Gaming came just in time for sleepy mountain burgs

Turn back the calendar 20 years to shortly before Oct. 1, 1991, the day that gambling burst onto the scene in three of Colorado’s historic towns.

You’d find relatively sleepy villages – Black Hawk and Central City in Gilpin County and Cripple Creek in Teller County – that time and commerce was passing by.

“Before gambling came, Black Hawk had a trailer court running down its Main Street, one classic hotel (The Gilpin) that was open sometimes, a couple of bars that were open a lot, the spectacular Lace House and the famous Black Forest Inn,” said Lew Cady, editor of the newspaper Little Kingdom Come and long-time Central City homeowner. “Essentially, though, Black Hawk was a lazy little town back then with one or two or no police officers.

“Central City was a city of taverns and honky-tonks and a few restaurants and a fabulous Opera House and the Face on the Barroom Floor. It had touristy emporiums like a rock shop and a t-shirt shop and several stores that sold postcards and rubber tomahawks. But it was a city on the decline since much of its business had consisted of people driving up from Denver to drink and have fun. But the stricter enforcement of drinking-and-driving laws had cut down on the flow of fun-loving folks from the flatlands.”

When gambling first hit the state, roughly 75 business owners raced to open casinos. That number has settled at about 40 casinos today.

“I think over the years there’s just been a consolidation in the towns of smaller casinos being absorbed by the larger companies,” said Lois Rice, executive director of the non-profit Colorado Gaming Association. “I think in the beginning a lot of the small casinos had been owned by families that lived in those towns for generations that didn’t necessarily know enough about the gaming industry to have a viable business.”

Black Hawk’s gaming growth exploded with the October 2009 opening of the hotel tower in the mega-structure Ameristar Casino Resort Spa that brought 536 rooms to the market along with a full-service spa.

But that was the year after the statewide smoking ban was enacted, gas prices soared to roughly $4 a gallon and the economy started to nosedive, which created a perfect storm causing revenue decline, Rice said.

Carolyn Burlingame, who started working in Colorado casinos in February of 1992, has weathered that storm. She’s worked at several casinos before joining the Riviera in Black Hawk where she works in guest services.

She remembers the early gaming days of Black Hawk as a town filled with dirt roads and parking lots.

“It was more laid back in those days,” Burlingame said. “We were dealing with casinos with wood floors and old types of machines. The older buildings through the course of time converted and became much more upgraded with more lighting, more types of slots and restaurants. Black Hawk has exploded into these humongous builds. It still has that Black Hawk feel to it, but its cleaned up and nicer than it was in the past.”

As folks in the gaming towns look toward the future, most agree that expanding gambling to include the Front Range – not than anything concrete has been proposed – would severely harm the three historic towns.

“If gaming is available in major metro areas, people wouldn’t have any incentive to drive to the mountain towns,” Rice said. “Our challenges for the future are just maintaining the revenues to support the infrastructure which is crucial to support businesses in the towns.

“Another challenge we’re facing is to just be able to keep up with the rapidly changing technology in the industry. I think that over the next 10 years we’ll see younger entrepreneurs who are fascinated by the technology of the games that may try to design a different gaming experience.”

- Penny Parker is a columnist for The Denver Post. She’s always on the prowl for tidbits and tips from Colorado’s gaming communities. Call her at 303-619-5209 or e-mail pparker@denverpost.com.