5-1 Visiting Old Mine Towns

Downtown Telluride

While in Colorado we visited Telluride, Ouray and Silverton, they were old mining towns along the San Miguel River. On the way to Telluride we saw real cowboys riding horses and branding cattle. A cowboy had roped a calf and was dragging it to get branded and the mother followed close behind. We drove through a area where they were blasting the mountainside to widen the road. We stopped right outside of Telluride at an overlook of the San Miguel River and read about how Telluride has changed from a mining town to a ski resort town. When we got to Telluride we drove through the downtown and saw some shops and then we drove up the mountain to Mountain Village, there is a Gondola that takes folks from Telluride to Mountain Village when we were there it wasn’t running. We walked around the Gondola area and looked at the village, which had a lot of big beautiful homes, motels, a grocery store and City Hall. We saw a ski trail that went under a bridge to get skiers from the parking lot to the slops and back we thought this was so cool.  Mountain Village was a very pretty town.

Living in Mountain Village

The Gondola

A statue of a miner in Ouray

Ouray was a cute little town with shops, restaurants, hotels, city hall and courthouse. The main street was blacktopped but the side street were graveled and went uphill. We were going to hike to Crystal Falls but we couldn’t find any place that was level enough to park the Minnie. As we were leaving town we stopped at Switzerland of America Look Out Point where we saw a magnificent waterfall called Bear Creek Falls and learned about Ouray’s history. One interesting thing we learned was the Beaumont Hotel opened here in 1887, this was where well-heeled mine owners, railroad men and corporate executives stayed for fifty years. As the mines declined the vacancy rate decreased so it closed in 1964. The views of Ouray and the mountain range we beautiful from the look out point. 

Beaumont Hotel

Ouray from Switzerland of America Look Out Point

Bear Creek Falls

Silverton was the next town we visited, the drive was through a gorgeous mountain range, we saw a lot of waterfalls made by the melting snow, we saw remains of old mines and we drove through a couple of tunnels. Silverton was another quaint town with shops and has a mine tour along with a self-guided mill tour. The mine was closed so there weren’t any tours being given. After driving through the town we drove through another pretty mountain range. Some places on the road had tight switch backs and we climbed to 10,899 feet. The views were unbelievable and we stopped at the summit to take in the beauty of the mountains. 

Silverton Courthouse

A view at the 10,899 Summit