Empire, CO

Empire is a Clear Creek County statutory town in a valley along Clear Creek, west of Denver. Miners struck silver here in 1860, and the former gold-and-silver camp later developed around the roads and trade of the mountain corridor. The Peck House, built in 1862, is one of the town’s oldest recognizable buildings; the original Hard Rock Cafe dates to 1934 and took its name from the miners’ term, not the later restaurant chain. Empire is a high-elevation mining town with a Park Avenue main street, a long-running saloon-and-hotel story, and the Continental Divide rising nearby.