Other cases of facadectomy have occurred in the little 19th century
mining towns up in the Colorado Rockies.  Towns like Black Hawke, Central
City, and Crested Butte may have experienced this.  Up there the new
panning for gold takes the form of slot machines and roulette tables.  The
gambling houses have lots of money and are often coming into Colorado from
other states and have little regard for the historic fabric of what they
see as Podunk, CO.  In many cases, they would like to (and do simply tear
down) the older buildings.  In other cases, they want to (or have to) save
the facade to give their monstrosity of a building some remote (as remote
as tacking a two-story Wal-Mart on the back of a 19th c. brick commercial
building can be) connection to the quaint historic mining town that once
was.  After all, wasn't that at least some small part of the lure of
gambling in the Rockies.
        Another obstacle to historic preservation in the Rockies is the ski
interest.  Believe it or not some resort towns such as Aspen actually do
have a historic preservation office.  Durango has a very active
preservation community and is a delightful town to visit.

Stetson

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