Frisco Historic Park & Museum Press

The Frisco Historic Park & Museum Press was established in 2022 to promote and preserve Frisco’s history by publishing locally relevant historic non-fiction books. Since then, we have published three books related to Frisco’s mining and mountaineering history. To place a wholesale order for your business, please contact Museum@townoffrisco.com.

High Above Frisco: A History of the Naming, Importance, and Climbing of Frisco’s Scenic Mountains

Written by: Joseph Kramarsic

Where to get it: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Frisco Historic Park & Museum, Frisco/Copper Information Center, and local stores.

Explore the history of Frisco, Colorado, from the vantage point of twenty-one mountains surrounding the town. Founded in 1879 along the banks of the Tenmile Creek, hardy silver miners made their way across the mountain passes of Summit County and into the high country of Frisco. As the town grew, recreationists realized the backcountry opportunities of climbing these towering summits. Learn about the discoveries, triumphs, tragedies, rivalries, and confrontations of the characters who set out to create a life high above Frisco. Each chapter addresses a specific mountain to highlight the important and not-to-be-forgotten history that made Frisco, Colorado, the modern mountain town it is today.

The Mines of Frisco & Beyond: A Self-guided Tour and Hiking Guide, Third Edition

Written by: Charlotte Clarke and Blair Miller, 2023

Where to get it: Frisco Historic Park & Museum, Frisco/Copper Information Center, and local stores.

From the gated tunnel into Frisco’s first silver lode, the Juno, to the compressors and engines that sit on top of Chief Mountain, remnants of a forgotten industry in Frisco’s history remain where they were left over one hundred years ago. The mines of Frisco gave the need for a town, two railroads, and the many characters whose hijinks and stories are shared throughout these pages. Whether you are a hiker who wonders about the history of an area or a history lover who wants to visit the sites they read about, this book is your guide to historic resources while walking around Frisco. Why are there burnt bricks stacked alongside the bike path? What was Peak One called before the mountain was named with its current number? Is that a cabin 1,000 feet above Officer’s Gulch? As you hike through history, this book will serve as your answer guide to the questions that may come up, as well as offering new hikes and sites to take in. With ID posts on site that coincide with the chapters in The Mines of Frisco & Beyond, this book has been a local hiker’s guide since its initial publishing in 2004. The 2023 updated version revisits the same mines with further information and offers two new sites. Revised trail updates along with stories of the people who lived and worked in the town’s early days are found all throughout the book. A map of the mines in the area, a glossary of mining terms, and a key to the trailheads and their access to mines is found in the front of this book.

Masontown: Frisco’s Victoria Mine and Ghost Town

Written by: Blair Miller, 2022

Where to get it: Amazon, Frisco Historic Park & Museum, Frisco/Copper Information Center, and local stores.

The story of Masontown, a ghost town on the outskirts of Frisco proper, has always been one of Frisco’s most disputed histories. While different accounts of this mining camp offer opposing timelines and functions, this book stands as the first comprehensive narrative of Masontown from its puzzling origins to its devastating avalanche in the 1920s. The invigorating gold strikes at this Victoria Mine helped populate Frisco, with the largest strike resulting in no vacancy for all town lodging. Continued work in search of pay ore at the Victoria resulted in dozens of important townsfolk moving to the area, including early mayors and sheri­ffs. Established concurrently with Frisco’s town charter, Masontown held space for the scandals, crimes, and riches of early Colorado boomtowns such as lawsuits, fraud, robbery and murder, claim jumping, and moonshining. While hikers today pass by the old tailing piles and brick foundations of what once sat overlooking the Mount Royal Trail, this book includes a hiking guide to visit these sites and understand the trials and tribulations that took place. Along with never before published photographs, maps, and journals, this clearing of Masontown’s rubble relays the importance behind this camp, and its direct ties to Frisco as a town and mining operations in Summit County as a whole.