Fascinated with Leadville, Colorado

I first walked the streets of Leadville, Colorado, on a summer day with my family when I was 12 or 13. The old buildings and tall tales of miners and outlaws fascinated me. I spent some of my allowance to buy little pamphlets that told the story of Baby Doe Tabor and the history of Leadville. Years later when my new husband came with me to visit Colorado for the first time, I insisted that he see Leadville. I didn’t remember, until he very politely asked for some aspirin halfway through our day, that he was a “flatlander” and couldn’t immediately adjust to being 10,000 feet above the sea.

And then I discovered the story of the Leadville Ice Palace. In fact, it was my mom who first told me the story in my adult years, and she bought me every book she could find on the subject. When I finished those books, I went on to read original newspaper articles from 1895 and 1896. The Ice Palace enthralled me. I knew that I wanted children to know this story too. And so I wrote Palace of Ice: The True Story of the Leadville Ice Palace.

My hope is that the story will help young readers feel what it was like to live long ago in “The Magic City” of Leadville, Colorado, where anything could—and did happen.