The empty Great Hall at Bishop Castle, where no one has ever lived.

Bishop Castle

Rye, Colorado

Freedom. It's a word that gets mentioned a lot when talking about Bishop Castle, an attraction that has already outlasted several previous attempts to explain it.

1994: Jim Bishop talks with the Roadside America Team.

The castle -- containing over over 50,000 tons of rock, concrete, lumber, and steel -- was built by one man, Jim Bishop, a high school dropout and ornamental ironworker from Pueblo, Colorado. Beginning in 1969, and for roughly the next 25 years, the story of the castle centered on Jim and his crazy one-man construction project.

It began when Jim and his father started building a cottage out of rocks for their family in the Colorado mountains. The frontage on Highway 165 drew curious onlookers who asked, "What's that? A castle?" Jim thrived on the attention. If a castle was what the public wanted, he would give them a castle. His dad, wary of what the project was becoming, dropped out in 1973 (One of several hand-lettered signs at Bishop Castle calls attention to the insignificant contribution from the elder Bishop). Jim's initial pleas for volunteer help went unanswered, so he decided to do all of the work himself.

The castle's continued popularity with visitors spurred Jim to make his castle as big and elaborate as possible, and to start describing it as America's largest one-man project. He didn't have much money, so the castle walls were built with rocks that he took for free from nearby road ditches and creek beds. Jim viewed this as a public service. That opinion was not shared by the Bureau of Land Management, which led to the second dominant narrative in the Bishop Castle story: Jim Bishop's battle with authority and rules that, to him, made no sense.

One of several castle signs that document the Government vs. Jim Bishop.

For decades Jim -- who had a cantankerous side -- engaged in an ongoing feud with not only the BLM, but also the IRS, the Department of Transportation, county commissioners, zoning officials, the Colorado Chamber of Commerce, local courts and law enforcement, and basically anyone connected with the government and bureaucracy. Things got really weird in the early 2000s when Jim's people-should-be-free-to-do-what-they-want ethos opened the castle to a series of drug-fueled raves. This was also a time when Jim was treated for cancer and people thought that he was dead (he wasn't) and when a friend of the Bishop family tried to turn the castle into the headquarters for an esoteric religious cult (the friend was unsuccessful). The raves were outlawed, and Jim was arrested at least twice, but he always came back and continued building the castle.

Jim's hand-built rock elevating rig.

And what a castle it is! More fantastical than practical, it's nevertheless built to last, with walls anchored a dozen feet deep in mountain bedrock. One of its towers soars 16 stories high, and Jim only stopped there because his DIY equipment couldn't reach any higher. A Great Hall with stained glass windows echoes with visitor footsteps because the only furniture in Bishop Castle are a few folding metal chairs. No one has ever lived in it.

Tourists are free to climb the castle's dizzying heights.

Out of the roof juts a Viking-style dragon figurehead made of countless cut-apart stainless steel warmer trays from a Pueblo hospital cafeteria. The dragon has a hinged jaw and occasionally belches fire from a burner salvaged from a hot air balloon. Jim said that he built it because the press had stopped paying attention to him.

Another castle tower is topped with a wireframe geodesic dome that spins on a pivot. Jim planned to encase it in mirrors so that after dark the reflected mountain moonlight would create a flashing beacon. Jim said it would attract castle visitors from outer space. But it was never completed.

Jim Bishop's stubborn determination did not flag, but his workdays grew shorter as the years passed, and age and infirmity finally forced him to retire in 2023. It marked the beginning of the current period in Bishop Castle attraction history: the "it is what it is" phase.

Dan Bishop, Jim's son, now oversees the castle property.

The castle is now overseen by Jim's son, Dan Bishop, jovial and outgoing, qualities that his father never had time to develop while stacking rocks and welding castle ironwork. There's a snack bar, a gift shop, and several places to leave cash donations, and there are always cars parked along the shoulder of Colorado 165. That's because there are always visitors at Bishop Castle.

Jim hated attractions that charged a lot of money, so he promised that his castle would forever be free to the public -- especially since it was the public that originally had the idea for a castle. Jim also hated being told what he could and could not do, so he vowed never to tell castle visitors how they should act.

The castle remains an open construction site, and signs warn that it is private property and that visitors are responsible for their own safety. This you're-on-your-own approach reminded us of the City Museum in St. Louis and the now-gone Minister's Treehouse in Tennessee, although visiting Bishop Castle has the potential to be far more dangerous.

Spinning wireframe dome was built by Jim to attract space aliens.

Unhindered, tourists police themselves. The ones that we saw were mostly nervous and careful: gingerly ascending the castle's hundreds of open-air stone and metal steps, or warily walking its rickety-looking iron balconies and bridgeways, or prudently avoiding the scary parts altogether. You could fall 100 feet to your death at Bishop Castle, but as far as is known, no one ever has.

"I've been here three times," said one visitor that we overheard. "I'm taking my kids to see what one man can do," said another. Other popular comments: "He's crazy," and, "Where does he get the money?"

Dan Bishop performs needed repairs, but feels that it wouldn't be right or even possible to continue building his father's castle, since Jim Bishop never used plans or blueprints.

Even in retirement, Jim was often at the castle, sitting in a chair, posing for photos with "Jim Bishop: Castle Builder" embroidered on the breast of his polo shirt. He still loved public attention, and despite signs that warned, "You might experience foul language!" and "You might experience strongly expressive behavior!," Jim was usually not angry any more.

Jim Bishop passed away on November 21, 2024. Dan often said that when his father died -- the freedom of eternal rest -- that it would be fitting if it happened while Jim was building something at the castle. It didn't quite work out that way, but he had already done more than enough.