An hour away from Denver, black entrepreneurs EC Regnier and Roger Ewalt in 1922 purchased land in Gilpin County, selling lots to black people from Denver and around the country, on which they could build summer getaway cabins. At the heart of this community, which existed from the 1920s to roughly the end of Jim Crow, was Winks Panorama Lodge, which last December was named a National Historic Landmark. Operated by Obrey “Winks” Hamlet and his wife Melba, the lodge, which included a lively tavern, hosted black luminaries of the day, from Langston Hughes to Duke Ellington.
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