Lost Glory: The Story Of Pueblo’s Once-Great Mineral Palace

The long-demolished Mineral Palace still lends its name to a leafy park in Pueblo, but it’s heyday is mostly forgotten. – Photo by Shanna Lewis

An ornate iron arch stretches across the brown sandstone entrance to Pueblo’s Mineral Palace Gardens. Inside the 57 acre park next to I-25, geese swim on the small lake while people stroll past big trees. Besides the name of the park, there’s no obvious indication there was once a palatial edifice here. Built in 1891, Pueblo’s Mineral Palace was a massive white structure in the style of the era’s grand museums and libraries. Listen to the story of the now vanished Mineral Palace.