Colorado's Abandoned Towns Red Mountain Town
Updated: Sep 5
Date of site visit: August 19, 2026
Colorado's Abandoned Towns -- better known as ghost towns.
Today's Town: Red Mountain Town
More than a century ago, hundreds of people climbed into Colorado's San Juan Mountains and tried to build a town at nearly 11,000 feet. Today my husband and I are taking our Jeep up the mountain to see what they left behind--and to answer the question I can't stop asking:
Why would anyone choose to make a home here?
History of the Red Mountain District
Rich mineral discoveries starting around 1882 created a sudden influx of prospectors and eastern capital, making this district in Colorado one of the richest regions in the state.
During this silver boom, several towns sprang up almost overnight, with settlements such as Red Mountain Town, Ironton, Guston, and Congress taking root in this rugged, high-elevation terrain above 10,000 feet.
What made the Red Mountain District different was not simply that silver was there, but how it was deposited. Instead of long horizontal veins, some of the richest ore occurred in nearly vertical "chimneys" or pipes, often only 30 to 100 feet across. Miners could work through relatively unremarkable rock and suddenly encounter extraordinarily rich ore. At the Yankee Girl Mine, some ore assayed at around 1,000 ounces of silver per ton.
Some of the district's richest ore required little or no concentration before shipment. At the Yankee Girl Mine, exceptionally high-grade ore could be sent directly to the smelter. At its peak, the Yankee Girl reportedly produced about ten tons of ore per day. The spectacular richness of these upper ore bodies helped fuel the Red Mountain boom—but the deeper mines eventually encountered lower-grade ore, corrosive water and increasingly expensive operating conditions.
Over the next three installments, we'll explore three communities of the Red Mountain District: Red Mountain Town, which may have approached 1,000 residents at its peak, followed by Guston and Ironton.
Red Mountain Town lies in southwestern Colorado's San Juan Mountains, just off U.S. Highway 550—the famed Million Dollar Highway—roughly twelve miles south of Ouray near Red Mountain Pass.
The Red Mountain group, three visibly iron-stained peaks, gave the district and town their name. Their vivid red, orange and yellow colors result largely from oxidation of pyrite and other iron-bearing minerals in highly altered volcanic rock.
It's a warm Colorado day, with afternoon thunderstorms possible in the mountains ahead. So we packed our rain gear, a picnic lunch, and loaded into the Jeep with my agenda in hand. Our drive toward the San Juan Mountains, as always, is beautiful. We never tire of seeing those majestic mountains looming as we approach them. It took about an hour and a half to get to our destination, Red Mountain Town site. But before we dive into the specifics of the settlement, here's a little background of the iconic road leading up to and through Red Mountain to Durango.
Beginning in the early 1880s, local interests and Ouray County pushed a wagon road south through the San Juans. Transportation pioneer Otto Mears later helped complete and operate the route as a toll road, connecting Ouray with the rapidly developing Red Mountain district and eventually Silverton. Much of today's U.S. 550 follows that remarkable corridor.
The most historically supported explanation for the “Million Dollar Highway” name is its extraordinary construction cost. Over the years, however, local legend supplied more colorful possibilities: that valuable ore tailings were used in the roadbed, that frightened travelers wouldn't drive it again for a million dollars, or simply that the views themselves were worth a million.
This was our drive toward Red Mountain Town - and yes, million-dollar views!
The first settlement in the Red Mountain area appeared in 1879 at an elevation of more than 11,000 feet. After the rich silver discoveries of 1882, Red Mountain Town was formally established in 1883. The first settlement proved badly located when spring thaw exposed marshy ground. As the district developed, buildings and residents shifted toward better ground, the transportation route and the National Belle Mine. By about 1885, what became the principal Red Mountain Town was concentrated near the National Belle. There was no single founder of the town. Prospectors, mine owners, land promoters, and merchants rushed in after John Robinson's rich Yankee Girl discovery and subsequent National Belle/Guston strikes.
We turned off Highway 550 and onto County Road 31, a pitted gravel-and-dirt road that twisted through the tall pines and shimmering aspens. Before long, we approached an abandoned structure and a small sign identifying the National Belle Mine. Beyond it, on the adjacent hill, the mine's weathered headframe towered above the place where Red Mountain Town once stood. A headframe is the structure built above a mine shaft to support the hoisting equipment used to raise and lower miners, equipment and ore.
The area is beautiful. Living here in the summer would be like paradise. Tall spruce trees circle the clearing, while dry dirt-and-rock paths, perhaps remnants of the old streets, wind through the high-mountain grasses.
The remaining timbers are dry, weather-beaten and partially collapsed, yet portions still hold fast to the mountain--as several of Red Mountain's residents did long after the boom had passed.
Reports credited the boomtown with more than 100 businesses. Saloons served as social centers of the camp and sometimes doubled as meeting places, makeshift theaters and even courtrooms. In 1891, Congregational minister William Davis arrived hoping to establish a church. Red Mountain Town showed little enthusiasm for the idea, while nearby Guston ultimately welcomed him and established a church. The town provided lodging options for visiting mining speculators, lawyers, and land promoters. Red Mountain Town had its own telephone office, a post office, a schoolhouse, a railway depot connected to Otto Mears' Silverton Railroad, and two competing local newspapers. Because the town was built on extreme terrain, the local jail was uniquely built on bedrock.
Despite the clouds gathering over the mountains, patches of deep Colorado-blue sky remain overhead. What strikes me most is the silence. There are chirping birds, the faint sound of water trickling through the site, and little else. I try to imagine the contrast more than 130 years ago—the clatter of mine machinery, wagons and trains, men's voices, horses, hammering, and all of it happening only steps from homes and businesses.
I can't help wondering what daily life was like for the people who lived here.
Women were here. Fort Lewis College's history of the district notes that hundreds of women and children followed husbands and fathers into these hastily built mountain settlements. Across Colorado's mining camps, women worked as boarding-house operators, laundresses, cooks, merchants and innkeepers, while others came as wives and mothers trying to make homes in places never designed with families in mind.
Those are the women I find myself thinking about as I stand here.
What would convince a woman to bring her children to over 11,000 feet, knowing winter was coming? Opportunity? Love? Necessity? Adventure? Or simply the belief that this raw little town might become something permanent--something they could call home?
For a few remarkable years, all of this worked. Mines employed workers. Workers supported stores, hotels, saloons and services; transportation brought supplies in and carried ore out. Red Mountain Town existed because silver made the improbable economically possible.
But everything depended on silver remaining valuable.
The silver boom depended not only on what miners could pull from the mountain but also on what silver was worth once it reached the surface. The Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890 required the federal government to buy 4.5 million ounces of silver each month, helping support demand for the metal. But amid a growing national financial crisis and fears over dwindling federal gold reserves, Congress repealed the purchasing provisions in 1893. Silver prices fell sharply, and Colorado's silver-dependent mining districts were devastated.
The residents of Red Mountain Town had already proven remarkably resilient. Fire devastated the business district in 1892, and residents rebuilt. Another destructive fire followed only a few years later. But falling silver prices, the Panic of 1893, increasingly expensive mining conditions and the closure of major mines steadily stripped away the town's reason for existence. An economic collapse proved much harder to rebuild from. By 1899, only a handful of people remained.
Very little remains today of the bustling mining town. What does remain tells the story of mining: a weathered headframe and loading structures, heavy iron machinery—gears, boilers, and engine housings—and rusted mine-car rails lying strewn across the ground.
Mine Loading site - south of Red Mountain Town Site
WHAT SURPRISED ME MOST?
The elevation alone is astonishing. But standing there, one fact is almost harder for me to comprehend than the town itself: a railroad came here.
I could not imagine a railroad in such a rugged area with severe elevation changes, exceptionally sharp curves, steep grades, and engineering features including a wye--a triangular arrangement of tracks that allowed a locomotive and cars to reverse direction much like a three-point turn. Even more remarkable, the depot sat next to the wye.
Standing there, it seems almost unimaginable. And yet, a railroad climbed into these mountains.
The Silverton Railroad reached Red Mountain Town in 1888 and extended through the district by 1889. Otto Mears' narrow-gauge line, nicknamed the “Rainbow Route,” became a vital link between these remote mines and the outside world.
BEFORE YOU GO
Check weather conditions as weather can change quickly at these high elevations.
Hwy 550 is paved. CR 14A, CR 31, are pitted gravel and dirt roads.
A high clearance vehicle would be best as would a 4WD. Not absolutely necessary. But conditions could change making the road difficult to traverse without the high clearance or 4WD.
Sites were mild to moderate difficulty walking. Travelers with respiratory conditions at high altitudes would have difficulty but could see many of the sites from inside the vehicle.
Best time to visit: Generally mid- to late summer into early fall, depending on snow and road conditions.
Map your route before leaving because cell service can be unreliable in the mountains.
Respect all private-property boundaries, posted restrictions and environmental restoration areas.
Do not remove artifacts or objects from historic sites.
For your safety and the preservation of the buildings, do not enter or climb on unstable structures.
Take only pictures . Leave only footprints.
THEN AND NOW PHOTOGRAPHS
WHAT DID RED MOUNTAIN LEAVE BEHIND?
Red Mountain Town actually left an enormous amount behind.
Physically, surprisingly little.
A few weather-beaten timbers. The National Belle headframe still standing above the place where a once-crowded town stood beneath it. Traces of roads and railroad grades disappearing into the mountains.
But Red Mountain Town left behind far more than ruins.
It helped carve transportation routes through mountains once considered nearly impassable. Its mines drew men, women, children, merchants, investors, and dreamers into one of Colorado's most unforgiving landscapes. Millions of dollars in precious metals came from these mountains, while the environmental consequences of that mining remained long after the miners were gone. Today, preservation and reclamation have become part of Red Mountain's story too.
As we ate our picnic lunch under the towering presence of Red Mountain's peaks, I found myself thinking less about the silver than about the people.
Someone called this place home. Someone cooked breakfast here. Someone washed clothes. Someone got mail here. Children went to school. Men worked in treacherous conditions. Women tried to make a home where winter temperatures could fall far below zero. They laughed, loved, argued, worked, worried, dreamed about the future--and for a brief time believed Red Mountain Town had one.
Maybe that is what these abandoned places leave behind. Not necessarily buildings or foundations, but questions.
Who were the people who came here? What were they searching for? What made them stay? And when everything they had built began to disappear, how did they know when it was finally time to leave?
Those are the questions I carried back down the mountain with me.
Red Mountain Town leaves me with this one:
What makes people gamble everything on a place this difficult?
NEXT STOP: GUSTON
What happens when the mine--not Main Street--becomes the center of a community?
LEARN MORE
Thank you for reading.
May God abundantly bless you and may He always keep you.
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