COME LEARN ABOUT OUR PAST

Ouray has a rich and colorful mining history. Relive our past at the Ouray County Museum, voted by the Smithsonian as one of the "Best Small Museums in the West."

by Don Paulson

Ouray, Colorado is named after the most famous chief of the Ute Indian tribe, who made his home in the Uncompahgre Valley. Native Americans came to Ouray to hunt, escape the heat, enjoy the beauty and to use the hot springs. The Utes signed many treaties with the government but eventually were pushed out of the San Juan Mountains by white settlers.

Ouray was first explored in the early 1860s but the big mining rush occurred in the summer of 1875 and the town was incorporated in October of 1876. In August of 1875 the first mines in Ouray County, the Fisher and Cedar lodes, were located inside the present-day City of Ouray. By the time it was incorporated in the fall of 1876, Ouray had 400 hundred inhabitants and by 1878 that had increased to over 800. The mining in the early 1870s was mainly focused along Canyon Creek all the way up to Yankee Boy Basin. A jeep trip there in mid summer provides some of the most beautiful wild flowers in the San Juans.

In the 1880s silver mining exploded on the east side of Red Mountain with the fabulously rich Yankee Girl, Robinson, Guston and National Belle Mines. In 1882 Otto Mears completed the toll road begun by Ouray County along the route of today's Million Dollar Highway. In 1887-8 Mears built the Silverton Railroad from Silverton over Red Mountain Pass and down into Ironton. For several years it was the most profitable railroad, mile per mile, in the United States. Much of the right-of-way remains and can be easily hiked today.

The Denver and Rio Grande Railroad built their Ouray branch in 1886, which meant great prosperity for the mines above Ouray. Ouray was now a boomtown and many of its beautiful buildings were built in the first few years after the arrival of the railroad. These include the Wright Opera House, the magnificent Beaumont Hotel that has recently been restored to its original glory, the St. Joseph's Mining Hospital (now the Ouray County Museum), the Ouray Courthouse, the Western Hotel and many of Ouray's stately private homes. The great silver mines flourished until the mid-1890s when the silver panic of 1893 led to the eventual closing of most of the area mines.

The discovery of gold at Tom Walsh's Camp Bird Mine as well as the mines on Gold Hill north of Ouray saved the town and ushered in a new time of prosperity in Ouray. Mining remained the primary industry in Ouray and the base metals lead, copper and zinc kept the larger mines producing until the closing of the Idarado and Camp Bird mines in the late 1970s. Recently, the high price of gold has resulted in the reopening of several area mines.

To learn more about the history of Ouray please visit the Ouray County Museum located at 420 Sixth Avenue in the former St. Joseph's Mining Hospital. The Museum has three floors, 27 rooms and 37 separate exhibits. The Museum features mining, ranching and railroading, the three main means of employment in Ouray's early history. It houses many artifacts dating back to Ouray's earliest days which began in 1875. There are large displays of minerals and Indian artifacts. Among other displays the Museum also houses a simulated mine, the hospital operating room, lawyer's, dentist's and doctor's offices, the old Ouray Jail, a blacksmith shop and the original furnishings from Tom Walsh's Camp Bird Mine Office. A brochure describing a walking tour of 24 of Ouray's Victorian buildings is available at both the Museum and the Visitors Center.