A Quick History of Ouray

A Quick History of Ouray tells the story of Ouray, Colorado, the town the catalogue calls "Gem of the Rockies." P. David Smith presents it as a typical Colorado mining town, one that rose and fell and rose again. Silver brought the first prospectors to the valley, and the rest of the book follows what happened next.

The description hangs on a turning point. After the Silver Crash of 1893, it was gold that kept Ouray from becoming a ghost town. Demand for metals during World War I and World War II lifted the town again, and each time it slid into an economic depression once the war ended. Tourism had always counted for something, but in the 1970s it became vital to the local economy, and the town has kept growing since.

The book also looks outward from Main Street. The abandoned ghost towns and mining relics on the surrounding hillsides can be reached by anyone willing to drive the jeep trails that cross the local mountains, and the description rates that scenery among the most amazing anywhere. Our catalogue lists the book at 96 pages, so it is meant to be read in an evening or two and then carried in the glove box on your next drive through the San Juans.

This short history suits visitors who want to know what they are looking at when they walk Ouray's streets or drive its mountain roads. It is a good first book for newcomers and seasonal residents, and for teachers who need a compact account of one Colorado mining town. Readers who already own the longer San Juan histories may like it as a quick refresher on the boom and bust pattern. It does not try to be exhaustive, and it doesn't pretend to be.

P. David Smith is the author of this book and of seven other books in our catalogue that deal with Ouray, the Utes and the San Juan Mountains. Nothing we could verify tells us where he lives or what else he has done. The other seven are on his author page.

More about P. David Smith →

Ouray sits in a steep valley in the San Juan Mountains. Wikipedia's account says prospectors arrived in 1875 and the town was incorporated on October 2, 1876, named for Chief Ouray of the Utes. In 1877 it became the county seat of the new Ouray County and its population passed 1,000.

Gold shaped the town's fortunes. In 1877 William Weston and George Barber found the Gertrude and Una veins in Imogene Basin, and Thomas Walsh acquired them. Walsh went on to develop the Camp Bird Mine, which the article dates to 1896 or 1897. By 1902 it had yielded about 200,000 ounces of gold, when Walsh sold it to Camp Bird, Ltd.

The Denver & Rio Grande Railway reached Ouray on December 21, 1887, and the last regularly scheduled passenger train ran on September 14, 1930. Today Main Street is a National Historic District of mostly late 19th century buildings, and tourism, including the Ouray Ice Park and the hot springs, anchors the economy.

Source: Wikipedia, Ouray, Colorado