Telluride: the back story

About Telluride: the back story

By the ULTIMATE Ski Resorts Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Jai Michael

Telluride is a Victorian mining town at the end of a box canyon, ringed by 13,000- and 14,000-foot peaks. Its whole core is a National Historic Landmark District, and a gondola, the only transport system of its kind in North America, carries you up to Mountain Village and the ski slopes.

Columbia

The town was originally named Columbia before being renamed Telluride in 1887. It grew rich on the mines of the surrounding San Juan Mountains, and Telluride Ski Resort still recalls the town’s place in the story of electricity, when mining here was powered by alternating current from an early plant linked to Nikola Tesla’s work.

An outlaw’s ride

In June 1889 Butch Cassidy rode into Telluride with his band and robbed the San Miguel Valley Bank. Closely trailed by the law, the story goes, they raced to Double Cabin for fresh horses and escaped; a bar in Mountain Village is named Fresh Horses in their honour.

A town eight blocks wide and twelve blocks long.

A landmark town

The New Sheridan Hotel was built in 1895, and its bar still looks much as it did then. Because of the town’s role in the history of the American West, the core of Telluride was designated a National Historic Landmark District in 1964, the highest level of historic status awarded by the U.S. Secretary of the Interior. Eight blocks wide and twelve long, it is full of colourful Victorian homes, clapboard storefronts and galleries.

The village above

The Town of Mountain Village was founded in 1987 at 9,500 feet, a European-style pedestrian village on about 2,100 acres of aspen and spruce. A gondola links it with the old town in a 13-minute ride, carrying skiers in winter and bikers and hikers in summer, and the resort was laid out to preserve the mountains and the historic charm of the town below.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Telluride: the back story before you go.