Idaho Springs, Colorado Archives - The3DTravel Self-guided audio walking tours Mon, 12 Oct 2026 11:34:35 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1.3 https://the3dtravel.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/the3dtravel-icon-512-100x100.png Idaho Springs, Colorado Archives - The3DTravel 32 32 Idaho Springs: The Water Beneath the Gold https://the3dtravel.com/tours/idaho-springs-water/ Mon, 12 Oct 2026 10:27:02 +0000 https://the3dtravel.com/tours/idaho-springs-water/ George Jackson's ninth cup, a library with a lodger, Lucy's two doors, the march of 1903, a schoolhouse in court, a wheel by the falls, a shaft full of hot water and the tunnel that never stopped running

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A self-guided audio walk through Idaho Springs, Colorado, where the gold rush in the Rockies took off, following the water that made the town and kept costing it. Start where Chicago Creek meets Clear Creek and George Jackson, alone in the snow in January 1859, found his nugget in the ninth cup of thawed gravel. Then walk Miner Street: the 1878 hose house and the Carnegie library that grew out of the women’s clubs, the house with two front doors that a widow hoped would never become a tavern, the Mining Exchange and the summer of 1903, when a crowd marched striking miners out of town, and the schoolhouse the town moved and defended in the Colorado Supreme Court. Along the Clear Creek Greenway come Charlie Tayler’s waterwheel below Bridal Veil Falls and the foot of Soda Creek Road, where hot water drove a father and son out of their mine shaft and a doctor turned it into a bath business. The walk ends below the Argo Mill, at the mouth of the tunnel built to drain the mines, where a flood killed four men in 1943 and where the water is still treated today. Everything is told from public sidewalks and the public Greenway; the museums, the hot springs and the Argo Mill are seen from outside only, and no tickets are sold or bundled.

The stops

  1. The Ninth Cup
  2. Fire Carts and Books
  3. Two Doors on Miner Street
  4. The Exchange and the Summer of 1903
  5. A Schoolhouse on the Move
  6. The Wheel by the Falls
  7. The Shaft That Filled with Hot Water
  8. The Water That Never Stopped

Finding the start

Start on the Clear Creek Greenway footbridge beside the Highway 103 bridge, just south of Interstate 70 exit 240 at the west end of Idaho Springs: from Miner Street, walk south on the 13th Avenue (Highway 103) sidewalk under the interstate, about 300 meters.

Terrain and access

About 2.5 kilometers, step-free and nearly level, on paved sidewalks and the paved Clear Creek Greenway with two footbridges. Getting to the start and leaving it, you cross the Interstate 70 on- and off-ramps beside Highway 103: use the signals. Other street crossings are on Miner Street at 14th, 15th and 17th Avenues and at the busy junction of Miner Street, Colorado Boulevard and Soda Creek Road. The last stretch drops gently from Colorado Boulevard to a footbridge (not yet checked on foot). Interstate 70 runs beside the Greenway, so it is noisy there. Do not walk up Soda Creek Road (no sidewalk under the interstate) and stay off the creek banks. The walk is at about 2,300 meters above sea level: take it slowly and carry water. It ends below the Argo Mill, about 15 minutes’ walk east of downtown.

Tickets

Nothing on the route needs a ticket; the museums, the hot springs and the Argo Mill are seen from outside only.

Keep going

What you get

  • An email from tours@the3dtravel.com with a link and an access code.
  • Use it on your phone or tablet in an up-to-date web browser, no app store needed. There is no account to set up before you start.
  • Download it on Wi-Fi before you go. After that it works offline: audio, text, map and pictures.
  • Your booking includes 2 phones, so two of you can follow along, each on your own. Extra phones are $2.95 each, or a group can share one phone on its speaker.
  • Play, pause and replay every part, skip back and ahead, or change the playback speed. Keep the screen on or tap play at each stop.

How it was made

Every fact in the narration is checked against a cited source, and legends are told as legends. The narration is written from that research. How our tours are made.

Image credits

The post Idaho Springs: The Water Beneath the Gold appeared first on The3DTravel.

]]> Idaho Springs After Dark: The Miners Who Were Banished https://the3dtravel.com/tours/idaho-springs-after-dark/ Mon, 12 Oct 2026 10:26:48 +0000 https://the3dtravel.com/tours/idaho-springs-after-dark/ A march into the dark, four men lost in a flooded tunnel, a fire bell with no fire, a dynamite blast and a miner called Philip Fire, a meeting at the Opera House, and one law for influential citizens

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A self-guided audio walk for the evening through downtown Idaho Springs, Colorado, on the true dark history of a mining town. It starts at the east end of town, where on a summer night in 1903 a crowd turned fourteen union miners out into the dark, passes the Argo Mill, where four miners drowned when blasting broke into hidden water in the tunnel in January 1943, and then walks west up Miner Street through the story of how that night came about. On July 28, 1903, during a miners’ strike for the eight-hour day, kegs of powder or dynamite wrecked a building at the Sun and Moon mine and a union miner named Philip Fire was found dying on the hillside. The next evening the fire bell called the town to the Opera House, where a mine manager and bank president moved to take the union men out of the jail, a deputy district attorney warned that no one had presented any evidence, and the motion carried with a shout. Fourteen men were marched east along the main street and told never to come back. You will hear what the records say about who planned it, who was tried and acquitted, and why the hundred and twenty-nine citizens charged over that night never faced a jury. No ghost stories are told, because none was found in the records; the miners’ legends are labeled as legends. Everything is told from public sidewalks and streets; nothing is narrated on private ground or inside the mill, and no tickets are sold or bundled.

The stops

  1. The Edge of Town: Into the Darkness
  2. The Argo Mill: Four Men Underground
  3. The Miner Street Bridge: The Night of the Fire Bell
  4. City Hall: The Strike and the Night of July 28
  5. The First National Bank: The Morning After
  6. The Hanchett Building: The Men in the Jail
  7. The Opera House Site: A Meeting and a Motion
  8. The Library Corner: One Law for Whom?

Finding the start

Start on the north sidewalk of Colorado Boulevard near 27th Avenue, at the east end of town where the paved Greenway path meets the boulevard, facing east along the road (motels and parking nearby; the Argo Mill is about 600 meters west).

Terrain and access

About 1.9 kilometers, step-free and nearly level on sidewalks and a paved path beside Colorado Boulevard, then Miner Street. Crosswalks on Miner Street and at 14th, 15th and 16th Avenues; the boulevard itself is not crossed. Lighting after dark has not been checked; carry a light and stay on lit sidewalks. No admissions. The walk ends in the middle of downtown, near street parking.

Tickets

Nothing on the route needs a ticket, and nothing is narrated on private ground.

Keep going

What you get

  • An email from tours@the3dtravel.com with a link and an access code.
  • Use it on your phone or tablet in an up-to-date web browser, no app store needed. There is no account to set up before you start.
  • Download it on Wi-Fi before you go. After that it works offline: audio, text, map and pictures.
  • Your booking includes 2 phones, so two of you can follow along, each on your own. Extra phones are $2.95 each, or a group can share one phone on its speaker.
  • Play, pause and replay every part, skip back and ahead, or change the playback speed. Keep the screen on or tap play at each stop.

How it was made

Every fact in the narration is checked against a cited source, and legends are told as legends. The narration is written from that research. How our tours are made.

Image credits

The post Idaho Springs After Dark: The Miners Who Were Banished appeared first on The3DTravel.

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