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St. Elmo, Colorado - 1880



A preserved, but not restored, ghost town in Chafee County Colorado founded in 1880. A once thriving mining town of 2000 inhabitants in the Sawatch Mountains at an elevation of 9961feet about 20 miles southeast of Buena Vista is St. Elmo. The Mary Murphy Mine recovered $60,000,000 worth of gold and employed the majority of the persons living in St. Elmo in the 1890’s as well as the Teresa C., The Molly and the Pioneer mines. The town consisted of a town hall, 5 hotels, schoolhouse, saloons and dance halls. The Mary Murphy Mine shut down in 1922 when the Denver, South Park and Pacific Railroad was abandoned. The postal service stopped when the postmaster died in 1952.

Today there are about 4 people still living in St. Elmo and the General Store continues to operate in the spring and summer months. Several buildings remain, although the school house and town hall burned to the ground in 2002. Efforts to rebuild the town hall to its original state by the Buena Vista Heritage is underway.

Cruising the 15 miles down a dirt county road lined with leafless Aspen trees and a little bit of snow on the ground, we arrived at St. Elmo. I don’t know what it is about ghost towns, I always feel like I am being watched. I knew full well, from the pre-photo shoot research that there are at least 4 inhabitants who live in the town. I must have been thinking about New Idria, CA. Now that town was a bit scary - signs everywhere; no trespassing, keep out, Hanta Virus warnings and the gun shots firing over our heads.

There was a large sign “Welcome to St. Elmo, please stay on the street”. We saw a functioning Ford pick-up truck parked in front of the General Store - never saw a soul. We reached the end on town and ended up picking up a couple of super friendly, well fed cats. I am sure they belonged to someone since they looked pretty healthy, just a bit lonely I guess. They accompanied us back through the street and to our car. We didn’t dare open the hatch beck in fear that the cats would attempt to jump in.

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Location: St. Elmo, CO

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