Atlas of Colorado Ghost Towns, Volume 1

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Colorado's ghost towns are to be found throughout the state, in diverse areas. Most are abandoned sites, but many are built over by new activity. Those abandoned were left for many different reasons. Some were large, some small, and a few, mere dreams that hardly got started. Most ghost towns actually are only bare sites, not the staggering, ramshackle group of buildings most people think of ghost towns as being. Somewhat intact ghost towns are almost entirely owned and cared for. The reasons for abandonment vary, mostly with the reasons the towns were there in the first place. Mining camps vanished when the ore ran out, ore prices fell, or mechanization reduced the need for manpower. Small farming and ranching towns fell victim to improved transportation, enlarged farms or ranches where mechanization required less and less labor, at the same time better-paying jobs were becoming available in cities. Often one town out of a dozen barely survived. In such conditions, many a small town no longer filled a need. Changes in railroads and roads isolated and desolated the meager economies of numerous small towns throughout the state. For whatever reasons, well over 2,000 Colorado towns and hamlets came into being, then after a time lost their reason for being. Their populations departed, and they became ghost towns. Often the buildings were moved, or torn down for materials in nearby towns or homesteads. Weather, fire, and vandalism destroyed most of what was not moved or torn down. For this reason, what the ghost-towner now seeks is usually a townsite, with perhaps foundations here and there, and maybe a partial ruin tucked away in out-of-the-way corners.