Preston is a
ghost town
A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...
in
Summit County, Colorado. It is located east of modern
Breckenridge, between Jessie
mine
Mine, mines, miners or mining may refer to:
Extraction or digging
*Miner, a person engaged in mining or digging
*Mining, extraction of mineral resources from the ground through a mine
Grammar
*Mine, a first-person English possessive pronoun
M ...
in Gold Run Gulch and the Jumbo mine.
Description
Preston is situated above Gold Run Gulch along Dry Gulch Road. The townsite is now
National Forest National Forest may refer to:
* National forest or state forest, a forest administered or protected by a sovereign state
** National forest (Brazil)
** National forest (France)
** National forest (United States)
** State Forests (Poland)
** The N ...
property and is managed by the Breckenridge Heritage Alliance. About west of the townsite are the remains of the Jumbo mine–consisting of abandoned
minecart
A minecart, mine cart, or mine car (or more rarely mine trolley or mine hutch), is a type of rolling stock found on a mine railway, used for transporting ore and materials procured in the process of traditional mining. Minecarts are sel ...
s, several mounds of
tailings
In mining, tailings or tails are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different from overburden, which is the waste rock or other material ...
, and a few largely collapsed wooden structures. The remaining Preston town structures are scattered along a short stretch of road.
The Jessie mine is located roughly below Preston and is connected by the road.
There is another, unrelated mine named "Jumbo" that operated in the 1910s–roughly 30 years after the opening of the Preston Jumbo mine–near
Montezuma several miles to the northeast.
In the summer, the town is accessible by bike, car, and foot. In the winter can be reached by
cross-country skis,
snowshoes
Snowshoes are specialized outdoor gear for walking over snow. Their large footprint spreads the user's weight out and allows them to travel largely on top of rather than through snow. Adjustable bindings attach them to appropriate winter footw ...
, and
fatbike
A fatbike (also called fat bike, fat tire, fat-tire bike, or snow bike) is an off-road bicycle built to accommodate oversized tyres, typically or larger and rims or wider, designed for low ground pressure to allow riding on soft, unstable terra ...
. There are several meadows that provide views of Breckenridge,
Frisco, and the
Dillon Reservoir
Dillon Reservoir, sometimes referred to as Lake Dillon, is a large fresh water reservoir located in Summit County, Colorado, United States, south of I-70 and bordered by the towns of Frisco, Silverthorne, and Dillon. It is a reservoir for th ...
. The residential area was part of a connected series of populated mining sites that also included the Prospect Complex to the northeast. A sign for visitors to the Preston townsite displays historic photographs and information, as does a similar sign at the Jessie mine.
[
]
History
The town existed by at least 1875, when the first post office
A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...
was moved there from the nearby Delaware Flats. The post office was briefly closed in January 1884, reopening after a month, before its 1889 move back towards Delaware Flats to the town of Braddockville, where in 1881 there had been an ore discovery.gold
Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...
, silver
Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...
, zinc
Zinc is a chemical element; it has symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodic tabl ...
, and lead
Lead () is a chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Pb (from Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a Heavy metal (elements), heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale, soft and Ductility, malleabl ...
.millinery
Hat-making or millinery is the design, manufacture and sale of hats and other headwear. A person engaged in this trade is called a milliner or hatter.
Historically, milliners made and sold a range of accessories for clothing and hairstyles. ...
and boarding house. It was depopulated completely by the late 1930s.[
]
References
{{Summit County, Colorado
Ghost towns in Colorado
Former populated places in Summit County, Colorado