IDAHO SPRINGS • Mary Jane Loevlie lives in a sweeping, mid-century modern home built by her father, with a wide window and deck looking north. This was Loevlie’s view one evening in 2018: the historic, red edifice of Argo Mill and Tunnel there across Interstate 70 and a mountain rising high above.

Loevlie was sipping wine with a neighbor when a thought emerged: “I wonder if we can build a gondola …”

The world-traveling businesswoman and historic preservationist had the imagination, but she could not imagine the series of events to come: an initial $4.5 million investment that would be stolen; a global pandemic that would skyrocket project costs and further deepen doubts; and investors from afar who came to the rescue, as if by miracle.

“These global investors believed in little old Idaho Springs,” says Loevlie, 72.

They believed as she always did, and just like her father ー the man who built the home around the time the economic fate of this little old town was thrown into uncertainty by the construction of I-70.

Now comes a new destiny for Idaho Springs.

Hopes are as high as the Mighty Argo Cable Car soaring up the mountain, soon to board its first passengers. Late April is the aim.

Longtime resident and mayor Chuck Harmon has called the $71 million project “probably the biggest thing to happen to the city of Idaho Springs since the gold rush.”

It is said that Colorado’s gold rush began here, thanks to George Jackson’s discovery in 1859 that gave way to the “richest square mile on Earth.” That was the reputation of nearby Central City, which was served by Argo Mill and Tunnel. Loevlie has run tours out of the facility that processed $100 million worth of gold a century ago.

The Mighty Argo Cable Car cabins will appear like gold nuggets flying 1.2 miles up the mountain, roughly following the length of that old tunnel below.

“I just think it’s bringing back the economic engine that the Argo Mill was to the town at the turn of the 20th century,” Loevlie says. “It’s bringing outdoor recreation and heritage tourism to this tiny little town. And it’s doing something truly spectacular in the state of Colorado.”

Yes, it’s poised to be the state’s next major attraction ー the gondola rising 1,300 feet to a mountaintop plaza called Miners Point. Here, visitors might grab something to eat and drink at Sun and Moon Saloon, so named for a nearby mining claim. Or they might stay for live music at the amphitheater backdropped by 14,000-foot peaks and the Continental Divide. Or they might hit the trails dropping down the mountain.

About 15 miles have been built, with more to come in the surrounding Virginia Canyon Mountain Park. While open to hikers, the trails have been specially built for mountain bikers, who will have a lift-served thrill unlike anything beyond ski resorts.

Riders have already come in the thousands ahead of the gondola’s opening. Harmon credits them for a sales tax record locally, bucking downward trends in other mountain towns.

And, above all, he credits the woman who had the imagination and prevailed against steep, unimaginable odds. 

“More than 99.9% of us would’ve thrown in the towel, and that would’ve been it,” Harmon says. “I’ll be darned if she didn’t pull it off.”

Loevlie pulled it off with the sort of grit and tenacity that long defined prospectors of her hometown ー that long defined her.

“She’s always been this hard-charging business lady,” Annelise Loevlie says.

And yet, in many ways, the gondola project has been different for her mom.

“It’s actually been really transformative,” Annelise says. “To see her persevere while holding on to her vision … it’s just like over-the-top inspiring for me.”

* * *

Loevlie counts her own inspirations, among them Dana Crawford. Best known for saving Denver’s Larimer Square, the smiling face of the late historic preservationist is seen in Loevlie’s office, overlooking a big, round table.

“She always thought this table was best for conversation and getting things done,” Loevlie says.

For getting historic preservation done ー the kind of work Loevlie took up in the 1980s.

She was focused on Victorian buildings like this office and then-abandoned storefronts lining Idaho Springs’ main street. By then, Loevlie was no stranger to tough, roundtable negotiations. She had been growing an international business: Shotcrete, the spraying concrete developed by her husband, whom she met in Norway while living and working abroad.

Loevlie would grow Shotcrete back in her hometown, where she always found inspiration. Before Crawford, she found this in her grandmother, known as the first female pilot in North Dakota. And Loevlie found inspiration in her father, who out of North Dakota came across Idaho Springs while driving for Conoco Oil.

“My dad really fell in love with the gold mining history and the mountains,” Loevlie says. “And it was just kind of this land of opportunity, even back then in the ’50s and ’60s.”

Her parents ran a mini golf course and an ice cream stand, and Loevlie sold rocks to tourists.

“That’s how busy Idaho Springs was, bumper-to-bumper traffic,” she says. “It was a happening place.”

Then I-70 extended through town.

Eisenhower Tunnel opened in 1973, and traffic would continue to ski resorts and grander destinations west ー away from Idaho Springs, which appeared forsaken, littered with debris and trailers left by construction crews.

“We got obliterated, and people saw our ugly backside and not our beautiful Victorians,” Loevlie says. This was before the National Historic Preservation Act and the National Environmental Policy Act, “and they were allowed to rip out a third of our town,” she says.

Loevlie wouldn’t stay around to watch the decline; she’d be off to college in Vermont.

Then she was off to Europe, where she was assigned by Up with People to expand the nonprofit’s mission. This meant gaining financial support from government officials and business leaders.

“I was this 22-, 23-year-old young female traveling all over the world alone, meeting these high-powered executives, asking them for money,” Loevlie says. “I really had to be nimble and resourceful.”

And always strong, at certain times more than others.

“It was scary,” Loevlie says. “Guys pounding on my hotel room door. You couldn’t sit in a bar alone hardly. You just had to have an attitude.”

* * *

Loevlie would carry that attitude back to Idaho Springs, where she’d start a family while landing Shotcrete contracts worldwide. Perhaps it’s no wonder her two daughters grew into businesswomen.

Recalls Annelise, CEO of Icelantic Skis: “There was this quote growing up that was always around our house: ‘Well-behaved women rarely make history.'”

Indeed, not all fellow locals approved of Loevlie’s behavior.

These were locals who stayed in Idaho Springs through the ’70s and ’80s while businesses were boarded up and windows were covered with sheets, privacy for those shacking up inside. Loevlie had ideas here along Miner Street, such as the brick sidewalks seen today.

“That was very controversial, and that was 100% Mary Jane,” says Harmon, the mayor.

The costs were controversial; some business owners faced tens of thousands of dollars for sidewalk assessments. But just as Loevlie had insisted against another proposed lane for I-70 ー the fight of the I-70 Coalition she helped form ー she insisted red brick, rather than mismatching concrete, would look better and more historic.

She poured her own funds into proper aesthetics. That’s also seen today on several Victorian buildings she owns or has owned over the years. She gave careful attention to upgrades while pushing the town to National Historic District standards.

The risk “was a downtown that could’ve been unrecognizable,” Harmon says, “where you’d have stuccoed buildings and vinyl windows and glass sliding doors to make them look more modern.”

The historic Argo Mill and Tunnel had looked just as it always looked, thanks to caretakers before Loevlie. She’d be the next in 2016, rallying a small team of buyers.

Within a couple of years, she’d have her biggest idea yet ー and also her most controversial.

* * *

The neighbor with whom Loevlie was sipping wine that evening in 2018 happened to have a professional background with chairlifts.

“She has friends in the lift industry, and we started calling these people,” Loevlie says. “They said, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s fine, but nobody would go. Who would ride a gondola in Idaho Springs?’ That was the image of Idaho Springs; it was always that pass-through.”

Loevlie had family, friends and business associates who thought otherwise. They were the first investors, followed by more who were persuaded after a Swiss expert’s analysis and a technical study. It was determined that the gondola could attract more than 500,000 riders a year, largely because of I-70 and the proximity to Denver.

Investors ponied up $4.5 million, which Loevlie deposited into an escrow account to unlock a construction loan.

“I remember the exact day the money was supposed to be transferred,” Annelise says, thinking back to 2021. “I called her from Costa Rica. ‘Is it in?’ She said no. And I just knew immediately.”

What happened became clear, all the more so following an FBI investigation, a grand jury indictment and a recent guilty plea: Owners of Virginia-based First Title, Inc., stole the money.

“It was like the worst day of my life,” Loevlie says.

Worse days followed as she told her family, friends and business associates what happened to their money. Compounding the calamity was the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that cut off supply chains and sent costs further out of reach. (The $71 million project was once estimated at $58 million.)

Loevlie could have become mad, embarrassed, defeated. And yet she only became more emboldened.

“I couldn’t let anybody else down and just give up,” she says.

A breakthrough came via Gondola Ventures, a private equity firm looking to expand point-of-interest gondolas globally. And a bigger breakthrough came via similarly minded investors with Funis Fund, a Luxembourg-based partner of Doppelmayr, the top manufacturer that also got on board.

Along the way, Loevlie thought often of Crawford, her mentor who died last year. “She never looked back. She always looked forward.”

And Loevlie thought of family before her. She thought of her father, who built the family home in Idaho Springs when things looked bleak. She thought of her grandmother, the pilot.

“She’s from a line, and so am I, of really incredible people that have dreamed big,” Annelise says. “I think she talks to those people.”

* * *

From the home her father built, Loevlie constantly looks north to that mountainside, to her dream becoming reality.

“I almost cry when I look at it,” she says now, gazing at the gondola.

The emotions hint at the hardship of the past ー and also, perhaps, of the present.

The Mighty Argo Cable Car has further split local opinions of Loevlie.

“To be brutally honest, people either love her or hate her,” says Harmon, the mayor. “Many people fear change, and Mary Jane has not shied away from what she feels are improvements to the community.”

In Idaho Springs, “she has always been a really big fish in a small pond,” Annelise says. “There’s a lot of times, even now, where she’s like, ‘I hear I’m getting just slammed on Facebook.'”

Some comments suggest she is not taking care of the town, but rather taking it over. Some see the new trails and influx of mountain bikers already proving concerns about traffic and parking, even before the gondola opens for its estimated 500,000 annual riders.

“We are very concerned about capacity and parking and the ability to manage that,” Loevlie says, explaining the idea for timed-entry reservations and plans for more parking. The plan for a 350-spot garage downtown has garnered more pushback ー what some see as contradicting historic preservation.

Supporters, meanwhile, have pointed to an assuring feasibility study. They have pointed to mountain bikers already contributing to a sales tax record. And they have pointed to local restaurants already serving 1.5 million people each year who have been drawn to the area for the Mount Blue Sky Scenic Byway and outdoor recreation. But would the gondola be adding untenable masses?

Loevlie knows she can’t convince everyone she hears around town.

“In a small town, you can’t shy away, because you see people at the grocery store and you see people at city council meetings,” Annelise says. “She’s not like Teflon, because she’s not numb to it. But she just faces it.”

She keeps pushing ahead, as Annelise remembers her mom always doing, ever the persistent businesswoman.

“I mean, she was busy a lot. It was tough,” the daughter says. “When you’re 40, you start realizing some of the stuff you might’ve missed.”

She’s realizing more as she’s been reflecting more.

She’s been reflecting on a woman who always had to push ahead, from the time she was a little girl in a little, scrappy town to the time she was a young woman alone in a big, tough world. Now Loevlie is in her 70s ー “in her 70s and in her prime,” Annelise says, amazed.

And maybe something never changed, she thinks: “I think a lot of women in her generation have that feeling, and still do, where it’s to prove that they can. … I wouldn’t want to place that at the forefront of the motivation, because I don’t want to take away from the fact she really cares about the development and the community. But to prove to herself and to other people that she could do it? Absolutely.”

And to leave a legacy.

Loevlie has three grandkids who call her Mormor, including Annelise’s 3-year-old son. “He’s more obsessed with gondolas than anyone,” she says.

And so he might be more excited than anyone for the opening day of the Mighty Argo Cable Car. Along with the other kids, he’ll be sitting with Mormor on the first ride up.