Gallery: Ouray and Vicinity – Colorado, September 8 & 10, 2009
(click on image for larger version)
The Ouray Real Estate and Building Association started construction on the Beaumont Hotel on 5 July 1886, completing it on 15 December 1886 at a cost of $75,000. Palmer House supplied employees for the grand opening, on 25 July 1887. All of the original furniture was made by Marshall Field’s.
The Beaumont was one of the first hotels in the country to be wired for alternating current electricity. It boasted guests such as Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover. The hotel closed in 1964 due to declining tourism in the area. For over 30 years the hotel sat empty, boarded up and in disrepair. At one point part of the roof collapsed and more than once the building was considered for condemnation. The hotel was sold in 1998 and was meticulously restored, its multiple rooms combined into a more spacious arrangement — the large hotel building now has just 12 guest rooms. It reopened in 2003 and received the Governor’s Award for Historic Preservation. In 2004 it received one of the first four Preserve America Presidential Awards for historic preservation.
See more of our Image Galleries at Haw Creek.
