St. Elmo Ghost Town — Best-Preserved Mining Camp in the Sawatch

St. Elmo is what you roll into at the east end of Tincup Pass: a mining camp that has refused to fall over. Main Street still has the general store, the hotel, the town hall, and a row of weathered false-front buildings, all sitting at about 10,000 feet in the Sawatch Range. It boomed in the 1880s on silver and gold, and the last holdout, Annabelle Stark, kept the town together until she died in 1960. Most of the buildings are private or on tight preservation footing, so look with your eyes, not your hands. Don’t climb on anything or go inside what’s closed.

If you’re finishing the pass west to east, this is the reward. Expect the general store to be seasonal, so verify hours ahead, and don’t count on supplies. The town can get busy on summer weekends with ATVs, Jeeps, and sightseers coming up County Road 162 from Nathrop. Mornings are quieter. The Mary Murphy Mine ruins and the Pomeroy Lakes road branch off nearby if you want more digging into the history. Winter snow shuts down access for much of the year, so plan for roughly June through October.

Have a dirty day.

Silver-boom ghost town at the end of Tincup Pass