# Leadville Ice Palace Colorado, 1896



## Timeshifter (Sep 14, 2020)

Those 19th Century builders, eh?

I came across thus whilst looking at this thread Here by _@KorbenDallas_



Interesting flags?

Usual story, town bankrupt but has to build something to attract visitors...

'In 1896 a spectacular true Norman ice palace stood on a gleaming, snow-covered rise above the City of Leadville, Colorado. Sitting at the foot of two of Colorado’s highest peaks, the ice castle was the largest ice structure ever built. The crystal castle housed a ballroom, a 180 foot skating rink, a curling rink, a restaurant, a dance floor, gaming rooms, a theatre, toboggan runs and a carousel house'

*'Was built in just 36 days utilizing 5,000 tons of ice'

36 days.. as it turns out, its not built with ice at all, it is merely covered with it...*


'Construction began November 1, 1895 with a crew of 250 men working day and night. Day laborers were paid $2.50 per day and skilled laborers were paid $3.00 per day. The palace was more than 58,000 square feet – 325 x 180 feet, utilizing 180,000 board feet of lumber and 5,000 tons of ice. The palace was supported by a complex frame work of trusses, girders and timber, with the ice for appearance only. The ice was trimmed to size and placed in forms, then sprayed with water, which served as mortar to bind the blocks together. The towers reached 90 feet high by 40 feet wide and the palace encompassed 5 acres of ground.

Just 36 days later, the Ice Palace, between Seventh and Eighth Streets on top of Capitol Hill, was opened on January 1, 1896'

'Finally, the Ice Palace began to melt and the building was condemned on March 28, though skaters continued to skate on the ice rink until June.'

(Why not just poor more boiling water on it? Sarc)

Source
I don't know folks, do you buy this stuff?

Maybe folks simply had a different outlook on whats the point back then...





> Note: This OP was recovered from the Sh.org archive.





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## BStankman (Apr 26, 2021)

> Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.Username: BStankmanDate: 2019-09-01 11:46:27Reaction Score: 6


Nice.   More zoom able photos here.
Denver Public Library Western History/Genealogy Digital Collections


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## AgentOrange5 (Apr 26, 2021)

> Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.Username: AgentOrange5Date: 2019-09-01 14:37:15Reaction Score: 6


Wow! This place is amazing! Of course it makes no sense. Nowadays, people can easily drive 4 or more hours for a "day trip" to some amazing attraction. And I suppose their were trains.....but still. What was the population in the surrounding area that could reasonably make such a trip? Given the price of trains and this attraction, how many people could afford to make the trip? Especially since we are told many places in the state were going bankrupt. And given the short life of this palace, why would anyone think it economically a good idea? Sounds like the place was closed before most people would have even had a chance to hear about, make arrangements to go (time off work or school, get someone to take care of their livestock, pets), and to save up to go. A moderately large town near me used to have an outdoor ice rink during the winter, and they quit having it because it was too expensive to keep vs the revenue the would get. No, I don't believe for a minute that Colorado built this gigantic ice palace for 5 months.


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## KD Archive (Apr 26, 2021)

> Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.Username: KorbenDallasDate: 2019-09-01 18:43:44Reaction Score: 7


This one minute video has a few interesting pictures, and just as many funny commentaries from the author.

Why would something like that get built by an allegedly struggling economy? Just to melt away in three months?


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## Timeshifter (Apr 26, 2021)

> Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.Username: TimeshifterDate: 2019-09-01 18:50:04Reaction Score: 1


Brain fart, perhaps it was already there, was not ice but LED lights or something, no one could figure it out & to stop people aaking questions, it got disapeared?


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## KD Archive (Apr 26, 2021)

> Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.Username: KorbenDallasDate: 2019-09-01 18:52:35Reaction Score: 2


Unless this thing was made out of glass, I do not see how it could already be there. Some of the pictures appear to be showing ice blocks, or glass blocks.

It’s just weird.


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## Timeshifter (Apr 26, 2021)

> Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.Username: TimeshifterDate: 2019-09-01 19:23:42Reaction Score: 1


Maybe it was made some type of glass, and used the atmosphere for energy? The atmosphere changed & it became useless.

Its another bizzare one


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## Archive (Apr 26, 2021)

> Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.Username: jd755Date: 2019-09-01 19:42:34Reaction Score: 2


Ice, Ice baby.
Topics in History: Leadville’s 1896 Crystal Carnival and Palace – Colorado Virtual Library

Newspaper articles linked at the bottom of that page are interesting.


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## KD Archive (Apr 26, 2021)

> Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.Username: KorbenDallasDate: 2019-09-01 22:10:43Reaction Score: 2


The _population of Leadville in 1896_ was between 10k and 12k. What a place to build this thing at...


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## anotherlayer (Apr 26, 2021)

> Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.Username: anotherlayerDate: 2019-09-02 15:25:07Reaction Score: 1


I was in Leadville 20 years ago. Those trailer park homes had the best views in the country.


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## Archive (Apr 26, 2021)

> Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.Username: RecognitionDate: 2019-09-07 11:46:31Reaction Score: 1




Timeshifter said:


> Maybe it was made some type of glass, and used the atmosphere for energy? The atmosphere changed & it became useless.
> 
> Its another bizzare one


It def has the aetheric energy antennae. Combined with glass building like that could be amazing, or, if it was ice, the builders instead of hauling blocks 75 miles (suuuuuuure) maybe used some sort of resonant frequency to move the blocks and shape the building?

It reminded me of the fitzgerald short story the ice palace. Here are some exerpts:

"After another ten minutes they turned a corner and came in sight of their destination. On a tall hill outlined in vivid glaring green against the wintry sky stood the ice palace. It was three stories in the air, with battlements and embrasures and narrow icicled windows, and the innumerable electric lights inside made a gorgeous transparency of the great central hall. Sally Carrol clutched Harry's hand under the fur robe.

"It's beautiful!" he cried excitedly. "My golly, it's beautiful, isn't it! They haven't had one here since eighty-five!"

Somehow the notion of there not having been one since eighty-five oppressed her. Ice was a ghost, and this mansion of it was surely peopled by those shades of the eighties, with pale faces and blurred snow-filled hair. "

"It's a hundred and seventy feet tall," Harry was saying to a muffled figure beside him as they trudged toward the entrance; "covers six thousand square yards."

She caught snatches of conversation: "One main hall"-- "walls twenty to forty inches thick"-- "and the ice cave has almost a mile of-- "-- "this Canuck who built it-- -- "

They found their way inside, and dazed by the magic of the great crystal walls Sally Carrol found herself repeating over and over two lines from "Kubla Khan": "

"Come on!" shouted Harry. "We want to see the labyrinths down-stairs before they turn the lights off!"

She gets lost in the ice palace and has a breakdown

"She reached pitifully for the wall. Forty inches thick, they had said-- forty inches thick!

"Oh!"

On both sides of her along the walls she felt things creeping, damp souls that haunted this palace, this town, this North.

"Oh, send somebody-- send somebody!" she cried aloud. "


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## fabiorem (Apr 26, 2021)

> Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.Username: fabioremDate: 2020-02-25 03:45:15Reaction Score: 0


No, I dont buy it. 36 days? With ice? No way.
I said in another post there could have been a wmd which was used to wipe tartarian buildings from Russia, thus rendering the tartarians as "savages" to the vatican chronology. You can notice a eastern feel in some of those tartarian buildings, and some domes resemble those elaborate hindu temples in India.

What if this wmd was a teleporter, and this castle have been moved from elsewhere to this place in America? A norman castle in the middle of nowhere? Who knows, maybe the teleporter send it to Antarctica and when they tried to recall it, it appeared in America?


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## Archive (Apr 26, 2021)

> Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.Username: StarmonkeyDate: 2020-02-25 17:31:11Reaction Score: 1




fabiorem said:


> No, I dont buy it. 36 days? With ice? No way.
> I said in another post there could have been a wmd which was used to wipe tartarian buildings from Russia, thus rendering the tartarians as "savages" to the vatican chronology. You can notice a eastern feel in some of those tartarian buildings, and some domes resemble those elaborate hindu temples in India.
> 
> What if this wmd was a teleporter, and this castle have been moved from elsewhere to this place in America? A norman castle in the middle of nowhere? Who knows, maybe the teleporter send it to Antarctica and when they tried to recall it, it appeared in America?


Some others ended up covered in CORN, then...


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## DanFromMN (Apr 26, 2021)

> Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.Username: DanfromMNDate: 2020-03-02 02:18:37Reaction Score: 0


That thing looks moodflooded.  If it were a new construction.... Ah nevermind.  

I found that St Paul Minnesota has had ice castles since I believe 1886... Can't find pictures though.


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## Archive (Apr 26, 2021)

> Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.Username: BantaDate: 2020-03-02 02:40:59Reaction Score: 1


This thread was featured in a recent Jon Levi video. Linking for synergy purposes:









Melting Civilizations



Submitted
__ 3/1/20



						In this exploration of the Wild West we will examine the town of Leadville Colorado in the...


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## Timeshifter (Apr 26, 2021)

> Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.Username: TimeshifterDate: 2020-03-04 20:56:14Reaction Score: 1


Good to see we are of some use to the wider research community!


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## Huaqero (Apr 26, 2021)

> Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.Username: HuaqeroDate: 2020-03-04 21:27:49Reaction Score: 1


Quartz crystals?


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## Archive (Apr 26, 2021)

> Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.Username: RarityDate: 2020-03-05 07:30:26Reaction Score: 1


It looks like it was supposed to open on Christmas Day (so it was meant to be finished even faster than 36 days) but the opening was delayed, one article cited unfavorable weather, unskilled workmen, scarcity of teams to haul the ice, and other unlisted obstacles causing problems. The opening had 10,000+ attendees.



15,000 square foot skating rink with over a thousand colored lights plus four search lights.

The ice rink and ballrooms would host hockey, curling, golf matches, lacrosse, ring tournaments, ice bicycles, and Scottish turners (?), while outside they had snow-shoe clubs, sleighing, and toboggan parties.

At the time it was said to have the largest double toboggan slide ever constructed, 1,800 feet in length that went from the ice palace down into the city and the momentum was enough to bring them up another hill. At each end of these ice chutes was a two-story building with waiting rooms, so you could sled back and forth. The initial plans may have been for a 2 mile long toboggan slide.



There were flowers, photographs, minerals, fruits, and a "wealth of rare curios impossible to describe in detail" frozen inside of blocks of artificial ice and put into the interior walls.

There was a smaller ice palace called the palace of illusions that had artistically shown and high-toned "living pictures." Another enclosure had a steam-powered merry-go-round.


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## Archive (Apr 26, 2021)

> Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.Username: StarmonkeyDate: 2020-03-05 14:54:27Reaction Score: 0


Nice boardwalk and Victorian attire


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