Lulu City, like Montana City, is the disappearing type. In 1960 it was not completely gone, but almost. It was platted in 1879 by Ben F. Burnett who named the town for his oldest daughter. Lulu had only one good year, but hung on until 1883. After that a few die-hard prospectors remained. In the four years of Lulu City's belief that its abundant silver ore would be rich, it had a large hotel, a store, several saloons, homes and a small red-light district. Mixed in with the silver ore found in the mines on the mountainsides to the west, was a little placer gold flecked through the sand of the long meadow. But neither the silver nor the gold were worth much. Lulu City's post office was discontinued in January of 1886.
According to Mary Cairns, whose 1946 book _Grand Lake: The Pioneers_ pictured much more of Lulu City than can be seen today, one of the town's prospectors was so discouraged he said:
"Some day you'll see nothing but a foot trail along this street. Raspberry bushes and spruce trees will be growing through the roof of the hotel yonder."
Impossible to imagine now: When the town was platted in a park at 9,400 feet altitude, it had one hundred numbered blocks and nineteen streets. The Forest Service and National Parks System have no regard for history and are letting all the nineteenth-century buildings within their boundaries deteriorate as fast as possible. The two high mountains in the background are Lulu and Neota, and the cut is the Grand Ditch.
One of the few remaining sights in Lulu City is this unusual device for deluding Mr. Bruin. A piece of meat was set inside. While he was nosing his food, a trip hammer released the door which fell and caged him well.
His prophecy has come true in full measure--only you can't see the hotel at all! If you count carefully, you can discover the foundations of twenty-three buildings in the main part of town. Some five hundred feet farther north, there is a lone remote ruin in a grove on a point jutting west. This belonged to the town prostitute.
Lulu City's most distinctive relic is at the southern entrance to town--a former bear trap which gives Lulu City its uniqueness today.
The town also had uniqueness in the past. It took part in one of the bloodiest county-seat wars in Colorado history, a war that resulted in the death of four men on July 4, 1883. This carnage was followed by the suicide of a sheriff and the escape of an undersheriff.