Healy House and Dexter Cabin

Healy House and the adjacent Dexter Cabin are operated as a Colorado State Historic Site, preserving two contrasting windows into Leadville's silver boom. Healy House, built in 1878, is an elegantly furnished Victorian home with original wallpaper, furniture, and domestic artefacts. Guided tours run through the house and provide a detailed account of middle-class life in a Colorado mining town at its peak.

Dexter Cabin, built in 1879, is the more surprising of the two: from the outside it looks like a simple log cabin, but James Dexter, a wealthy mining investor, used it as a private club room. The interior features ornate woodwork, a poker room, and furnishings that belie the rustic exterior. Together the two buildings offer an hour's worth of genuinely interesting history.

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A story
The two historic houses next door to each other on Harrison Avenue are a perfect illustration of Leadville's social extremes. Healy House is a refined Greek Revival home built by a mine engineer — tasteful, orderly, with original furnishings that convey Victorian respectability. Next door, Dexter Cabin looks modest from outside but was actually James Dexter's private party retreat, furnished with poker tables, card room, and a walnut bar — the sort of place a millionaire came to relax away from the scrutiny of respectable neighbours.