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Published Mar/Apr 2006 | ||||||
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Stir your spirit of adventure by
Exploring Colorado’s many Ghost towns. By Jinny Ravenscroft Danzer |
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 he first ghost town we discovered in Colorado was Tin Cup, which my family and I happened upon on our way between Gunnison and Buena Vista. A few years later in south central Colorado near Lake City, we rented a Jeep, set off into the San Juan Mountains and had the thrill of discovering Carson City, a remote mining camp. Finding these abandoned mining structures, bunkhouses, cabins, hotels and post offices will surely spark a spirit of adventure. While some towns are preserved as historic sites and easily accessible, others are tucked into valleys and reachable only by rugged roads. But seeking them out is a wonderful way to delve into Colorado’s history. Carson City: a sky-high camp The remains of Carson City give a good idea of what a mining camp may have looked like. Cabins, bunkhouses and animal stalls nestle in a valley just beneath the Continental Divide above Lake City. Floors and walls are ragged or entirely missing in places, but roofs have been repaired to retard deterioration. The camp was set up in 1882 to service gold and silver mines such as Maid of Carson, Iron Mask and St. Jacobs, which employed 400–500 men. The altitude of almost 12,000 feet produced huge snowfalls, and the camp’s inaccessibility proved its downfall. Today access is via a rough four-wheel-drive track off the Alpine Loop, a 62- to 78-mile drive. The road makes a big circle between Lake City, Silverton and Ouray following Native American trails, miners’ roads and an early stage route. The road sidetracks to various mines, mills and other remains. Animas Forks: a gem on the Alpine Loop Animas Forks lies in the middle of the Alpine Loop drive when the starting point is Lake City. The road climbs what seem at times to be 45-degree angles and hugs narrow shelves along the mountainside as it ascends 12,620-foot Cinnamon Pass. The loop continues on the other side of Animas Forks with the awesome ascent of 12,800-foot Engineer Pass and a spectacular 360-degree view of the surrounding mountains from a saddle near the pass. The site also is accessible by passenger car from Silverton. Developed in the 1870s at 11,200 feet, Animas Forks in its heyday (1880s and ’90s) claimed some 450 inhabitants, a hotel, a general store, a saloon, a post office, a boarding house, 30 cabins and a newspaper. Of the numerous remains in the area, three stand out: the Columbia mine and mill, the foundations of the 1904 Gold Prince stamp mill and the stabilized Bagley Mill. The most impressive residence is a two-story edifice with a bay window. A house nearby boasted a two-seat indoor privy. In 1884, a blizzard lasted 23 days and dumped 25 feet of snow on the town. Avalanches were said to slide down the side of one mountain and up another. Tin Cup: a gunslinger’s haven Tin Cup, located between Gunnison and Buena Vista, is not exactly a ghost town. Residents have restored many of the old cabins. But it gives an idea of how the town might have looked after the silver strike of 1879. A tour of the cemetery makes the trip worthwhile. Tin Cup has a town hall from 1903, plus a small store/gift shop with a false-fronted exterior and a log-cabin restaurant that are open at irregular times. The view from the south with the mountains in the background is picturesque and peaceful. But the town was anything but peaceful. It was said to be ruled by gangsters who shot several of the sheriffs. By 1882, Tincup was producing the most silver in the Gunnison area and claimed a population of 6,000. Although it was both a supply and a rowdy social center, by 1912 most of the mines had closed. The cemetery, just south of town, consists of four hillocks: one for Jews, one for Catholics, one for Protestants and a Boot Hill said to be for those with no religion but survival. Headstones are minimal, but a few inscriptions give birth and death dates. Tincup is reached by paved and good gravel roads from Almont, Buena Vista and Pitkin. St. Elmo: Saturday night town for the Alpine district St. Elmo is part ghost town, part revitalized historic site, with a general store and antique shop, a land sales office and several other enterprises. Gold was discovered in the area in the late 1870s and St. Elmo burgeoned into a town that claimed between 1,500 and 3,000 occupants during the 1890s. The Mary Murphy was the most successful mine, producing gold, silver, lead, iron and zinc. St. Elmo was a hub for the region via treacherous roads to Tin Cup and Ashcroft, then later via the Denver, South Park & Pacific Railroad through the Alpine Tunnel to Gunnison. In its heyday, St. Elmo boasted several dance halls, five hotels, a general store, a mercantile and saloon with a two-story outhouse, a schoolhouse, a post office, several newspapers and a number of other businesses. With its numerous saloons, it’s no surprise that the town was known for its rowdy Saturday nights. Unfortunately the town hall, schoolhouse and several adjoining buildings burned in 2002. Enough of the structures remain, however, to create the feeling of a real town. Plaques on many buildings give dates and names or occupations of past residents. The structures range from simple miners’ cabins to two-story false-fronted hotels and other businesses. Massive Mount Princeton–one of Colorado’s 54 peaks called “fourteeners” that exceed 14,000 feet–looms over the good gravel road leading from Nathrop, just south of Buena Vista, to St. Elmo. Marble quarries and the Crystal Mill The towns of Marble and Crystal, south of Glenwood Springs and over the mountain from Crested Butte, are ghost towns with a small summer population. Marble for the Lincoln Memorial, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the largest single block of marble supposedly ever quarried came out of the Yule Marble Mine, once the largest in the world. A walking tour leads through the town, where white marble blocks quarried initially by Italians populate the streets and riverbank. The remains of what was at one time the largest marble-finishing mill in the world has lain abandoned in the town since real marble went out of vogue in the 1900s. A four-wheel drive track leads up to the Yule Quarry. An eight-mile road made for four-wheel drive vehicles leads explorers to the isolated ghost town of Crystal and its popularized mill. Until 1916, a waterwheel powered an air compressor for use at silver, lead and zinc mines. The old cabins at Crystal are in pretty good shape due to their isolated location. Crystal is also accessible from Crested Butte by four-wheel-drive over Schofield Pass, then a short hike down a crumbly road. It’s advisable to walk–not drive–down the road. Marble is accessible by car. These are just a few of the many ghost towns scattered across Colorado. These–or others you may find–bring the rich mining history of Colorado to life and are well worth the drives off the beaten path. Jinny Ravenscroft Danzer is a contributor from St. Louis, Mo. |
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