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Ashcroft

Located about eleven miles south of Aspen in Castle Creek Valley, Ashcroft was established in 1880 as a silver mining camp. It quickly grew to more than 2,000 residents and briefly rivaled Aspen, but it was already declining by the late 1880s because the…

Creede

The last of Colorado’s great silver strikes, the town of Creede boomed after its namesake, Nicholas Creede, discovered silver along Willow Creek in 1889. An estimated 10,000 people poured into the narrow valley before the Panic of 1893 sent the town into…

Creede Railroad Depot/Museum

The Denver & Rio Grande Railroad (D&RG) built the Creede Railroad Depot in 1893 to handle freight and passenger traffic in the historic mining town of Creede. Located on the north end of town near the corner of Loma Avenue and Wall Street, the…

Georgetown–Silver Plume Historic District

Located in the upper Clear Creek valley about forty-five miles west of Denver, the Georgetown–Silver Plume Historic District is one of the best preserved historic mining districts in Colorado. In the late nineteenth century, Georgetown thrived as the…

Lake City

At an elevation of 8,661 feet in the heart of the San Juan Mountains, the historic mining town of Lake City is the only incorporated town in Hinsdale County. Named for nearby Lake San Cristobal, the town was founded in 1874 in a broad valley along the…

Leadville

At an elevation of 10,152 feet in the central Rocky Mountains, Leadville is the Lake County seat and the highest incorporated city in the United States. Gold first brought prospectors to the area in the early 1860s, but Leadville itself was not…

Panic of 1893

The Panic of 1893 touched off a nationwide economic depression that lasted for at least three years, threw millions out of work, and caused banks and businesses to fail across the country. In Colorado and other silver-mining states, the panic was tied to…

St. Elmo

Located at an elevation of 10,000 feet in Chalk Creek Canyon southwest of Buena Vista, the historic mining town of St. Elmo was founded in 1880 and flourished for less than a decade. Although it is actually inhabited by a small handful of full-timers and…