Bishops Castle
July 2019
Yes, I know it is NOT a ghost town. It was just too interesting to pass up.
Jim Bishop in 1959 at the ripe old age of 15 paid four hundred and fifty dollars for a two-and-a-half-acre parcel of land enclosed on three sides by the majestic San Isabel National Forest. It was money saved from mowing lawns, throwing newspapers, and working with his father Willard in the family ornamental iron works.
In 1967 Jim and Phoebe got married, a union they still enjoy to this day, and in 1969 at the age of twenty-five, Jim decided it was time to start building a cabin in the mountains. Since rocks were plentiful, everywhere, and free, he chose to start building a one room stone cottage… Jim kept right on building, and the construction that began as a one room stone cottage with an Eiffel Tower shaped fireplace gave birth to this country’s, and maybe even the world’s, largest one man project ~ The Bishop Castle. . And he kept building. And building. And the Bishop Castle grew.
Jim figured that if people were welcomed onto the property FOR FREE then he could put out a donation box and people could put in there what they felt comfortable putting in there. The honor system would be the financier! This increased Jim’s feeling of the castle truly being a place of American Freedom.
After eight painstaking years of paperwork without the aid of a lawyer, Jim’s wife Phoebe accomplished what many had told her was impossible on her own. In 1984 she received a 501(c)3 non-profit charter from the IRS which allowed her to create the Bishop Castle Non-Profit Charitable Foundation for New-Born Heart Surgery. The charity that the family set up is designed to financially help local families with medical expenses for young children that aren’t covered by insurance. They have managed the Charity for New-Born Heart Surgery in such a way that numerous donations have been made over the years.
Today’s visitors to the Bishop Castle will find an impressively monumental statue in stone and iron that cries loud testament to the beauty and glory of not only Having a Dream, but Sticking with your Dream no matter what, and most importantly, that if you do believe in yourself and strive to maintain that belief, anything can happen! Three full stories of interior rooms complete with a Grand Ballroom, soaring towers and bridges with vistas of a hundred miles, and a Fire-Breathing Dragon make the Bishop Castle quite the unforgettable experience!