Homeschool Field Trip: Leadville

We did a "quick" day trip to Leadville, CO yesterday, opting to stay home and act like responsible homeowners this weekend instead of going camping again.

Leadville might be the most historic mining town in Colorado, with fascinating stories of the many famous people that lived and visited there. It was a great lesson in some of the more "colorful" mining history (we had lunch in a building that used to be a brothel), though of course we kept that toned down when explaining it to the young ones.

Our main reason for going was to ride the train. The Leadville C&S railroad goes along a stretch of track through some of the old mining community, though it was hard to see much of it. The girls enjoyed the train ride though - it was a neat experience for them, especially the three year old, who is very much in the "Transportation Stage", fascinated with all things that move.

We also took some time to drive around town and see a few historic sites. There are tours for many of the historic buildings in Leadville and we would have loved to go on them, but time was limited (it's a three and a half hour drive to get there in the first place.) So we appreciated them from the outside.


We did stop at the cemetery for a quick geocache, and enjoyed the story behind this grave:

Note the name below Texas Jack's - Wm. F. Cody Buffalo Bill. He erected this grave stone for his friend. Neat to see.

When I was in the fourth grade, I remember having to do a whole report on California history. It was a huge project, learning the state flower and bird, the history of California, some of the geography. My hope is that my own girls will never have need of such a report - that they'll have seen and touched and felt it enough in real life that they'll never question the heritage of the State of Colorado.