Winks Panorama, also known as Winks Lodge, was a hotel near Pinecliffe, Colorado

Pinecliffe, Colorado

Pinecliffe is an unincorporated town and a U.S. Post Office located in Boulder County and Gilpin County, Colorado, United States. The Pinecliffe Post Office, in Boulder County, has the ZIP Code 80471.-Geography:...

 catering to African-American tourists during the early and middle 20th century. The lodge was built in the Lincoln Hills Country Club, which was at the time the only African-American resort in the western United States. The lodge was built by Obrey Wendell "Winks" Hamlet in 1928.

The hillside lodge used local stone for the foundation, with a three-story shingled superstructure. The first floor was for service and storage, the second for dining and entertainment, and the third included six guest rooms and a shared bath. Several cabins surrounded the main lodge, including a honeymoon cabin and a tavern.

Prominent guests included Count Basie

Count Basie

William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...

, Billy Eckstein, Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington

Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...

, Lena Horne

Lena Horne

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American singer, actress, civil rights activist and dancer.Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the...

, Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes

James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance...

 and Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston was an American folklorist, anthropologist, and author during the time of the Harlem Renaissance...

.

The lodge operated until Winks' death in 1965. It is presently owned by the James Beckwourth Mountain Club, which has undertaken restoration of the lodge as a conference center.

See also

Other African-American resorts included:

• American Beach, Florida
  American Beach, Florida
  American Beach is a historic beach community popular with African-American vacationers. It is located north of Jacksonville, Florida on Amelia Island in Nassau County. During the time of segregation and the Jim Crow era, African Americans were not allowed to swim at most of the beaches in...
  
  
• Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts
  Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts
  Oak Bluffs is a town located on Martha's Vineyard in Dukes County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 3,713 at the 2000 census and was estimated at 3,735 as of 2008...
  
  
• Idlewild, Michigan
  Idlewild, Michigan
  Idlewild is a vacation and retirement community in Yates Township located in a small rural northwestern part of the U.S. state of Michigan near the southeastern border of Lake County...
  
  

External links

• Gilpin County News article on Wink Hamlet and the restoration of the lodge
• Denver Urban Spectrum article on Winks Lodge and Lincoln Hills
• Beckwourth Mountain Club, Winks Lodge