Winks Panorama (Winks Lodge)
Gilpin County
Winks Panorama is significant under Criterion A at the national level in the areas of Ethnic Heritage: Black and Social History as a historic African-American resort of the segregation era in the Rocky Mountain West for the period 1925 to 1965. The property retains the atmosphere of the peaceful mountain oasis that it once offered to African-American vacationers with few options for travel and leisure due to the restrictions of segregation. The Lodge is highly significant for what it can tell us about African-American life in the early twentieth century. Resistance to segregation and de facto status as second-class citizens took many forms, including the creation of African-American community enclaves such as Lincoln Hills, the setting of Winks Lodge.
Winks Lodge at Lincoln Hills is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Winks Lodge is further significant at the national level in the area of Entertainment / Recreation for the period 1925-1965 as an exemplification of the efforts of early-twentieth-century African Americans to create their own opportunities for vacationing, recreation and leisure in response to their exclusion in Colorado from white-dominated venues under segregation. It is also noteworthy that the landmark federal Civil Rights legislation of 1964-65 greatly contributed to the obsolescence of Winks Lodge and other African-American resorts. Winks Panorama is further locally significant under Criterion C in the area of Architecture for 1925, the year of its construction, as a vernacular expression of Craftsman design principles, through 1928, when the building was substantially complete. Finally, Winks Panorama is locally significant under Criterion D in the area of Non-Aboriginal Historic Archaeology from 1925, the year of its construction, through 1965, for its potential to yield information important to history due to buried deposits.