Red Mountain Town is a
silver mining
Silver mining is the extraction of silver from minerals, starting with mining. Because silver is often found in intimate combination with other metals, its extraction requires elaborate technologies. In 2008, ca.25,900 metric tons were consumed ...
ghost town
Ghost Town(s) or Ghosttown may refer to:
* Ghost town, a town that has been abandoned
Film and television
* Ghost Town (1936 film), ''Ghost Town'' (1936 film), an American Western film by Harry L. Fraser
* Ghost Town (1956 film), ''Ghost Town'' ...
in
Ouray County
Ouray County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 4,874. The county seat is Ouray. Because of its rugged mountain topography, Ouray County is also known as the Switzerland of America.
H ...
,
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, 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).
History
While there were
gold mining
Gold mining is the extraction of gold resources by mining. Historically, mining gold from alluvial deposits used manual separation processes, such as gold panning. However, with the expansion of gold mining to ores that are not on the surface ...
efforts near Red Mountain during the 1870s, it was not until
silver
Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...
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 railroad constructed between Silverton, Colorado and mining districts near Red Mountain Pass, Colorado.
The Silverton Railroad is remembered for the innovative solutions to d ...
narrow-gauge
A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and .
Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structur ...
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 ...
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
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
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 preach on the street, or those whose message is not necessarily religious, but who preach components such as a ...
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 Mine
The Idarado Mine was a mining operation in the San Juan Mountains of Ouray County, Colorado near the now-ghost town of Guston, producing primarily lead, silver and zinc along with lesser amounts of gold and copper. The mine is within the Sn ...
s, and a peak population over 1,000 people, Red Mountain Town is now a ghost town.tailings
In mining, tailings are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different to overburden, which is the waste rock or other material that overlie ...
were also visible.[
]
See also
* List of ghost towns in Colorado
This is a list of some ghost towns in the U.S. State of Colorado. Colorado has over 1,500 ghost towns, although visible remains of only about 640 still exist. Due to incomplete records and legends that are now accepted as fact, no exhaustive li ...
References
External links
Ghost towns in Colorado
Former populated places in Ouray County, Colorado
Mining communities in Colorado
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