Tucked into Coal Creek Canyon in Gilpin County, the 650-acre stretch of mountainside known as Lincoln Hills once gave Black families from across the country a rare freedom: the chance to fish, hike, buy property and vacation without fear. Nearly a century after it was founded, a descendant of the families who built it is working to bring that spirit back to life with a new retreat planned for June 2027.
Morgan Ramsey, a descendant of Lincoln Hills residents and founder of Tela, is curating a four-day retreat that will use the historic Hotel Boulderado in Boulder as its weekend home base, according to The Denver Post. Ramsey has described Lincoln Hills as the “Martha's Vineyard of the West,” and the retreat is designed to shuttle 30 to 50 travelers from Denver International Airport to Boulder for a weekend featuring live jazz and a dance floor, per the same report. Lincoln Hills alumni will be invited to share memories and historical accounts. The retreat's cost had not been settled as of the Post's report, and organizers are aiming the experience at historians, academics and membership-club participants.
A Resort Born Out of Necessity
Lincoln Hills traces back to 1922, when Robert E. Ewalt and E.C. Regnier, two Black entrepreneurs from Denver's Five Points neighborhood, founded the Denver-based Lincoln Hills Development Company. According to The Cultural Landscape Foundation, the founders subdivided the land into 25-by-100-foot lots priced between $50 and $100, with payments as low as $5 down and $5 a month — terms designed to let middle-class Black families from across the country buy a piece of the Rockies. The Denver Post reports that Lincoln Hills became the first mountain resort west of the Mississippi River created by and for Black Americans.
The timing mattered. Colorado had the second-largest Ku Klux Klan chapter in the nation during the 1920s, and per the Post, Klan members and Klan-backed candidates controlled much of the state by 1925. History Colorado notes that Klan members held offices including Denver Mayor Benjamin Stapleton and Governor Clarence Morley during that era, with Colorado's Klan chapter reaching roughly 50,000 members at its peak, according to the Post. Retired Denver judge Gary Jackson, whose great-grandfather was one of the first cabin builders in Lincoln Hills, told the Post that Lincoln Hills was a safe haven where there was no fear.
The Lodge That Hosted Duke Ellington
At the center of the resort stood Winks Panorama Lodge, a three-story stone-and-timber building completed in 1928 by Black entrepreneur Obrey Wendell “Winks” Hamlet, who already owned the land in 1925. Per Denver Public Library Special Collections, Hamlet operated the lodge as the resort's social hub until his death in 1965. The Post reports that Lincoln Hills attracted Duke Ellington, Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, and that Ellington was hosted at Winks Lodge.
The lodge's national reach was documented well beyond Colorado. It was listed in Victor Green's Negro Motorist Green Book, published annually from 1936 to 1966, and the National Park Service notes it was also highlighted in the June 1952 issue of Ebony magazine as part of a national summer vacation guide for Black travelers. The lodge was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980, and in 2023, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland designated it a National Historic Landmark, according to The Mountain-Ear.
Camp Nizhoni and a Changing Legacy
Lincoln Hills' story also includes youth experiences. The account refers to personal recollections from the period. Lincoln Hills' original incarnation closed in 1965.
Today, roughly 100 acres of the original land remain, most of it managed by the nonprofit Lincoln Hills Cares. The nonprofit now provides outdoor opportunities for marginalized children, reaching more than 5,600 youth last year through camps and environmental education programs, per the Post.
Balancing History With New Revenue
Lincoln Hills Cares is seeking new revenue opportunities. That push toward new programming runs alongside a broader reexamination of how the site's history gets told. History Colorado recently revamped its Lincoln Hills museum exhibit, and per CBS News, the update added new stories and memorabilia. The revamped exhibit includes new stories and memorabilia.
For Ramsey, the 2027 retreat is about more than nostalgia. The Post reports Ramsey said the gathering will build face-to-face community and connection — an effort to link today's visitors with the same mountains that once offered Black families in Colorado, and across the country, a place to simply belong.
