Sites & Collections

1883 Dillon SchoolHouse

Communities across America had one room school houses in the late 19th century — over 100,000 in 1900. Today, only 400 still stand. Built in 1883, this frame school house, with original belfry and bell, was built by the town for the children of Dillon’s first families. Trains made the mining towns more desirable for families to live in Summit County.

The railroad, which arrived in Dillon prior to the school’s construction, brought “modern” materials such as four-by-four casement windows and pressed tin for the ceiling. A platform in front with curtain enhanced recitations and presentations given by the students. Families came and a new, larger school was built. From 1910 -1966, the framed building was used as Sunday School and a mission church and then by the Dillon Community Church.

It was the Ladies of Dillon who were the driving force in using and preserving the building. They guided the moving of the famed building and its 20th century addition when the Dillon Dam was built and the historic buildings were moved or destroyed to ensure water purity in Denver’s new water supply – Lake Dillon. The school house became a museum in 1972.

The school room looks as it might have in 1892. Artifacts include McGuffy desks, Heath readers with hand-crocheted bookmarks, slates and chalk, individual learning stations, and an 1885 piano. Other artifacts on display include a Centennial flag, black celestial globe, kerosene slide projector with glass slides, and sand table. To reflect Dillon’s commercial life, a general store and blacksmith room adjacent to the schoolroom, displays blacksmith tools, assay scales, butcher’s block, post office boxes and coffee grinder.

Directions: You will find the school house Museum at 403 LaBonte Street in Dillon.

Lulu Myers Cabin

This two-story log structure, built in 1885 by Charles Delker under the Federal Homestead Act, sat along the bank of the Snake River at modern Keystone’s River Run Village. The Society moved it to its present site November 5, 1976. Sticks, rocks, clay, and rags served as chinking, filling the spaces between the hand-hewn, square logs. Coffee cans, rolled flat, cover the chinking on the outside. Inside, layers of newspaper provided extra insulation from the cold.

Two well-known families, important to Summit County, lived in this house—the Delker and Myers families. Both men made most of their money in mining-related businesses. The kitchen in the cabin tells of the daily life of the women who lived there—“Nurse” Delker and Lula Myers,  who was a “schoolmarm” for a short time in Frisco.

Directions: You will find the Myers Cabin behind the Schoolhouse Museum at 403 LaBonte Street in Dillon. Visit as part of the summer museum tours, Tuesdays through Saturdays – June 18 through August 30, 11am and 1pm.

Rice Barn

Benjamin Rice and his three sons constructed this two-story barn between 1918 and 1920. The log structure sits on a rock and masonry foundation that originally elevated the floor two feet above the ground. The lower story’s two-inch-thick floorboards easily supported the weight of 20 draft horses, their feed, wagons, and supplies. Corrugated tin covers the original gambrel board-and-batten roof. The exposed rafters and original board roof remain visible.

The upper story, “the mow”, held 40 tons of loose hay, fed to the work horses on the Rice ranch and to those pulling the freight wagons and stagecoaches operated by Benjamin Rice.

An important stop on the Dillon-Kremmling stagecoach line, the barn with its 104-inch-wide front and rear sliding doors allowed teams to be driven directly into the barn for repairs. Inside, fresh teams replaced those tired from the long haul.

Visitors to the barn see tack rooms, carriages, a sleigh, grinding wheels, and other ran please tag page for news about Rice Barn.

Directions: You will find the barn at 357 Cove Boulevard in Summit Cove between Dillon and Keystone. Make a reservation to schedule a tour of the Rice Barn.

Honeymoon Cabin

(The cabin on left in image above)

This one room log cabin was built in Keystone. Legend has it that a man asked a woman to marry him. She said, “not until there is a proper roof over my head.” Thus, our name for the cabin. It was moved to our site when Keystone Ski Resort was built in the 1970s.

Most likely, one man built this log cabin without assistance in the 1930s. Probably of Scandinavian origin, he used peeled logs of diminishing size for the walls—largest at the bottom—smaller at the top. The small door doesn’t reflect the size of the builder; rather it helped keep the heat inside. Cement caulked the walls on the outside, but on the inside narrow aspen boughs, nailed between the logs, provided extra insulation. One wall has no opening. Snow would have been shoveled against this wall for even more protection from winter cold. Corrugated galvanized steel covers the roof.

A “survival cabin,” this type of structure allowed a person to construct a cabin using trees from the nearby forest. Those nearby trees also fueled his cook stove and provided heat.

Directions: You will find the Honeymoon Cabin next to the Myers Cabin, behind the 1883 Dillon Schoolhouse Museum at 403 LaBonte Street in Dillon. Visit as part of the summer museum tours, Tuesday- Saturday, 11am and 1pm.