Courthouse Tours, Community Picnic Mark County’s 150th Birthday

Hinsdale County appropriately celebrates the sesquicentennial of the county’s creation during a day-long celebration on Colorado Day, next Thursday, August 1.
   Hinsdale County and Town of Lake City’s first cabin, now at venerable 150 years age, both predate creation of the State of Colorado, 148 years ago, which is celebrated on August 1.
   In recognition of Hinsdale County’s formation on February 10, 1874, self-guided tours of offices in the 1877 Hinsdale County Courthouse, together with the equally historic Hinsdale County Courtroom upstairs, will be thrown open to the public from 1 to 3 p.m. on August 1.
   Staff in the County courthouse’s ground floor offices — Assessor Sherry Boyce, County Clerk Joan Roberts, and Treasurer Lori Lawrence — will be on hand to explain the significance of their individual offices, with the added incentive of snacks and light refreshments which will be served up in the Hinsdale County Assessor’s Office.
   This is followed by a free-of-charge Community Picnic catered by Climb Elevated Eatery which will be held beneath and adjacent to the Town Park pavillion from 5 to 7 p.m. on Thursday.
   In addition to the picnic — exact particulars of menu remaining a surprise — Lake City/Hinsdale County Chamber of Commerce will host a cash bar. Jacob McDonald — no relation to the county’s revered judge, County Court Judge James McDonald — from State Historic Fund will be on hand to highlight preservation projects in the county which have been partially funded through the State Historic Fund.
   The fund is responsible for preservation projects on a number of historic landmarks, most recently the Getz family’s Lost Trail Barn on the upper Rio Grande, restoration of the County courthouse building in 2017, Lake City Arts’ acquisition of the historic Hough Block, and renovations of Hinsdale County Museum in the Finley Block 1999-2000, to name a few.
   Built in 1877 and Colorado’s oldest continually operating County courthouse, the two-story frame building in Italianate Revival architecture with paired cornice brackets is intentionally symmetrical with sash windows on either side of doorways leading to a central ground floor hallway. On both the back, west facing portion of the building overlooking Veterans’ Park, and east-facing front of the building on Henson Street, three equally proportioned double-hung windows light the upstairs courtroom and offices of Hinsdale Country Judge and Clerk of the Court.
   The overriding sense of symmetry on the front portion of the building carried through to the centered front door which is balanced on either side by the trim of equal-proportioned double-hung, six-pane windows.
   At $4,450, local contractor Jonathan Ogden was successful bidder to build the 30×60’ two-story frame courthouse in 1877. The courthouse was built on lots donated by local businessman J.W. Brockett and members of the Lake City Bar Association were so confident that the building would be completed on time that they named a committee which sent out invitations to a Grand Celebration Ball to be held on June 8, 1877.
   Unfortunately, windows for the edifice failed to arrive in time for the grand celebration and a string orchestra provided music for the somewhat breezy ball in the upstairs courtroom without the benefit of windows.
   Italianate Revival architecture was already outdated and considered somewhat old fashioned by the time the building was completed in 1877 but reflects an architecture style with which early pioneers of Lake City were familiar.
   Notable events in the building’s history were two successive evenings when noted Suffragate Susan B. Anthony spoke on the courthouse’s front steps in September, 1877, and the first manslaughter conviction of Alferd Packer and his sentence to be hanged by the neck, as pronounced by District Court Judge M. B. Gerry, “until you are dead, dead, dead, and may God have mercy upon your soul” in 1883.
   The courthouse narrowly averted being burned to the ground by an unknown arsonist in 1879 when kerosene-soaked gunnysacks were ignited in the hallway in front of the doorway to the County Clerk’s office.
   The building was successively remodeled — sometimes with sensitivity, sometimes otherwise — starting in the 1950s when ceilings were lowered, indoor toilets installed for the first time, and linoleum in carpet design used to cover the original floorboards on which Susan B. Anthony walked on in 1877.
   Wrought iron kerosene chandeliers were removed from the courtroom but safely stored during a remodeling in 1954. The chandeliers were rehung and remain to this day thanks to the efforts of newly-formed Hinsdale County Historical Society in 1974.
   Most significant in the building’s preservation was a multi-year $750,000 renovation ending in 2017 which leveraged local funding with donations and significant grant funding from the State Historic Fund and Colorado Dept. of Local Affairs’ Energy and Mineral Impact Fund.
   Sensitive rehabilitation of the courthouse building 2016-2017 included foundation repair, new electric wiring and heating, removal of the courtroom’s linoleum flooring to reveal the original floorboards, and — perhaps most significant — returning ceilings in ground floor offices to near their original 12’ height.
   In addition to Hinsdale County at the 150-year-mark, 2024 is notable as a preamble to Town of Lake City’s 150th anniversary which actually occurs in 2025.
   In terms of municipal history, 2024 is significant as the 150th anniversary of Town Founder Enos T. Hotchkiss constructing the town’s first habitation in August, 1874. Hotchkiss was supervisor on the crew of men building the Saguache & San Juan Toll Road from Saguache, 96 miles to the present site of Lake City via Los Pinos Indian Agency, across the Powderhorn Valley by way of Beaver Creek and then up the Lake Fork Valley.
   Hotchkiss tarried at the forks of the Lake Fork at what was then known as Godman’s Creek — now Henson Creek — to build the first habitation in what was to become the Town of Lake City. The single room cabin, windowless, and with dirt roof and floor, was located at the northwest corner of what was to become Gunnison Avenue and 2nd Street, now the location of Dan Murphy’s M4 Realty. The cabin survived less than five years and was reportedly demolished by neighboring school children in 1879.
   In addition to building the town’s first cabin, Hotchkiss and his road building crew are credited with discovery and hurried burial of the rotting remains of Al Packer’s victims, also in August, 1874, and finding the first tellurium gold/silver ore at what was to become the Golden Fleece Mine at the outlet of Lake San Cristobal.
   Less well known and also in August 150 years ago, is family tradition that Hotchkiss and his eldest son, Andrew Monette Hotchkiss, built a crude log raft and used their shovels as oars to paddle across the shimmering surface of Lake San Cristobal.
   Although Hotchkiss is afforded the historic title “Father of Lake City,” and first cabin builder, a further complication to the story is that two other men involved with the toll road company, John Bartholf and Canute Lee, reportedly built the town’s first cabins according to Bartholf and Lee family tradition.
   Both cabins no longer exist, the Lee cabin surviving for several decades near the site of the Old West Cowboy re-enactments, while the Bartholf cabin was part of the Elephant Corral located near what is now Lake City Brewing Co. on Bluff Street.
   Lake City government traces its proverbial roots to 1875 — 149 years this year, sesquicentennial next year — when the for-profit Lake City Town Company was initiated. The town company was led by a board of directors, each of whom was allotted parcels of undeveloped lots, one of the principal investors being Otto Mears. Mears was so intent on promoting the town to sell the lots that he funded the town’s first hotel, the Hinsdale House, and was a silent investment partner when SILVER WORLD Newspaper was founded in 1875.
   The Lake City Town Company was ultimately succeeded by Town of Lake City, with first municipal election for mayor and trustees in 1880.