Ghost Town of St. Elmo

One attraction in this area is the St. Elmo ghost town.  Located near the top of Mt. Princeton, it is situated at 9,961 feet elevation.  Founded as Forest City and later renamed to St. Elmo, nearly 2000 people settled in the town when mining for gold and silver started.  The mining industry started to decline in the early 1920s, and in 1922 the railroad discontinued service. The community is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the St. Elmo Historic District.  It is one of Colorado's best preserved ghost towns.

ATVs whizzed by us so fast!

St. Elmo General Store - still in use today

Traveled up a dirt road, very flat, to the town, passed many ATVs where people were eating their dirt.  That is one sport I would not want to do.  Most people in the ATVs were masked, goggled, and I would hate not to be in the lead vehicle.  Yuck.

I like the sign - don't hassle the hummingbirds

Couple of attractions in the town:  hummingbirds.  Many.  Buzzed us, watched the bullies fighting off the others for food.  Another attraction is feeding the chipmunks.  Some of them were enormous.  Little piggies.  Kids get a kick out of feeding them out of their hands.  43 buildings still remain, there are summer residents in some of them and some people have built homes to be in the mountains for the coolness.

Restoration was going on, parts of the town were corded off and we could only look at them from across the street.  We then walked down to Chalk Creek that flows right by Main Street and walked the path for a bit.  Then we got antsy.  On the way down from St. Elmo we turned off another dirt road and continued to climb higher, towards Hancock which is another ghost town.

You can hear Chalk Creek while walking along the main street

Are we having fun yet?

Rob and Dee who prospect for gold and gems would remark every now and then - wish we had our buckets to collect.  Many abandoned mines are scattered throughout.  We passed the Mary Murphy Mine which was quite profitable, saw the Allie Belle Tipple leaning over the roadway. A tipple is a structure built by a mine to load up rail cars to ship down.  Leaning since 1950, looked like it would topple right over on us.

Got to the top where Hancock was once a bustling little community, at elevation 11,026 feet.  Must have been very harsh winters.  The road ceases there, you would need an ATV or hike it further to the Alpine Tunnel which is across the Continental Divide.