Volume 5: Telluride/ Ouray/ Ophir
These mountain towns are gems in Southwest Colorado. Telluride and tiny Ophir are in San Miguel County, and Ouray, not far away if unimproved roads aren’t a barrier, is located in Ouray County. Telluride is the most populous (about two thousand residents) and best known of the three, home to a famous ski resort, many well-known music festivals, and exclusive luxury homes. Telluride’s colorful history as a hard-rock mining town where gold, silver, and tellurium were extracted beginning in 1878 changed dramatically in the 1970s when the Telluride Ski Resort opened. Telluride’s elevation is 8,750 feet above sea level, a bit higher than Ouray’s 7,792. (source) Fewer than 1,000 people call Ouray home, but each year many thousands of tourists visit the charming village, nicknamed the “Switzerland of America.” Like most mountain towns in the region, Ouray was founded on mining (gold, in this case), made accessible by the railroad, and popular with visitors. (source) Ophir, Colorado, is the highest in elevation of these three towns at 9,695 feet. Gold was discovered in 1875, and the town was founded in 1881, but the mines decreased until there was only one resident in 1970! Telluride’s popularity in recent has allowed a few hundred residents to call Ophir home. (source)
Pages
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- The Box Canyon Road - Ouray, Colo.
- The Box Canyon Road, Ouray, Colorado.
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- The Telluride Power Company Ilium Power Plant, Colorado
- View of two structures that make up the Ilium Power Plant near Telluride, Colorado
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- The Tom Boy Room, Sheridan Hotel
- Interior view of the Tom Boy Room at the Sheridan Hotel, Telluride, Colorado. Checkered tablecloths and mid-century design chairs decorate the stone and wood built room.
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- The most improbable railroad in the West...
- View of Rio Grande Southern 4-6-0 locomomotive pausing at the mining town of Rico on its run over Lizard Head Pass. Snow is on the depot structures and on the ground. From a painting.
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- Thunder Storm, Mt. Wilson, Telluride, Colo. Height 14,350 ft.
- Mt. Wilson can be seen in the background.There is a line of pine trees and tall grasses in the foreground. Above the mountains, there are great, fluffy clouds. Snow on the mountain slope forms a cross.
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- Toll Road - The new state road
- Colored lithograph photo print of horse riders on a road that winds along the edge of a rocky cliff. In the background, mountain slopes lined with trees fade into the sky.
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- Toll road near Ouray
- Toll road near Ouray, Colorado
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- Tom Boy Gold Mining Co. (Telluride, Colo.)
- Image of mine in a valley surrounded by mountains. The land in front of the mine is covered with scraggly pine trees and stumps. Scattered shrubs cover the lower hill lying at the bottom of the steep rocky cliffs lining the mountain valley.
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- Tom Boy Mine (Telluride, Colo.)
- Photo of mine in a valley surrounded by mountains says "wish you was mine, don't you?" on back also one cent stamp on the back addressed to Miss Ollie Collins
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- Tom Boy Mine and Mills (Telluride, Colo.)
- Picture of road heading to the mine mountains in the background lightly covered with snow
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- Tomboy Basin Y.M.C.A.
- View of Tomboy Y.M.C.A., Smuggler, Colorado, snow covered. Postmarked March 14, 1907, in Smuggler, Colorado. Mailed to Mrs. John J. Thompson, Odell, Illinois with a one-cent stamp.
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- Tomboy Mines and Mills (Telluride, Colo.)
- Photograph of the Tomboy Mine.