The YAK is a beloved Leadville and Lake County tradition, revived through the One Community Project to celebrate the stories, voices, and creative spirit that shape our community. The storytelling contest and community event, hosted April 25th, 2025, invited community members to share personal stories, poems, photography, art, and reflections that paint a rich and authentic portrait of who we are. Together, these stories help ground the future vision for Leadville and Lake County in the real hopes, challenges, and connections that define our community today.
My wife and I have enjoyed Lake County as a recreational destination for decades while living in another part of the state. In 2011, we were fortunate to purchase a parcel of land in the Twin Lakes area. For several years we frequently visited the land, staked out different house layouts, and dreamed of moving here. We started construction on our home in the spring of 2019 and moved in as full-time residents in December 2021. It required an adjustment to year-round higher altitude living in a relatively remote location, but we have enjoyed every aspect, including the incredible recreation and wildlife, and getting involved in our community.
Learning about the history of the area has been rewarding, and our education took an interesting and surprising direction because of one of my work projects. I am a Colorado School of Mines graduate with a career working on tunnels, shafts, and large underground caverns for civil infrastructure, hydropower generation, and mines in far flung locations in several countries. Just after we started construction on our Twin Lakes home, I became involved in the rehabilitation of the Carlton Tunnel located under Hagerman Pass. Finally, after 40+ years, I get to work on a tunnel in my backyard!
There was a collapse in the tunnel, and I was tasked with designing and managing the construction of repairs. Unfortunately, there were no original construction records to work from. After learning the tunnel was built for the Colorado Midland Railroad, I started researching in the Lake County Library where AJ guided me to the Leadville Room. She directed me to several railroad reference books and Leadville Herald Democrat articles that revealed a fascinating history of tunnel construction from 1891 to 1893 with many delays and fatal accidents (the press dubbed it the “graveyard tunnel”). I learned the tunnel, originally named Busk Ivanhoe and the third longest in the country, was operated by the railroad for about 30 years with service between Leadville and Aspen. The state took over ownership, renamed the tunnel Carlton, and operated it as part of Highway 104 with a toll of $1 for a little over 20 years. In the mid-1940s the tunnel was purchased by a water company to deliver water from Lake Ivanhoe on the Western Slope to Turquoise Lake and the Arkansas River.
I have shared this rich but largely forgotten history with the owners of the tunnel, visitors to our work, the Leadville-based chapter of the Society of Mining Engineers and students at the Colorado School of Mines and I am happy to present to other interested groups.
Though we are relatively new to Lake County, we have developed a strong connection to the history and importance of Lake County. I do not claim to be an expert on the historical importance of the tunnel, but it is a rewarding experience to share my research with our community and help them better appreciate what our predecessors accomplished. Our roots are relatively new but strong and will continue to grow. We consider ourselves lucky to live in Lake County and cannot imagine anywhere we would rather be.
