Red Mountain Town is a
silver-mining ghost town
A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...
in
Ouray County,
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...
, United States, south of
Ouray along the "
Million Dollar Highway
U.S. Route 550 (US 550) is a spur of U.S. Highway 50 that runs from Bernalillo, New Mexico to Montrose, Colorado in the western United States. The section from Silverton to Ouray is frequently called the Million Dollar Highway. " (
U.S. Route 550
U.S. Route 550 (US 550) is a spur of U.S. Highway 50 that runs from Bernalillo, New Mexico to Montrose, Colorado in the western United States. The section from Silverton, Colorado, Silverton to Ouray, Colorado, Ouray is frequently called ...
).
History
While there were
gold mining
Gold mining is the extraction of gold by mining.
Historically, mining gold from Alluvium, alluvial deposits used manual separation processes, such as gold panning. The expansion of gold mining to ores that are not on the surface has led to mor ...
efforts near Red Mountain during the 1870s, it was not until
silver
Silver is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag () and atomic number 47. A soft, whitish-gray, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. ...
discoveries in 1882 that a more permanent population arrived, seeing the foundation of a town.
Red Mountain Town, as it would become known, formed part of the
Red Mountain Pass mining district between
Silverton and
Ouray. Alongside the
Ironton,
Guston, Sweetville, Rogerville, and Park City, Red Mountain Town formed a corridor through which the
Silverton Railroad
The Silverton Railroad, now defunct, was an American Narrow gauge railways, narrow gauge railroad constructed between Silverton, Colorado, Silverton, Colorado and mining districts near Red Mountain Pass (San Juan Mountains), Red Mountain Pass ...
narrow-gauge
A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge (distance between the rails) narrower than . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and .
Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curv ...
ran, delivering ore to be processed in and transported from Silverton.
[ These communities eventually consolidated until almost all residents of the area lived within Red Mountain Town, Ironton, or Guston. The townsite was moved during its first year due to the discovery that the unfrozen ]spring
Spring(s) may refer to:
Common uses
* Spring (season), a season of the year
* Spring (device), a mechanical device that stores energy
* Spring (hydrology), a natural source of water
* Spring (mathematics), a geometric surface in the shape of a he ...
around which the first townsite was constructed turned the area into an uninhabitable marsh.[
The communities in the Red Mountain mining district had a long-running rivalry that saw frequent brawls between residents of the neighboring towns.][ In 1892, English congregationalist ]preacher
A preacher is a person who delivers sermons or homilies on religious topics to an assembly of people. Less common are preachers who Open-air preaching, preach on the street, or those whose message is not necessarily religious, but who preach com ...
Rev. William Davis attempted to found a church in Red Mountain Town, but the townsfolk rejected him. However, Guston residents accepted Davis and a church was opened that same year. The day following the church's opening, the business district of Red Mountain Town burned, spurring some to claim it was an act of divine intervention.[
Despite its location in the second-largest silver-mining district in Colorado, its proximity to the major Yankee Girl and Idarado Mines, and a peak population over 1,000 people, Red Mountain Town is now a ghost town.]tailings
In mining, tailings or tails are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different from overburden, which is the waste rock or other material ...
were also visible.[
]
See also
* List of ghost towns in Colorado
This is a list of some notable ghost towns in the U.S. State of Colorado. A ghost town is a former community that now has no year-round residents or less than 1% of its peak population. Colorado has over 1,500 ghost towns, although visible remai ...
References
External links
{{authority control
Ghost towns in Colorado
Former populated places in Ouray County, Colorado
Mining communities in Colorado