St Elmo, Colorado

“Downtown” St Elmo. Yes those are boardwalks.

On a recent trip to Buena Vista, we visited an old “haunt” of mine, the old west mining town of St. Elmo. Half historic and half still lived in, you can’t quite call this a ghost town. We chose to bike up this time although it can be driven to. By taking an old sawmill road, we were able to make it a scenic bike ride inclusive of mountain lakes and another old silver mining town and cemetery, Iron City.

We started at the chalk cliffs of Mt. Princeton, at the base of another fourteener I have climbed. The chalk cliffs were formed by hot thermal water seeping up from the Rio Grande rift that uplifted the mountain and, after leaching out the side of the mountain, left only the white, chalky quartz. Some may be familiar with the historic Mt. Princeton Hot Springs Spa located here where the thermal water comes out into Chalk Creek. This is a wonderful place to go for a soak on a cool fall or winter’s day.

We didn’t visit the spa this time (too hot for the summer!), but were able to hike up to Agnes Vaille Falls on the cliff side. Formed from an ice wedge, the constant expansion of water turning into ice drove a wedge in the rock, the waterfall coming through the wedge spills down the canyon causing yet more erosion over the years. The namesake of these falls, Agnes Vaille, was an adventurous woman in the early 20th century. She was in the American Red Cross in France during WWI and loved hiking and mountain climbing. Alas, during an attempted winter ascent of Long’s Peak, another fourteener, she slipped and fell down the north face of the mountain. While she survived the fall, she unfortunately froze to death before anyone could rescue her.

Agnes Vaille Falls. We had to hike up a canyon of scree to get this photo. The canyon is constantly eroding and evolving, so a little scary to traverse and not get taken out by a boulder to the head.

Alpine Lake and the shoulder of Mt. Princeton in the background. You can see the road we biked up on the left side of the lake.

From here we jumped on our bikes and headed up the road to St. Elmo. We passed the scenic village and lake of Alpine along the way and eventually arrived at Iron City. Most striking was the extensive and well taken care of cemetery where miners were buried, but even current burials have taken place. As one roams the plots, you are stricken by how often young children and babies were lost back then due to typhoid, diphtheria and other diseases of the time. Miners, mostly from Germany, Ireland and Scotland, were often killed from falls, fires, cave-ins and poisonous gas in the mines. One poor fellow was “thawing dynamite” by the fire of his forge when it prematurely exploded. Severely injured, he died shortly after the accident. More details below on some of the pictures of interesting gravestones.

Someone did some nice, loving woodwork at the entrance of Iron City Cemetery.

Many of the gravesites in Iron City Cemetery are surrounded by white picket fences. This one’s gate was ajar, as if someone, or something recently came through. Boo!

I liked this little lamb on 14 year old Alfred Hurley’s gravestone. Unfortunately Alfred succumbed to Typhoid. He was the son of an Irish St Elmo saloon keeper.

Herman has a simple gravestone. He was born in Germany and immigrated in 1867 to Iron City.

Nathan was a miner, Constable, Marshall, and Deputy Sheriff of Alpine. He died of typhoid and left an estate valued at $25 of one animal and a carriage to his wife.

Finally we arrive at St. Elmo. Part tourist town (can you see all the Texan’s?) and part ghost town, this is a good example of a mining town that has managed to stay alive over the years. Photos and captions below capture some of the grandeur that once was.