Temple Israel, in the Leadville Historic District National Historic Landmark, Colorado. NPS/Astrid Liverman
Leadville, Colorado — first called Oro City — was once the largest of the state's historic mining towns. From 1860 it went through one boom after another, in gold, silver, molybdenum and other minerals. Its population peaked in 1880, and the later strikes turned the boom town into a smaller industrial community where mining has gone on almost without a break to the present. Temple Israel is one of the clearest records of the Jews who settled there.
A Jewish community in a boom town
Jewish merchants, many of them German immigrants, were among those who kept the early town supplied, selling clothing, groceries and other goods. By 1880 Leadville had some 400 Jewish residents, active in its social and civic life through:
- a religious school
- the Hebrew Benevolent Society
- a B'nai B'rith Lodge
The Hebrew Cemetery opened in January 1880, and Temple Israel followed in 1884.
The sanctuary, now a museum space. NPS/Astrid Liverman
Building the temple
Most of Leadville's Jewish settlers followed American Reform Judaism, and a Reform congregation built Temple Israel.
| Land | given by silver baron Horace A. W. Tabor |
| Building committee | chaired by David May, a leading member of the community who went on to found the May Company department stores |
| Architect | named as George E. King |
| Cost | $4,000 — around $125,000 in today's money, by the Park Service's reckoning |
| Style | Carpenter Gothic: pointed-arch and rose windows, clapboard framing, steeples and a steeply pitched roof |
| Inside | a sanctuary with a choir gallery and seats for 250 |
In 1892 the congregation split. An Orthodox congregation, Kneseth Israel, turned a former church in Leadville into its synagogue; that building was demolished in 1937.
Many lives
| When | What the building was |
|---|---|
| 1884 – about 1908 | a synagogue with regular services, until Jewish residents increasingly moved to larger cities with better prospects, such as Denver |
| 1910s | the congregation dissolved |
| 1937 – 1966 | in turn a radiator repair shop, housing, and a vicarage for St. George Episcopal Church across the street |
| 1992 | bought by the Temple Israel Foundation |
| 2006 | badly damaged by an electrical fire, then restored by the Foundation with grants from the Colorado State Historical Fund |
| Today | the Temple Israel Museum |
The Colorado Historical Foundation holds a historic preservation easement on the building to protect it for the long term. Temple Israel is a contributing building in the Leadville Historic District National Historic Landmark, designated on July 4, 1961.
Sources
Based on "Reviving Leadville's Jewish Legacy," an article in the series National Register and National Historic Landmarks Celebrate Jewish Heritage Month, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain. The Park Service drew largely on the Temple Israel Foundation and cites Brooke Keith, "Temple Israel: A Lake County Frontier Synagogue" (September 8, 2022), Colorado Historical Foundation.
In these publicationsNational Register and National Historic Landmarks Celebrate Jewish Heritage Month
Licence: CC0 1.0 (public domain) · Adapted from www.nps.gov
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