Black Hawk and Central City may be called Colorado’s own “twin cities,” but this dynamic duo is really more Las Vegas than Minneapolis-St. Paul. The area was once called “The Richest Square Mile on Earth.” 

These former Gold Rush golden towns are cashing in on their historic pasts and taking a chance on limited-stakes gambling to stake a claim on the future.

Black Hawk and Central City are truly loaded with history; the area was a Gold Rush hotspot back in 1859, when a so-called “mother lode” was discovered there. In fact, the booming gold business drew so many people to the area that Central City was the original state capitol. Today, Black Hawk and Central City keep the past in the present with spectacularly maintained and restored historic buildings.

A must-see in Central City is the Central City Opera House, located at 124 Eureka Street. The stunning building was built in 1878, and is fittingly called a “jewel box theatre.” After the end of the Gold Rush, the opera house fell into disrepair, but was restored in 1932. It is considered a National Historic Landmark today. There are performances and events held there throughout the year. Visit www.centralcityopera.org/index.cgi?CONTENT_ID=3 for a calendar of events and additional information. 

The abundance of bustling casinos is perhaps a modern homage to the Gold Rush history of the area. Casinos began popping up in the 1990s, when gambling was first legalized here. The limited stakes and limited hours of operation may have kept Black Hawk and Central City small time gambling towns in the past, but now the game has changed. In July 2009, Colorado law changed to allow higher stakes (up to $100 now) table games like poker and roulette, and casinos can now remain open for business 24 hours a day. 

The Gilpin Casino is one of the oldest casinos in Black Hawk. The Gilpin is over 37,000 square feet of gambling with hundreds of slot machines, table games like blackjack, craps and roulette and an all-new, exclusive poker room. The Gilpin is also home to a popular restaurant, Lucille Malone’s. The restaurant is named for a woman who died in the former Gilpin Hotel over a century ago and who is said to haunt the property now! The rumors are so prevalent that the Denver Post once mentioned the Gilpin in an article called Do Ghosts Haunt Many of the State’s Venerable Hostels? Learn more about the Gilpin Casino at www.thegilpincasino.com. The Gilpin is located at 111 Main Street in Black Hawk.

You can see a full list and map of area casinos and historic landmarks on the Black Hawk/Central City Visitors and Convention Bureau website at www.visitbhcc.com. Here, you can also find tons of travel tips including recommendations on where to eat, where to stay for a longer trip and events and promotions in the area. You can also read up on the storied history of Black Hawk and Central City.