Jim Bishop, man behind hand-built Colorado castle in the San Isabel Forest, dead at 80
Corrections & Clarifications: This story was updated to reflect that Jim Bishop had four children
The man who built one of southern Colorado’s most famous and unique landmarks died Nov. 21, the family of Jim Bishop, 80, announced Thursday morning.
“It is with a heavy heart that the Bishop family announces the passing of James Roland Bishop,” the family said in a post on the Bishop Castle Facebook page. “Jim passed away early November 21st in Pueblo, surrounded by his loved ones. Services will be announced at a later date.”
Bishop was 15 years old when he began building what would eventually become Bishop Castle, a towering, Gothic construction of stone and wood that appears to be straight out of a fairy tale from the Brothers Grimm.
Bishop bought the 2.5-acre parcel on which the castle is situated in the middle of the San Isabel Forest in 1959 for $450, which he saved by mowing lawns, delivering newspapers, and working with his father, Willard, in the family’s ornamental iron works, according to the Bishop Castle website.
Bishop told the Chieftain in 2021 that he began building the structure as a tribute to his new bride, Phoebe.
“It’s for her — an immense monument to the love for a woman,” Bishop said.
Jim Bishop and his dog Marley sit on the Bishop Castle property on April 18, 2021.
Over the years, Bishop continued to build up the castle, even adding a fire-breathing dragon ornament in the mid-1980s. The dragon is perched 80 feet in the air, off the front of the grand ballroom.
In a 1994 interview with the Chieftain, after turning 50 years old, Bishop described his life’s work as a “poor man’s Disneyland,” although he vehemently noted at the time that it “ain’t no tourist trap.”
His family has also made contributions to the project. His late wife, Phoebe, and their children, Danny, Valerie and Donita, and Scot Moore, who was raised under the Bishops’ guardianship, all have worked on the project over the years.
The project has not been without tragedy, the Chieftain reported in 1994. The Bishops’ 4-year-old son, Roy, died at the construction site in May 1988 when he became trapped under the root of a fallen tree.
Bishop Castle is off of Highway 165 in Rye, Colorado.
In a previous interview with the Chieftain, Bishop said he had mixed reasons for spending his life building a castle in the Colorado forest.
“I’m doing this for the honor and glory of God,” he said. “But, I’m doing it for the honor and glory of Jim Bishop, too. I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t say that.”
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This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: Jim Bishop, who built Colorado wilderness castle by hand, dead at 80
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