The Summit Historical Society is working to add two historic Summit County structures to the Colorado State Register of Historic Properties.

Summit Historical Society Director Jordan Bennett said the 1883 Dillon Schoolhouse, which currently serves as the Historical Society’s museum and interpretive site, and the Rice family barn in Summit Cove could soon be added to the State Historical Register.

“Having a background in museums and anthropology myself, I knew there was a state registry, but it wasn’t something we looked at until we asked ourselves ‘how can we preserve these buildings preserved in the long term? »,” Bennett said. “Sometimes to do that you need money. »

The Colorado State Register of Historic Properties is a list of significant cultural resources worth preserving for the future education and enjoyment of the state’s residents and visitors, according to History of Colorado.

Listing on the State Historic Register is a formal recognition of a property’s significance to Colorado’s history. Being listed also brings benefits, including eligibility to compete for grants from the Colorado State Historical Fund and eligibility to apply for state tax credits for restoration, rehabilitation or preservation.

Summit County already owns several properties listed in the State Historic Registerincluding Boreas Station, Breckenridge Historic District, Frisco School (now the Town Welcome Center), Montezuma School, Soda Creek Homestead and Grocery Store and Post Office from Wildhack (now Foote’s Rest in Frisco).

To be added to the state historic register, properties go through a multi-step application process to prove that they are historically significant and meet certain criteria. Bennett said History Colorado provided feedback after the Summit Historical Society submitted first-round applications for the Dillon School and the Rice Family Barn.

As part of the application process, the Dillon City Council and the Summit Board of County Commissioners signed intergovernmental agreements recognizing the historical significance of both structures, Bennett said.

“It promotes local history,” Bennett said of the designation in the State Register. “We’re really excited about this because we want to be known as an institution that provides history opportunities to the entire community. »

1883 Dillon School

The Dillon School, which was built in 1883 in Old Town Dillon, is a historic schoolhouse with traditional clapboard siding, wood-framed windows and solid wood doors, according to the application submitted by the Summit Historical Society at History Colorado.

Dillon’s first school session began in 1884, when Dillon was still located in central Summit County, where Dillon Reservoir is now located, and provided commercial services to surrounding mining towns, the application states. Of the county’s 12 original one-room schoolhouses, it is only one of three that remain.

The Dillon School currently serves as a museum and interpretive site of the Summit Historical Society. The Dillon School has historic desks, which Bennett said cannot be verified as originally belonging to the school, but are from the correct period.

When the Summit Historical Society holds interpretive classes there, the older students often take the younger ones under their wing, as they would have done historically in a one-room schoolhouse, where multiple ages learned side by side, a- she declared.

“It’s definitely reminiscent of what it would have been like,” Bennett said. “It’s really nice to see. You can just see people’s eyes light up when they see something they thought they’d never see again.

Rice Family Barn

The Rice Family Barn is a two-story barn that was built between 1917 and 1919 by Benjamin Franklin Rice and his three sons Norman, Earl and Ben Jr., according to the application filed with History Colorado. During his life, Benjamin Rice served as a county commissioner.

The barn — which was used to house draft horses, hay and equipment to help the town of Dillon — is the best-preserved example of a Summit County livestock farm open to the public, the application states. It represents a key chapter in the county’s history, between the mining boom of the late 19th century and the beginnings of modern Summit County in the mid-20th century.

“When you walk into the Rice Barn, even today, you can still smell the hay and the horse,” Bennett said. “You know, things were happening in this structure. You’re like, ‘Wow, that’s been used as something for years.’

Homesteading in Summit County grew in the late 19th century as the mining boom began to decline. The Rices’ draft horses housed at the barn were invaluable to their work in the High Country, the application states. At one point, the horses were reportedly photographed towing stuck automobiles through heavy snowdrifts.

Located at 357 Cove Boulevard, the Rice Barn remains in its original location. As the ski and tourism industries took off in the late 20th century, the Summit Cove neighborhood emerged around the historic barn, further reflecting the area’s transition in the late 1950s and early 1950s. 1960.