Local author pens new book using vintage images to share history of the area
PRESS RELEASE – The newest addition to Arcadia Publishing’s popular Images of America series is Black Hawk and Central City by local author David Forsyth. The book boasts more than 200 vintage images and memories of days gone by.
The neighboring towns of Central City and Black Hawk in Gilpin County played very prominent roles in the formation of Colorado. The two mining camps supplied millions of dollars in gold, giving them great economic and political power in the 1800s. Colorado’s first two US senators and representative came from Central City.
The two towns were home to popular theaters, schools, churches, baseball teams and thriving businesses, all designed to prove they were permanent, law-abiding settlements. As mining began to die out in the late 1890s and early 1900s, the two towns entered a period of steep economic decline, but a new mining operation and the reopening of the Central City Opera House in the 1930s led to a revival, making the former mining camps major tourist attractions. The introduction of legalized gambling in 1991 added yet another chapter to the colorful history of Black Hawk and Central City. This unique history is showcased using a collection of vintage images in Images of America: Black Hawk and Central City.
Highlights of Black Hawk and Central City include:
- Emphasizes the importance of law and order in Black Hawk and Central City, which did not want to be thought of as the Wild West.
- Discusses some of the lesser known tales of Black Hawk and Central City, including the uranium boom of the late 1940s and early 50s.
- Highlights the community effort to revive Central City as a tourist town in the 1930s.
- A portion of the author’s profits will go to the Gilpin Historical Society to help fund its effort to collect and preserve the history of Gilpin County.
Available at area bookstores, independent retailers, and online retailers, or through Arcadia Publishing at (888)-313-2665 or online.
Arcadia Publishing is the leading publisher of local and regional history in the United States. Our mission is to make history accessible and meaningful through the publication of books on the heritage of America’s people and places. Have we done a book on your town? Visit https://www.arcadiapublishing.com/.
About the Author
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David Forsyth is a Colorado native. His passion for history led to his earning a Bachelor’s and Master’s in it from the University of Colorado at Denver and a Ph.D. from the University of Colorado at Boulder. His interests include presidential history, Colorado history, and amusement park history. He has written several articles on various aspects of Colorado history that have appeared in History Colorado’s magazine Colorado Heritage and International Bowling Industry magazine, among others. He is the winner of the 2004 Koch Prize for Best Master’s Thesis in Colorado Studies from CU Denver, and the Clear Creek County/Gilpin County Metal Mining Association’s 2013 Golden Burro Award for his work in preserving and promoting those counties’ mining heritage.
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