Driggs Mansion - Colorado

in the mist
crumbled hopes and dreams
forgotten memories

While staying in Colorado one year I took a drive along Colorado Highway 141 (which runs between Grand Junction and Gateway). Most of the area is fairly desolate and this was one of those drives that had started out in rain and ended in snow. I came across this crumbling structure in the middle of nowhere. You still got a sense of architecture from the little that remained and knew in its day it had been something great. Snow had been falling a short while and clouds hung low between it and what I later learned was Thimble Rock. This suspended everything around it and helped create a sense of mystery. This mystery held me captive. I felt compelled to find the story behind it. A New York lawyer built the mansion in 1914 out of rock quarried from Thimble Rock. He brought chandeliers and was decorating it with expensive items brought over from England. He was building it for the woman he loved and planned on bringing her here when everything was complete. She died before that happened, never seeing the mansion. Disheartened he left and never returned. For a while it was converted into a 42 room hunting lodge. I was told that even in the decaying condition it had held a chandelier in the entryway, until one day it finally fell in. I took other drives there and a few pictures, but none was as compelling as the first. I did see cattle, deer and elk grazing there. Apparently there are also bear and mountain lions nearby.