Talk:Leadville, Colorado

Elevation Controversy
Leadville is -- or at least was -- the highest incorporated city in the US. Incorporation being an important part of the distinction. This has been occasionally challenged by the town of Alma. The mess is so bad now that some people consider the elevation of Leadville to be 10,430 ft, which parts of it are. Interestingly, neither the benchmark at city hall nor the one at the county court house is at either 10,152 or 10,430, so which point in particular they are measuring is somewhat of a mystery. The 10,430 mark is presumably somewhere on Leadville's eastern side.

I seem to recall the city fathers claiming, during one of the more contentious arguments, that they might just "annex Mount Elbert and finish this fight once and for all!".


 * Alma - 10,355 ft
 * Montezuma - 10,335 ft
 * Leadville - 10,152 ft

http://www.mesalek.com/colo/trivia/elev.html

I noticed the variation also in elevation figures. Wikipedia cites two sources 1) www.leadville.com and 2) infoplease.com. I advocate using the "official" figure of the United States Geological Survery, which I will research. T.E. Goodwin 01:24, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I researched this when I was working for the Leadville Chamber of Commerce many years ago. The official accepted number is 10,152.  I couldn't find anyone who would support the 10,430 number, though someone might be able to find it in some newspaper articles.  It would have been sometime before 1994, I think.  --Mdwyer 02:40, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Airport Elevation
At an elevation of 9,927' the Leadville Airport is the highest in the United States and the 3rd highest in the world. Source: www.leadvilleairport.com
 * You can apply that to the article itself by putting it in brackets:  However, I think an FAA reference might be better.  Especially since I SUSPECT there are other words that need to follow the claim.  Like "Highest FAA Airport" or "Highest Permanent Airport" or something like that.  I think there are some air strips that are higher (think Alaska), but they aren't full airports somehow. --Mdwyer 02:40, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I put the fact tag back in. --Mdwyer 20:42, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll take the tag back out again, after researching it a bit. There are a number of airports higher than Leadville.  I downloaded a list of airports from this site: , put it in a spreadsheet and sorted by elevation.  The database is not complete - it doesn't include leadville - but here are the airports that have airport code assignments above 9927':




 * LPB/EL ALTO INTERNATIONAL/LA PAZ/BOLIVIA || 13313'
 * POI/CAPITAN NICOLAS ROJAS/POTOSI/BOLIVIA || 12913'
 * JUL/JULIACA/JULIACA/PERU || 12546'
 * ANS/ANDAHUAYLAS/ANDAHUAYLAS/PERU || 11300'
 * CUZ/VELAZCO/ASTETE/CUZCO/PERU || 10860'
 * IXL/LEH/LEH/INDIA || 10682'
 * }
 * CUZ/VELAZCO/ASTETE/CUZCO/PERU || 10860'
 * IXL/LEH/LEH/INDIA || 10682'
 * }
 * IXL/LEH/LEH/INDIA || 10682'
 * }


 * Four others were listed that did not have airport codes.


 * I also got a list of airports from the FAA, found at:


 * They only list US airports, and Leadville ranks as the highest - though there are about a dozen heliports that are higher. So I think we can leave the 'highest airport in the US' distinction, but remove the 'third highest in the world' one. Adagio 21:54, 30 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Nicely done! I'm pretty sure there's an adjective that makes the #3 claim true, but for the life of me I can't remember what it is.  I think it had something to do with actually having a manned control tower (Although 'tower' is stretching it a bit at KLXV :) ) or landing lights or something. There are plenty of runways -- some of them little more than dirt roads -- all over the world, and some of them MUST be higher.  Still, there's some (totally arbitrary) designation that makes that claim true, I'm sure.
 * Personally, I don't think it is worth it to find it, though. I think your solution is perfectly good. Thank you again for researching it. --Mdwyer 00:19, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

History
This section reads "Many tales from Leadville found their way into H.A.W Tabor's works." I am not aware that Tabor ever wrote anything of note. Is their any substantiation for this? Did someone mistakenly write in Tabor's name instead of that of some novelist?Plazak 17:57, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciation
How is "Leadville" pronounced? I once passed through, and recall the locals pronouncing the name differently from what I expected. --Dan (talk) 15:57, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Lead is pronounced just like the metal which was mined in the area.Hoxoh (talk) 07:58, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Cloud City
Does anyone think the article should mention Leadville's historic nickname Cloud City? Richard Myers (talk) 06:35, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

"Parade Capital U.S.A"
A relative who is a Leadville, CO resident told me today that the claim to the title of "Parade Capital U.S.A." was completely fabricated and added to the Wikipedia entry by a high school teacher to prove a point about Wikipedia's (lack of) reliability. I will remove this claim if it is not sourced by January 15, 2011. Engender (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 05:55, 30 December 2010 (UTC).

Coordinate error
The following coordinate fixes are needed for

—174.242.240.37 (talk) 02:18, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
 * You haven't stated what you think is wrong, and the coordinates in the article did not seem to be seriously incorrect. I've made a few tweaks; OK now? Deor (talk) 10:22, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Gallery photos...
The famous photographer W.H. Jackson photographed Leadville in 1890. I wonder if a gallery would work here? Photos:





I lightened the Jackson image up a bit; I might be able to improve the text (the larger text) a bit if you want. If you think I'm on the right track let me know and I can fool around with it some more.Steven C. Price 21:58, 17 September 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Steven C. Price (talk • contribs)

I will add to this. Gandydancer (talk) 17:02, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Historic section
I divided it into sections with headers and it was changed back. I rather liked the headers. Thoughts? Gandydancer (talk) 16:05, 30 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm not keen on lots of headers for sections with their own article, looks bitty, but I don't mind either way. There is too much on Baby Doe though... that bit duplicates her article when it should be about the mine. J3Mrs (talk) 18:59, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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Irish heritage
Colorado historian bringing stories of Irish Leadville miners to life Bogger (talk) 07:57, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Non-free material tag
There is a tag on the article saying that it's possible that the article has a lot of non-free material.

I ran Copyvio on the article and found that there's one page with a 93.7% violation. What's strange, though, is that it's named https://loscabosmarlinfishing.com/gznmuru/hidden-mountain-resort-cabin-4081

I wonder if they copied content from the article rather than the other way around. No idea why, based upon the page url.

The second largest potential violation is https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/dsp_ssppSiteData2.cfm?id=0801478#Risk at 23%, but in the article the content is in quotes. Otherwise, I am not seeing much of an issue.

What I am wondering is:
 * Whether there should be a cleanup of uncited content?
 * Remove the Non-free tag?

Thanks!–CaroleHenson (talk) 01:41, 16 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi, CaroleHenson, thanks for calling my attention here; I did not have this article on my Watchlist but now I do.
 * I think neither of those websites is a problem, copyright-wise. As you point out, the https://loscabosmarlinfishing.com/gznmuru/hidden-mountain-resort-cabin-4081 site is bizarre.  It appears to be nonsense in English and in other languages, just a ton of stuff so that it will show up in searches and bring people to its page, to disperse viruses to them or for some other nefarious purpose.  The coherent sentences that appear there were clearly not written by anyone there, they can only be copied.
 * And the U.S. EPA website is public domain text: works of the Federal government, by Federal employees, are pd, so it can't be copyvio to have material copied from there.  Copied public domain text can be plagiarism, if the original authors/sources are not given adequate credit for their ideas and for their wording, but if the material is explicitly quoted then they are credited.
 * I have not run that copyvios.toolforge.org tool, but if it is telling you those are the questionable webpages with overlapping material, then I think there are no issues. Does the tool allow you to mark those pages to be excluded from its searching for overlaps and run it again.  But if those are the only matches, then I agree that the non-free tag should be removed. --Doncram (talk) 17:06, 16 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks for weighing-in . I don't know how to remove a website from the Copyvio search, but one can just ignore it. I am going to double-check the other sources, just to make sure I didn't miss anything that's an issue, then I will remove the non-free tag. I will have to come back to it, I tried running the copyvio link for the Leadville page and my computer froze up. I'll be back.–CaroleHenson (talk) 17:23, 16 September 2022 (UTC)


 * ✅ I resolved a few minor issues and then removed the tag with these edits.–CaroleHenson (talk) 18:17, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

how cold it is
The lede properly mentions the elevation, which is over 10,000 feet. Could it also please mention that it is _cold_, i.e. something like it is, on average, 20 degrees F colder than Denver, or on average 8 degrees F colder than the next highest city of its size in Colorado, or something like that. How cool it was, when visiting in the summer, was the most striking thing about it, to me. (Or how cool it feels? Maybe it feels colder than it would otherwise, due to having low humidity due in part to thin air at such a high elevation?)


 * Leadville, Colorado Köppen Climate Classification at weatherbase.com]: This climate type is dominated by the winter season, a long, bitterly cold period with short, clear days, relatively little precipitation mostly in the form ...


 * The Best Time to Visit Leadville, CO, US for Weather, Safety ... at https://championtraveler.com: Average temperatures in Leadville vary drastically. Considering humidity, temperatures feel cold all year with a low chance of precipitation most of the.


 * more hits to explore to get a more reliable-sounding source. --Doncram (talk) 19:19, 16 September 2022 (UTC)


 * There is section "Leadville, Colorado" with table of temperatures, but currently no statements on Leadville compared to any other location. --Doncram (talk) 21:23, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

How cold it is, and claim about being highest city of its type
I do believe there is some true statement which should be included, that it is the highest city of its size in the U.S. or in the world. (Could it possibly be that, for the world? Kathmandu, in Nepal, is larger in population but lower, at just 4,600 feet.) Or it is the highest mining town or city of its size, or something like that.

Relatedly, it must have some statistic about it being a ski town: the highest ski town of its size, or similar. --Doncram (talk) 18:44, 16 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Per Colorado.com article about 9 things to love about Leadville: "At 10,152 feet above sea level, Leadville is the highest incorporated city in North America." I tend to believe Colorado.com as a factual source on this point.  Before regurgitating it though, I would just want to verify there is not an incorporated _town_ or incorporated village, say, that is that high;  i hope that claim is not a technicality about Leadville being a legal city, if there is a larger population town or village that is higher, in U.S., Canada, or Mexico. --Doncram (talk) 18:59, 16 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Oh, that commonly stated claim is in fact a technicality. I think the claim should be stated (and how that is a technicality should be explained, at least in a footnote).  From the Alma, Colorado article: At an elevation of approximately 10578 ft, it is the highest incorporated municipality in the United States when considering only areas with permanent residents.  Its post office is located at the highest elevation of any in the country. Alma, which is considered a town and not a city, does not take the title of "highest incorporated city" from Leadville, Colorado. Using administrative boundaries as a measure, not settled areas, in 2006 Winter Park, Colorado became the highest incorporated town due to its annexation of a ski area.  Beyond the official limits of Alma is a residential area which extends to 11680 ft above sea level on Mountain View Drive; this area uses Fairplay, Colorado addresses, despite being slightly closer to Alma.


 * I found my way there from quick web-searching, which brought me to List of highest United States cities by state or territory. And List of cities in the United States by elevation (really about cities and towns) lists 4 above 10,000 feet, all in Colorado, with Montezuma, Colorado also being higher than Leadville.
 * It probably needs to briefly explained how the elevation of a town or city is determined; i suppose it must be the average height of its area. --Doncram (talk) 19:08, 16 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Okay, I think it is reasonable to use the following in the lede (and I just tried putting this into the article): "The city is among just four incorporated towns or cities in the United States at elevation higher than 10,000 feet (3,000 m).", with wikilink to the appropriate section of List of cities in the United States by elevation. I feel this is accurate and worth conveying, while deliberately not buying into the city vs. town technicality used in the common marketing claim.  For gosh sake, the article state that the "city" has population of just 2,762.  Feel free to discuss or to be bold and delete or change that. --Doncram (talk) 20:52, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
 * And i revised that a bit in the article. --Doncram (talk) 21:23, 16 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Wow! Thanks for all you posted here. I have just finished cleaning up Horace Tabor, but I will be back to this article. There's a lot that can be done to make the article better.–CaroleHenson (talk) 01:13, 17 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Hi, I took a look at the article for your edits regarding elevation in the intro. I am wondering two things. Based upon the source you mentioned, can't we just say that it's the highest incorporated city in Colorado? Since it's a claim, we need a citation. I am assuming it is okay to use the colorado.com source for highest incorporated city and multiple 14,0000 feet mountain views. Is that right? Thanks so much for checking into this - it's very helpful info!–CaroleHenson (talk) 18:32, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
 * That would be fine, edit away! I was being petulant to withhold saying that.  I did notice the two towns at higher elevations are much much smaller in population, so it would not be misleading to say that. --Doncram (talk) 18:47, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅, feel free to edit it if I missed something.–CaroleHenson (talk) 19:24, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

how "nearby" was Oroville
I just put in "a mile or two" based on Google maps, which I opened on the point location in Oroville, Colorado article. Then measured distance from there to a point I dropped in downtown Leadville: it was 2.6 miles but the path squiggled, so call it 2 miles. And California Gulch on the edge of bowl around Leadville is only about 1 mile. That's my derivation. I don't think it needs to be explicitly sourced, unless it is challenged, as it is factual. Or i/we could compose a footnote explaining measurement in mapping software, from which point to which point, etc. What do you think? --Doncram (talk) 22:49, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

The Chronicle
That jumps out as quite a claim, that the newspaper was first in U.S. to have a woman reporter! Small historic newspapers are notable. There is not yet a Chronicle (Leadville, Colorado) (currently a redlink, and not mentioned at Chronicle (disambiguation), will maybe start Draft:Chronicle (Leadville, Colorado)). Have recently done other historic newspapers, including Draft:St. Landry Clarion (submitted at AFC, will go to St. Landry Clarion) and found there is a big project in Louisiana at least (by LSU Libraries) to document all the historic papers (and make their complete publications available online). Surely there oughta be sources for Leadville's Chronicle, and maybe its The Reveille': check Reveille (maybe start Draft:Reveille (Leadville, Colorado)). IMHO it is important for wikipedia to cover all such newspapers and in general all or most small news sources (like Wikipedia is a "Gazetteer" about settlements), because some of our articles cite them, and the public oughta be able to check what's known about a given source. There's an essay or two about this need. Will see what sources I can find, anyhow. --Doncram (talk) 22:49, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Looking for The Chronicle, there is interesting "Moore: My Trip from Denver to Leadville over Mosquito Pass in the Summer of 1880" — JOW, Fall 2012, Vol. 51, No. 4, written by Shirley Cushing Flint with diary passages? letters? from her great grandmother Caroline Frances Belcher Moore. I found PDF from EBSO, accessed from Wikipedia Library, and have saved it.  Seems like good read with detail about Leadville early on.  It does have a nice quote from The Chronicle.  User:CaroleHenson, could i email that to you? --Doncram (talk) 23:51, 17 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Sounds like a good idea. Is the newspaper the Carbonate Chronicle or the The Leadville Daily Chronicle/ The Leadville Evening Chronicle? I am not sure if you use newspapers.com, but that might be a good source (but requires a subscription) as well as Colorado Historical Newspapers which does not require a subscription... of course, as well as other sources.


 * Yes, you may email me. You can do it from my CaroleHenson page. Thanks for giving me a heads up. I get overwhelmed pretty easily these days (and get a lot of email) so it's good to know to look out for it.–CaroleHenson (talk) 01:54, 18 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Just did send gmail to you. The file size is 19,000 or so MB, it took a while for gmail to upload it before sending.  Let me know if you don't receive it, given some time.
 * Yeah, I see those variations in names (and simply "The Chronicle") at the "About" pages for them at the Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers" of the Library of Congress. And I found notice in 2008 of "The Chronicle" closing up.  Not sure yet which of those are related entities, reflecting renamings or having multiple editions, or not.  Also i see List of newspapers in Colorado is set up to call it Leadville Chronicle.  I also found a fun commentary about the Chronicle, when it was about 2 years old, in the Colorado Springs Weekly Gazette, and I saved some more items too, using NewspaperArchive via the Wikipedia Library (apparently a competitor to Newspapers.com). So I guess i should start a draft, and certainly will check your reference to "Colorado Historical Newspapers".  Thanks! --Doncram (talk) 09:33, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Edits in Sept 2023, Citation Sources added, help needed
Hello community,

Edits previously made on Sept 8 have been restored, this time with much needed citation sources. Can anyone please help me consolidate the citation instances? I thought Wikipedia would automatically detect when the same exact ref text was added beyond the first instance. It appears that the Blair (1995) and Buys (2007) books I cited show up multiple times in the References section, which is probably undesirable.

I plan to continue reviewing books from my local libraries on the subject of Leadville and enhancing this article. I also visit Leadville frequently and have a lot of original photos I can upload to enhance the article. My great grandmother was born there in 1884.

I have a major interest in postal history of Leadville. Do you all suggest I create a separate article with this content or should I begin adding it to this main article under a Postal History section? I have a collection of many letters, postcards, and envelopes (covers) related to the town.

Thank you all! Mikepascoe (talk) 14:18, 11 September 2023 (UTC)