change of planes to Colorado Springs for $268, with 14-day advance purchase and Saturday night stay required. Call (800) 525-0280. Central City and Black Hawk are an hour’s drive from Denver. Cripple Creek is two hours from Colorado Springs.

Auto rental: National Car Rental is running a special on mid-size cars from Denver’s Stapleton International Airport, $21 a day with unlimited mileage; (800) 227-7368.

Historic hotels: Golden Rose Inn, from $95 per night for a double with bath, $65 without. 102 Main St., Central City 80427, (303) 825-1413.

Imperial Hotel, from $55 per night with bath, $45 without. Reopens in May. 123 N. 3rd St., Cripple Creek 80813, (719) 689-2922.

Day trips from Denver to Central City and Black Hawk: Golden West Commuter, $18 round trip; (303) 398-2031. Ace Express, $18 round trip; (303) 421-2780.

Day trips from Colorado Springs to Cripple Creek: Colorado Gambler’s Express, $20 round trip; (719) 578-8203.

My Chauffeur Limousine and Overland Express, $30 round trip with complimentary champagne; (719) 597-4822.

(Day trips are recommended for Cripple Creek until the Imperial Hotel reopens.)

Restaurants with character: Teller House Restaurant, Southwestern food in an 1872 hotel that has become a museum. Buffet for two, $14 without wine for lunch, $18 for dinner. 120 Eureka St., Central City, (303) 279-3200.

Black Forest Inn, wild game and fowl and German cuisine. Dinner for two, about $60 without wine. No credit cards. 260 Gregory St., Black Hawk, (303) 582-9971.

Games people play: Poker at Johnny Nolon’s Casino, 301 Bennett Ave., Cripple Creek, (719) 689-2080.

Four blackjack tables at Colorado Grande, 300 Bennett Ave., Cripple Creek, (719) 689-3517. Six blackjack tables and 250 slot machines at Teller House, run by Switzerland’s Tivolino Corp., 120 Eureka St., Central City, (303) 279-3200.

Where to shop: Brass Ass for Western gifts, 264 E. Bennett Ave., Cripple Creek; (719) 689-2104.

For more information: Cripple Creek Chamber of Commerce, P.O. Box 650, Cripple Creek, Colo. 80813, (719) 689-2169.

Gilpin County Chamber of Commerce, P.O. Box 343, Black Hawk, Colo. 80422, (303) 582-5513.

Central City Public Relations Office, P.O. Box 249, Central City, Colo. 80427, (303) 582-5251.