Denver’s First Hotel: El Dorado Lost and Found

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So, as with the fabled city of the same name, no one has yet rediscovered this El Dorado.

Very astute comparison! At least we have the stories.

Thanks for sharing this story!

Love the story,pictures.....I am a custodian at BCL...I am a local history lover,it would be a dream to work with yall

Glad to hear from you! It's definitely a great thing to get to work with these collections and this history every day.

I too have researched the Eldorado Hotel fairly extensively, driven primarily from my attempted genealogical research in who was David Smoke. My family is centered in South Carolina since the 1740's. The original settler's name was Rauch, then anglicized to Smoke and Smoak. Do you any info on what happened to
David Smoke and his wife? I've only seen one small reference that Mrs. Smoke went to Montana. It would be fun to sit down together and compare notes.

Thanks for reading, Neil!

We don't have much on Smoke, and it doesn't look like we have anything to add to your research at the moment. There is a reference in our subject index to a Denver Times article from December 30, 1900, but unfortunately, we don't have access to the microfilm at this time. We'll take a look when we're back in the library and send that article to you in case it has added information.

Sarah, are you still there? I met with Kathy Hoeft in Sept. 2016 and she provided me a copy of their report on the "Pioneer Grek Revival Log House" which I reviewed in detail. The Hoeft's did an excellent job in researching. the log structure. However, they missed a few things. It is most likely that the cabin was built by either Henry Murat or Henry Humbel in 1859......Murat cannot be ruled out as the builder. In fact, I have read in a published article (published about 1886/1887, that I cannot find now) that the article's author and Mrs. Murat visited the cabin around 1885-1887 on 10th Street that she and her husband, Henri, lived in when they owned Eldorado Hotel with David Smoke.
I am still trying to find out what happened to David Smoke and his genealogy.

Thanks for sharing Neil! This is really interesting. Good luck with your research and feel free to hit the Contact Us button if there are particular questions we could help you with!

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