Victorian Visitors at the Hotel de Paris in Georgetown, Colorado | Center for Colorado & the West at Auraria Library
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Victorian Visitors at the Hotel de Paris in Georgetown, Colorado
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Book Reviews
Submitted by CLEAVITT on 12-9-2014 02:59 PM
Author: Constance Merrill Primus
Publishing: Victorian Visitors at
the Hotel de Paris in Georgetown,
Colorado. By Constance Merrill
Primus. Virginia Beach, Virginia:
The Donning Company, 2014. 96
pages. Illustrations, black-andwhite photographs. 6” x 9”. $16.95
paperback.
Reviewer: Jolie Diepenhorst
Reviewer Affiliation: Photographs
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The National Society of the Colonial
Dames of America (NSCDA)
celebrates preservation and strives
to restore and interpret historic
sites all over our nation. The Hotel
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de Paris Museum in Georgetown,
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Colorado, is one of their sites.
Hispanic
Operated by the Colorado Colonial
Dames since 1954, the hotel has
become the only Colorado site of
the National Trust for Historic
Preservation.
Constance Merrill Primus, a Colorado Colonial Dame, has taken preservation one step farther by publishing
a book about the guest registers from the Hotel de Paris Museum. The historical significance of her seven
years of research extends beyond the visitors of Louis Dupuy’s hotel. It illustrates the expansion of the
American West. What Primus captures is the history of immigration, the rise of industry and the railroad,
the rise and fall of silver mining, the role of women during the 1800s, and the effects of the 1893
depression.
The five hotel registers Primus researched date back to July 1881 and end in July 1914 with a few gaps in
between. She records Louis Dupuy’s success as a restaurateur and his expansion of the hotel with east and
west wings. In doing so, she demonstrates the wealth that began to arrive in Georgetown and Clear Creek
County. The Georgetown diners evolved from locals to wealthy investors who came west to add to their
fortunes by establishing their own mining companies, as illustrated by “Gentlemen Miners of the Silver
Craze of 1865” (27). Primus is able to weave together the history of the Colorado Central Railroad, the
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Native American
Victorian Visitors at the Hotel de Paris in Georgetown, Colorado | Center for Colorado & the West at Auraria Library
creation of the Georgetown Loop, and the visit of the famous feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She spends
an entire chapter on the role of women during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Louis Dupuy did not
encourage single ladies to dine at his hotel alone, although he welcomed women travelers.
The repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act in 1893 killed the silver mining industry in Colorado, and
patronage at the Hotel de Paris began to wane. The registers recorded this change. Each register contains
about two years’ worth of signatures from the beginning of the 1893 collapse to 1895. However, the final
register, which begins in February 1897, did not fill until July 1914, emphasizing the slow economy and
deep impact of the legislation. Visitors to Georgetown were declining drastically.
Primus presents an easy-to-read chronological tale of the American West through signatures written by
long-ago patrons of the Hotel de Paris. The photographs of patrons, railroaders, railroad tycoons, and
adventurous women add to the tale Primus weaves. She is able to create a connection to the past and
entice readers to visit Georgetown and see the Hotel de Paris firsthand. Victorian Visitors is a gem of a
book on the history of Georgetown, the “Silver Queen.”
Reviewer Info: Jolie Diepenhorst is a graduate of the University of Colorado Denver with a BA in history. She is working
towards a master’s degree in historic preservation and public history. Auraria Library
1100 Lawrence Street
303-556-4587
Denver, Colorado 80204
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