A Quick History of Telluride: Boom - Bust - Boom Again Town

52 Pages. No marks or stamps. Over 50 photographs scattered over almost every page. In 1878 an 80-acre townsite later named Telluride was laid out. J. W. Carpenter was elected the first mayor and San Miguel County was established in 1883. With the coming of the railroad in 1890, the little camp began to flourish, and fortune hunters thronged into the area to join the earlier prospectors. Mine laborers, lawyers, geologists, mule skinners, assayers, merchants, preachers, prospectors, and prostitutes multiplied, and the town really began to hum. The silver-veined mountain range with the clanging of ore cars and machinery working the mines high above Telluride, and prosperity seemed assured. Life went on in this progressive way until 1893, when the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act reduced the price of silver from $1.29 to 50 cts an ounce. Telluride reeled under this disaster. With mines closed down, and money scarce, the population dwindled rapidly, and Telluride narrowly missed extinction. But fortune smiled on the nearly deserted camp when the mines obligingly began to yield gold instead of silver, so faltering Telluride soon rallied, and was on its way again. Contents: Profile of a Mining Town, Pay Dirt, The Town Without a Bellyache, From Trails to Rails, War for Wages, Nature's Tantrums, City Lights, The Scene Today, and Telluride Trivia.…