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Summerville Colorado Townsite - Ghost town

Photos courtesy of Mike Sinnwell 2005

Summerville still has the old hotel / boarding house. It is on private property but easily visible from the road. There are some of the old buildings still standing. Some have been converted to summer homes.

A viewer writes - Monday April 4th 20011 -  Thank you for documenting the town of Summerville. All the buildings burned in the Sept. 2010 Four Mile Canyon fire.

A viewer comments - Thankfully this is not true.  Only two of the Summerville homes were lost in the fire, "The Big House" (old boarding house) where my great grandmother Elsie lived and "The Hunt House" first cabin in town which was not photographed. Heartbreaking as it is the photos you took in 2006 are a wonderful keepsake of a time gone by. Thank you So Much

Rocky writes - Yes and I went back into this area in 2010 after the fire. Sad to see so many buildings gone forever. I was fortunate to get my photos when I did. I just could not take pictures of the devastation I saw after the fire.

A viewer writes - Thursday April 14th 2011 -- Thank YOU sir, for the obvious effort you've put into your site. It's beautiful. No, I wasn't personally affected by the fire as I now live in Michigan. I did live in Summerville in the late 70's. Also have lived in the four mile canyon a couple miles above Wallstreet, Gold Hill, Left Hand Canyon below Ward, and south of Nederland a bit. I spent a lot of time exploring mine sites and such and really miss it. Your pictures bring back a lot of happy memories.

Tom Trask owned pretty much all of Summerville and lived in the house you identified as the old hotel until the fire. When I lived there, his grandmother was still alive at 102. She moved to the area during the gold rush and never left. She was full of great stories about the mining days, told us about a shooting she witnessed in the miner's rest another friend lived in. Not sure if that cabin survived, would love to know. It still had the bunkrooms down the side with 6 built-in bunks each.  Lots of great history in those Colorado hills. Thanks again for a great site! --  Jim