11 Most Endangered Historic Places Black Hawk & Central City
Year Listed: 1998 Location: Black Hawk & Central City, Colorado
In the 1850s, people flocked to these small Rocky Mountain
settlements in search of gold. When the boom was over the towns
went into decline, but they managed to retain many of their
historic buildings as they slipped into decades of economic
slumber. The wake-up call came in 1990, when Colorado voters
legalized gambling to attract visitors and revive the towns'
struggling economies. The first gambling establishments were
small and installed in historic buildings, but the pace and
scale of gambling-related development have increased
dramatically in the past years. Officials in Central City
recently approved a casino structure 12 stories high and 900
feet long, with a floor area 100 times larger than its historic
neighbors. In Black Hawk and Central City, historic resources
are increasingly viewed as liabilities rather than assets. Boom
times are back, but the price of prosperity is the