Haunted at Timberline Home

Holy Cross City is located near Leadville and sits at an altitude of 11,335 feet. It was part of the great Leadville gold boom around 1880, but was mined out and abandoned by the end of 1883. Its name comes from a pattern on the side of a peak—a peak that is not, unfortunately, visible from the site of the camp, but is shown in two of the photos below. The top left photo was taken from a vantage point near Vail Pass; Mount of the Holy Cross is the highest peak. The bottom photo is William H. Jackson's famous photograph of Mount of the Holy Cross. William H. Jackson, the great frontier photographer, lived to be 99 years old, never made much money, but was as responsible as anyone for bringing the mystique of the great American West to the folks in the East, causing the great Westward migration. Like Mt. Shavano, Mount of the Holy Cross is one of Colorado's Fourteeners. But not only are they both part of that elite group of 52 peaks, they are also the nothernmost (Holy Cross) and southernmost (Shavano) Fourteeners in the Sawatch range of mountains, and both have snow features with religious meaning. The top right photo shows a portion of the road to Holy Cross City—a well-preserved corduroy portion. The opening photo shows a rare double boiler, used to generate the steam that drove the steam engines that drove the equipment used for mining the gold. If you could see Mount of the Holy Cross from this vantage point, it would be located to the far right. At one time the entire field shown in the virtual tour was filled with miner cabins. Now just two remain.