Frisco Historic Park offers visitors a chance to experience life in Frisco as it was long ago. The Park contains 10 historic buildings - a school, a jail, a chapel, three cabins and four houses - as well as a new gazebo. Park/Museum hours are Tuesday - Sat. 10 - 4 and Sunday 10 - 2
in the winter and 11 a.m. - 4 p.m. Tuesday - Sunday in the summer. Admission is free and tours are self-guided. For more information call (970) 668-3428.
The silver panic of 1893 hit many of the silver-rich area's businesses hard. One notable casualty was Swanson's Saloon. The panic caused the saloon to close; when its door reopened it (the door) led not into a bar but into a school. The one-room school had a very high ceiling, complemented by very tall windows. It also had beautiful bead-boarded walls and a handsome belfry with bell. Those features still exist. The school is now a museum and tiny gift shop. A few school desks remain and there's a small display of school memorabilia, but the major exhibits are on mining and nature. Other displays include early-day fashions and mementos of history-making local citizens.
The town's original 1881 jail that once housed criminals now houses exhibits on mining and skiing. Included in the latter are artifacts from the Tenth Mountain Division's famous Rocky Mountain military training camp at Camp Hale, CO. Frisco's first log chapel is near the jail.
Also in the Park are seven former log residences that date from 1880 to 1930 - four houses and three cabins. The most modern-looking house is the yellow and white clapboard-over-log Prestrud-Staley House. Two of the houses - the Frank and Annie Ruth House and Bill Thomas's Ranch House - were built by some of Frisco's finest craftsmen. The Bailey House is currently undergoing interior renovation. One of the cabins is a re-creation of a trapper's cabin. It contains a vast array of trapper "essentials" from snowshoes and pelts to traps and ceramic beer bottles. The other structures are the Woods Cabin and the Niemoth Cabin, a cozy, comfortably-furnished room dominated by a large rock fireplace.
Directions: The Frisco Historic Park is located at 120 East Main Street in Frisco.