If you were going to build a Victorian mountain town to add historic charm to the valley below a ski conglomerate of hotels and condominiums, it would probably look just about like Crested Butte, CO.
Eldo's are more like the rowdy uncle your parents don't want you to grow up like.
The fact is that a marketing department didn’t have to invent the village when developers began the Mount Crested Butte ski area in the 1960s. The town, 3 miles below the ski area, was one of scores that sprang up in the Colorado mountains in the 1880s after silver and gold were discovered. Because coal was found in the area a few years later, Crested Butte survived when the precious metals played out and most of the other mining camps and towns were abandoned.
Serendipity entered again with the birth of the ski resort. Otherwise, when coal mining was no longer profitable and ceased in the 1950s, Crested Butte might have become a ghost town. The false storefronts along the main drag, Elk Avenue, and the hodgepodge of original Victorian homes would not have survived many years of neglect.
You certainly wouldn’t have been able to choose from a top-notch range of specialty beers in any of several restaurants or bars.
Instead, now you can order a Red Lady beer—named for the prostitutes who kept miners company at the turn of the century—at Kochevar’s Saloon on Elk Avenue and listen to the stories about how Butch Cassidy once drank beer here. When authorities from Telluride (where he’d just robbed a bank) came in the front door, he supposedly went out the back in such a hurry that he left his gun behind. It’s on display in the town museum.
Jacob Kochevar was patriarch of Crested Butte’s oldest Yugoslavian family, and many buildings are still around that he had a hand in constructing. The saloon was built out of hand-hewn logs in 1896, and Kochevar ran it until just before Prohibition was enacted. It is jammed with old stuff, but even though tourists stop in to hear about Butch, it really belongs to long-time locals and is a popular spot for pool.
Try a Red Lady
Red Lady beer is brewed by Crested Butte Brewing Co. at the Idlespur, a few blocks away on Elk Avenue, and is easy to find around town. For instance, the Slogar Bar & Restaurant offers Red Lady, Odell’s 90 Shilling, New Belgium Fat Tire and Spaten on tap. It is housed in a building that dates to 1882 that was one of 18 taverns in town serving laborers at the Big Mine on the Bench.
The Slogar was renovated in 1976 and redecorated in a Victorian motif from the light fixtures to an artistic stained glass piece hanging behind the ornate bar. Dinner is served family style, and there are but two choices—chicken and steak. The Slogar has been famous for its skillet-fried chicken since 1915. It comes with a relish tray, homemade tomato chutney, sweet and sour cole slaw, mashed potatoes and gravy, powder biscuits, sweet corn in cream sauce, and homemade ice cream.
The Slogar is right around the corner from Just Horsin’ Around, which provides sleigh rides in the winter and carriage rides when the snow is gone. “It seems like everybody has discovered Crested Butte except people from Colorado,” Dave Shaw told us while his horse, Blondie, pulled our sleigh through town.
Part of the reason is logistics. Crested Butte is far from any interstate highway and 30 miles from the airport at Gunnison. The reward for those who take the time to get to Gunnison is a stunning drive through the soaring mountains of Gunnison National Forest and a genuine community at the end of the trip.
Shaw pointed out bits of mining history as Blondie ambled along, never challenging the universal speed limit of 15 miles per hour. We turned in an alley behind the Company Store to see an out-of-the-way bit of town history, the village’s two-story outhouse. Shaw explained that Crested Butte usually gets 27 to 30 feet of snow per year, and in the days before mechanized snow moving equipment, it was tiring for residents to keep digging deeper and deeper to reach the outhouse door.
Even the new homes in town look like they could have been built 100 years ago. Some are Victorian style, often painted in bright colors; others are cabin-like. It’s not unusually to see skis on the front porch, snowshoes and fishing equipment hanging by the front door, and a mountain bike or two out front.
The outdoors is close at hand 12 months a year. When mountain biking started to boom in the 1980s, Crested Butte was one of the first hot spots. Bikers happily zip up and down the old mining roads that run through the valley, while the hardier set out on more demanding rides up and over nearby mountain passes.
