2009 picture of Bishops Castle Construction

Bishop Castle is an "elaborate and intricate" "one-man project" named after its constructor, Jim Bishop, that has become a

roadside attraction A roadside attraction is a feature along the side of a road meant to attract tourists. In general, these are places one might stop on the way to somewhere, rather than actually being a destination. They are frequently advertised with billboards. T ...

in central

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

. The "castle" is located in south central Colorado on State Highway 165 in the

Wet Mountains The Wet Mountains are a small mountain range in southern Colorado, named for the amount of snow they receive in the winter as compared to the dried Great Plains to the east. They are a sub-range of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, in the southern R ...

Southern Colorado South-Central Colorado is a region of the U.S. state of Colorado. It can be roughly defined by Chaffee County in the northwest, El Paso County in the northeast, Las Animas County in the southeast, and Conejos County in the southwest. Some notable ...

in the

San Isabel National Forest San Isabel National Forest is located in central Colorado. The forest contains 19 of the state's 53 fourteeners, peaks over high, including Mount Elbert, the highest point in Colorado. It is one of eleven national forests in the state of Color ...

, southwest of

Pueblo, Colorado Pueblo () is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Home rule municipality, home rule municipality that is the county seat and the List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous municipality of Pueblo County, Colorado, Pueblo County, Colorado ...

Overview

Bishop bought the land for the site for $450 when he was 15, and construction on what was originally intended to be a family project to build a cottage started in 1969. After Bishop surrounded the cottage with rocks, several neighbors noted that the structure looked something like a castle. Bishop took this into consideration and soon began building his castle. According to Roadsideamerica, "for most" of the 40 years he has worked on the castle "Bishop was engaged in a running battle with Washington bureaucrats over the rocks that he used," which came from the National Forest surrounding his property. "Bishop felt that they were his for the taking, the government wanted to charge him per truckload." That dispute has been settled. In 1996, he was challenged by the local and state government over unsanctioned road signs that pointed to the site. They settled the dispute by issuing official road signs. The site has become a tourist attraction, and RoadsideAmerica.com devoted a chapter to the castle and rated it "major fun" and describing it as, "one man's massive-obsessive labor of medieval fantasy construction". But it also issued a "parent's alert," warning potential visitors that Jim Bishop is "a tough-talking man with strong, extreme beliefs, and sometimes he expresses them bluntly and loudly. If you and your children want to avoid potentially offensive rants (involving politics), you may want to steer clear." In the winter of 2014–15 a dispute developed over control of the castle after Jim Bishop and his wife Phoebe were both diagnosed with cancer, and David Merrill, who Jim "considered a friend," was made a trustee of Bishop Castle. According to Westword.com website, Merrill turned the site "into Castle Church—for the Redemption, according to the Custer County Clerk and Recorder's Office". Since then, the Bishops have "spent $20,000 trying to get a clear title to Bishop Castle, and to get Merrill's name off all paperwork." A song about the castle, called "Fire Breathing Dragon," is featured on the 2017 album, ''The Castle Builder'', by English musician Kid Carpet. On March 28, 2018, a fire ignited on the Bishop Castle property, disintegrating the gift shop and a guest house. The fire is speculated to be electrical, and did not damage the castle itself (which is mostly made of stone). Despite the fire, the attraction re-opened to the public later that week, while being supported with donations and volunteer labor.

Gallery

References

External links

*
History, photos and status as of June 2007

Entry at the Center for Land Use Interpretation

Entry for Bishop Castle at the National Scenic Byways website
{{Coord, 38, 3, 41.22, N, 105, 5, 39.87, W, region:US-CO_type:landmark, display=title Visionary environments Castles in the United States Unfinished castles Landmarks in Colorado Folly buildings in the United States Tourist attractions in Custer County, Colorado Roadside attractions in Colorado Houses in Custer County, Colorado San Isabel National Forest