The Hotel de Paris Museum is a French inn from Colorado’s silver boom, preserved almost exactly as it looked in the 1890s on 6th Street in Georgetown. About 90 percent of the original furnishings survive, so a visit feels less like a museum and more like checking into Louis Dupuy’s hotel.

The hotel’s founder had a story worthy of a novel. Born Adolphe François Gerard in Alençon, France, in 1844, he worked as a cook, translator and reporter, enlisted in the U.S. Army, deserted, renamed himself Louis Dupuy and made his way to Colorado’s mining camps. After he was badly hurt in a mining accident in which he saved lives, he used reward money to turn Georgetown’s Delmonico Bakery into the Hotel de Paris, opening it on Oct. 9, 1875, a year before Colorado became a state. He bought the building in 1878 for $1,250, and Chinese laborers built later additions and cellar expansions. Dupuy stuccoed and scored the exterior to resemble blocks of stone, topped it with a galvanized iron cornice and gilded zinc statuary, and filled the restaurant with a fresco ceiling, striped silver maple and black walnut floors and a zinc fountain of Cupid riding a swan. Guests included railroad magnate Jay Gould and photographer William Henry Jackson. Dupuy died in Room 13 in 1900, and since 1954 the hotel has been owned and run by the Colorado chapter of the National Society of The Colonial Dames of America. It’s now a Site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Choose a guided tour for the deeper stories or explore at your own pace, and allow about an hour. You’ll see the commercial kitchen, the dining room, Dupuy’s library and the guest rooms, all furnished with original pieces. The first floor is ADA accessible, while the second story requires stairs. Georgetown sits at high altitude, so the museum suggests drinking bottled water during your visit. Current hours are Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 4 p.m., and the museum closes for January. Groups of 10 or more can book private tours in advance.

Hours change with the seasons, so check the Hotel de Paris Museum website or call 303-569-2311 before you go. The museum also hosts after-hours paranormal investigations, food and drink evenings with live jazz, and private events for up to 40 people; see the Events page for dates and tickets.