Paradox is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

and a

U.S. Post Office The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an Independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the executive branch of the Federal government of the Uni ...

located in the

Paradox Valley Paradox Valley is a basin located in Montrose County in the U.S. state of Colorado. The dry, sparsely populated valley is named after the apparently paradoxical course of the Dolores River—instead of flowing down the length of the valley, th ...

Montrose County Montrose County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 42,679. The county seat is Montrose, Colorado, Montrose, for which the county is named. Montrose County comp ...

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

, United States. The Paradox Post Office has the ZIP Code 81429.

Name

The geologist,

Albert Charles Peale Albert Charles Peale (1 April 1849 – 5 December 1914) was an American geologist, mineralogist and paleobotanist. Biography Born in Heckscherville, Pennsylvania, Albert C. Peale was the son of Charles Willson Peale (1821-1871) and Harriet Frie ...

named Paradox in 1875; he declared that the Delores River had the “desire to perform strange and unexpected things” due to the unusual course of the river. Rather than flowing parallel to the valley, the river runs horizontally across the valley, cutting through cliff walls at 90 degree angles. George R. Eichler wrote in the book, ''Colorado Place Names'', that Paradox was nearly inaccessible to early settlers. To enter the valley, travellers had to disembark to unload their wagons. The wagons were then disassembled, and the pieces were then lowered to the valley on ropes.

History

The Paradox area had originally been home to the

Ute people Ute () are the Indigenous people of the Ute tribe and culture among the Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin. They had lived in sovereignty in the regions of present-day Utah and Colorado in the Southwestern United States for many centuries unt ...

. It was later settled by Euro-American ranchers in the 1870's. In 1882, a post office was established. In 1897 mining began, first copper and later uranium. Paradox is a

yellowcake boomtown A yellowcake boomtown also known as a uranium boomtown, is a town or community that rapidly increases in population and economics due to the discovery of uranium ore-bearing minerals, and the development of uranium mining, milling or enrichmen ...

. Uranium ore was first discovered at the Raja mine, and a sample was shipped to

Marie Curie Marie Salomea Skłodowska–Curie ( , , ; born Maria Salomea Skłodowska, ; 7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934) was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first ...

in France, although other sources state that specimens were shipped to Freidel and Cumenge in France for analysis. In 2010

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

magazine featured an article, ''The Uranium Widows'', on the spouses of deceased Paradox uranium workers who died from extended exposure to uranium during their employment in the local mines and mills.

Geography

Paradox is located in

at (38.368310,-108.962574).

Population

In 1991, the population of Paradox was "around two hundred."

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Montrose County, Colorado Unincorporated communities in Colorado