Jun 6, 2009 6:32 pm US/Mountain
Old Gilpin Hotel Safe Haven For African Americans
GILPIN CO., Colo. (CBS4) ―
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An old picture of the Winks Lodge in Gilpin County. It served as a safe haven for African Americans from 1928-1965,
CBS
It might have seemed like a foreign country to those getting off the train in Pinecliffe, Colo., to people from the east, the south, the Midwest, who had never seen the Rocky Mountains. Just up the road from the Lincoln Hills Country Club development, they came to enjoy the great outdoors as guests of Winks Lodge.
Obrey Wendell Hamlet was a 16-year-old Denver hotel bellhop also known as Winks. He opened his Panarama Resort in the 1920s.
"There is no place in the country, in the mountains, where black people, during the time of 1928 to 1965, could go and enjoy themselves and feel secure," said Gary Jackson, who's helping to preserve the lodge today.
"It was the only black, African-American owned, recreational area west of the Mississippi," Jackson says.
Jackson's great-grandfather built a cabin in Lincoln Hills at the same time the Winks Lodge was going up. During that age of segregation, the area was a haven, a destination, a home away from home in the Colorado Mountains.
"You could feel complete, secure and safe and you had your dignity," says Jackson. "You were living the American dream for black people."
Guests at Winks Lodge would gather in the living room with its cozy fireplace.
"There would be a lot of conversation. There would be music," explained Jackson. "There would be more than likely sipping an adult beverage."
The lodge features original cabinets in the kitchen. The dining room boasts a tin ceiling salvaged from the 1920s Denver Post building.
Prominent musicians like Duke Ellington or Lena Horne stopped by after playing at jazz clubs in Denver's Five Points neighborhood. They would stay in one of the cabins on the property or in one of the six bedrooms on the third floor of the lodge.
The road to Winks Lodge would be packed with cars on some weekends. Black churches like Denver's Shorter AME or New Hope Baptist would hold huge gatherings at the picnic grounds.
The barbecue pit was built by the WPA during the depression, as was a two-seater outhouse. In addition to the lodge, Winks Tavern drew revelers of all races to enjoy live music and an ever-popular juke box. Amazingly, the old tavern still stands today. The private home now belongs to a long-time Lincoln Hills resident.
"Breakfast, lunch and dinner would be served here," says Jackson.
A picture hangs at the lodge of girls from the Black YMCA camp called Camp Nazoni. Kids from around the country would come to Pinecliff to be picked up by Winks Hamlet in his truck. For many it was their first experience in the outdoors.
"These are kids that may have come from Florida, Alabama, New York, that had never experienced what I would call an outdoor education," Jackson says. "That's a part of the American dream that was denied to so many black people because of separation and segregation."
Obrey Wendell Hamlet died in 1965 and so did Winks Lodge, but it was a changing American society that caused its demise.
"When integration took place, it meant that black folks could go to the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs. They could go down to the Brown Palace in Denver. They could go to Estes Park, Glenwood Springs," explains Jackson. "And they no longer had to come to Wink's Lodge."
(© MMIX CBS Television Stations, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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