Black Hawk’s newest edifice — the 33-story Ameristar Hotel for gamblers that will be topped off Thursday — stands in stark contrast to the tiny town’s mining past.
Limited-stakes gambling, approved in 1990 by 57 percent of the state’s voters, was intended to salvage the crumbling history in Black Hawk, Central City and Cripple Creek.
But while Central City and Cripple Creek have used gambling tax revenues to maintain the quaint aspects of gold-rush days, some say Black Hawk has strayed from the plan.
Former state Sen. Sally Hopper, who represented the Black Hawk and Central City area and drafted the enabling gambling legislation, said Black Hawk “is probably the most-ruined town” when it comes to historical preservation.
Hopper said she thought mom-and-pop stores with a few slot machines in each would dot the town and the old buildings would be restored.
Patricia Stokowski, a former University of Colorado faculty member who wrote a book about gambling and Colorado mining towns, said the Las Vegas-style feel of Black Hawk “bears little relation to what was proposed.”
Of the 250 residents there when gambling debuted, only 110 remain. The others sold out and moved. Those still there don’t seem to mind the direction the town has taken.
Once a collection of dilapidated trailers and a gas station, Black Hawk now has a bifurcated appearance.
The core downtown features smaller casinos in historic buildings melded with architecturally compatible new construction.
Giant casinos — with no pretense of the pre-World War I appearance required in the Colorado Constitution — have arisen in space gouged out of mountainsides on the south end of town and east of Colorado 119.
Gamblers ready for hotel
Black Hawk City Manager Richard Lessner said the town council has “a willingness to have the largest casinos on the outskirts,” where they presumably are outside the national historic district designated in 1961. Lessner said a survey was never done, so no one knows what the district’s boundaries are.
Cindy Stanford, who works at the post office and lives just outside Black Hawk, said she hasn’t heard town residents express feelings one way or another about the looming twin-tower hotel.
“I can’t imagine them needing all those rooms,” Stanford said of the 536-room Ameristar. “The whole town’s casinos anyway.”
But gamblers are ready for the new hotel to open this fall.
“I want to get enough points to stay there,” said Sheryl Garcia, who drove with friends from Greeley to gamble. She smoked outside Fitzgeralds Casino and looked at the crane hovering over the hotel. “It’s exciting.”
Hopper, who is on the board of nonprofit Colorado Preservation Inc., said: “It’s not all bad. There are places all over the state that have benefited from historic-preservation money from gambling, but that doesn’t happen to be in Black Hawk.”
Central City and Cripple Creek have taken a much different tack.
“Maintaining our historic heritage is very important to us,” said Cripple Creek City Administrator Bill McPherson. “We control (historical preservation) quite heavily.”
In comparison, Black Hawk “has lost its heritage, the feeling of the past,” McPherson said. “It doesn’t look anything like it did.”
Lynnette Hailey, Central City’s city manager, said the Town Council and historical-preservation committee have taken a restrictive track.
“We want to retain that historical integrity,” Hailey said. “We take the constitutional amendment at face value.”
Officials also question whether Black Hawk appropriately uses the money it receives for historical preservation.
Distribution of 28 percent of the gambling tax revenues was earmarked for historical preservation, with 80 percent given to the Colorado State Historical Society for statewide grants and 20 percent given to the three towns based on the proportion of revenues each generates.
While Cripple Creek and Central City have tight restrictions on how their shares are allocated, critics say Black Hawk — which accounts for about 75 percent of the state’s gaming revenues — has played fast and loose with its pot of gold.
State Sen. Al White believes Black Hawk officials have been dealing from the bottom of the deck when it comes to historical-preservation grants.
The Republican from Hayden plans to introduce legislation this week to curb excesses that have been the focus of five Colorado Bureau of Investigation inquiries since 1996.
Some findings “disturbing”
“They seem to keep finding all kinds of ways to benefit themselves,” White said of the $4 million the town receives annually from the State Historical Fund.
“I’d like to impose some statutory restrictions on how it’s spent,” White said, such as having an independent review to remove grant decision-making from the town board.
A CBI inquiry late last year found “no blatant criminal violations,” said spokesman Lance Clem.
The Colorado Limited Gaming Control Commission said in a Dec. 18 letter to state officials, including the governor and attorney general, that “some of the findings are disturbing.”
“Perhaps most unsettling,” the commission wrote, is that Black Hawk officials “routinely” receive historical-preservation grants.
From 2003 through spring 2008, Mayor David Spellman received more than $1 million; Alderwoman Kathleen Doles, $492,000 for work on her 1,285-square-foot home; and Alderwoman Diane Cales, $56,884, the CBI found.
Black Hawk’s Lessner disputed the findings, saying grant spending has followed “permissible uses” and the amount attributed to Spellman is “simply egregiously wrong.”
“It’s about restoring the building, and it doesn’t matter who lives there,” Lessner said.
He said town officials support the restoration of residences, and with an average age of 108 years, they are expensive to fix up for habitation. Commercial buildings are restored by the owners, he added.
More gambling money soon will flow to the three towns.
Black Hawk and Cripple Creek have overwhelmingly approved the Amendment 50 measure that allows 24-hour gambling, boosts maximum bets from $5 to $100 and adds roulette and craps tables.
Central City residents vote Tuesday on the issue.
Some of the resulting heftier revenues will flow to community colleges when the gambling expansion becomes effective in July.
Ann Schrader: 303-278-3217 or aschrader@denverpost.com
