Located just below the timberline, Leadville's high altitude contributes to its reputation for excellent skiing, cool summers, and beautiful fall colors. First a rich gold camp, then an even richer silver camp, the town boasts a lusty, brawling past in which millionaires were made and destroyed in a single day; a barrel of whiskey could net $1,500; tents pitched on the main street were advertised as "the best hotel in town;" and thousands of dollars could be—and were—lost on the turn of a card in the town's iniquitous saloons and smoky gambling halls.

Leadville's lively history is intertwined with the lives of Horace Tabor and his two wives, Augusta and Elizabeth Doe, whose rags-to-riches-to-rags story is the basis of the American opera The Ballad of Baby Doe. The famed "unsinkable" Molly Brown made her fortune here, as did David May, Charles Boettcher, Charles Dow, and Meyer Guggenheim.

Until 1950, Leadville was a decaying mining town. However, a burst of civic enthusiasm rejuvenated it in the following years. Today it is filled with attractions that date back to the town's glory days, including several museums and a Victorian downtown area.

A Ranger District office of the San Isabel National Forest is located in Leadville.