With no photos of the interior to work from, how did you restore it? There was never any consideration whatsoever that it was going to be anything other than a museum. ItвЂ™s certainly important in ColoradoвЂ™s history, and I think itвЂ™s important in the nationвЂ™s history as well. I think itвЂ™s compelling way beyond Breckenridge. IвЂ™d always been interested in Barney Ford, and always found his story compelling. There had been discussion with the town of Breckenridge over the years they wanted to see it become a museum. What made you decide to make a museum of the house? I imagine it would have been more financially rewarding to use the structure for retail. It was always intention to move back there, but they just never did. It took several years to do what my parents did, and then my mother sort of moved back into it and kind of kept it as a quasi museum/getaway place. We moved out so we wouldnвЂ™t have to live there while we did the work. It got to the point where it needed restoring the floors in the back end had rotted out. Why did your family move out of the house? It was pretty commonly known among the community that Barney Ford had built that house. My father was in the abstracting business, among others, so IвЂ™m sure that they had known. Was your family always aware of the history of the Barney Ford house? We talked to Theobald about the Barney Ford house and other preservation projects. After his mother passed, Theobald-in partnership with the town of Breckenridge-restored the house to become the Barney Ford House Museum, which opened in 2004. His family lived in the house until Theobald was about 12 years old, and it stayed in the familyвЂ™s possession after they moved out. A kitchen was added before TheobaldвЂ™s mother purchased the house in about 1947. The circa 1882 house was built for Barney Ford, who escaped slavery to become a prosperous entrepreneur, civil rights activist (he lobbied for education and voting rights for African-Americans in Colorado), member of the state legislature, and one of the stateвЂ™s wealthiest men.ДЄt the time it was built, the house was one of the finest in Breckenridge, though it lacked a kitchen Ford owned a nearby restaurant and didnвЂ™t see the need for one (one of the facts youвЂ™ll learn about Ford and his house on a museum tour). Among TheobaldвЂ™s properties is a small house that tells a story about a fascinating figure in African-American history. But the past is not forgotten in Breckenridge, and Robin Theobald is among the locals making sure of that.ДЄ fifth-generation Summit County resident, Theobald has purchased and restored or renovated 16 historic buildings in town. Today, many of the townвЂ™s historic structures house shops and restaurants. The one-time mining town, which endured booms and busts, finally turned to tourism in 1961, opening the ski resort when it was barely 300 residents away from being a ghost town. Breckenridge differs from many of ColoradoвЂ™s other ski resorts in that, rather than having been built specifically to accommodate skiers and their apr ГЁs-ski activities, itвЂ™s a real town with a past, grown from a nugget of gold discovered on August 10, 1859.

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