By Laura Van Dusen
At South Park City Museum in Fairplay, time stands still.
Visitors there can wander through buildings salvaged from the gold and silver mining craze of the 1860s-1890s. They can touch the furnishings, sit in the chairs or even lie in the beds once occupied by frontier Colorado miners and railroad tycoons. One can visit a frontier Masonic lodge, a drugstore full of pre-1900s remedies or an old-time saloon complete with a wall-sized oil painting of the lovely unclad “Rachel. ”
The painting once graced the walls of the historic Antlers Hotel in Colorado Springs (since replaced by the Antlers Hilton).
Abandoned ghost buildings are tough to find these days in their original environment, which makes the collection at South Park City all the more fascinating.