St. Elmo Ghost Town, Colorado
While other mining camps rotted into the ground, this high-altitude time capsule kept most of its buildings standing, including a still-operating general store.
The town’s preservation is so complete that when you walk its main street, you’ll see exactly what Colorado silver miners saw in the 1880s – minus the 2,000 residents who once called it home.
Here’s more about Colorado’s St. Elmo Ghost Town.
They built a town on top of deep snow
In spring 1880, Griffith Evans and his partners laid out St. Elmo while standing on 6 feet of snow. They couldn’t even see the ground as they marked streets and building lots.
The town was first called Forest City but got renamed when the post office said the name was already taken. Evans picked ‘St. Elmo’ from a novel he was reading.
All this happened just months before the railroad arrived in December 1880, bringing even more people to the new town.
Annabelle Stark’s ghost still watches over the town
Annabelle ‘Dirty Annie’ Stark still guards her beloved town even after her death in 1960. When new owners tried cleaning her old hotel, cleaning supplies mysteriously moved around – even from locked closets.
In the late 1970s, a skier spotted Annabelle’s ghost in a hotel window watching some snowmobilers. After the skier warned the riders they weren’t allowed there, the ghost nodded and vanished.
Many visitors claim to feel her presence while walking down the main street.
Your electronics might stop working for no reason
Don’t be surprised if your camera stops working in St. Elmo. Many visitors report their devices suddenly dying while taking photos around town.
The general store clerks aren’t surprised when this happens, saying ‘the spirits don’t like pictures.’ Your camera will probably start working again once you’re halfway down the mountain.
Since the 1970s, ghost hunters have recorded sudden 20-degree temperature drops right before equipment failures. These weird electronic problems happen year-round.
Deadly food poisoning killed miners at the main mine
A strange tragedy hit the Mary Murphy Mine in October 1912 when two miners died after eating wieners and sauerkraut.
The mine boss also got terribly sick from the same meal and was rushed to Buena Vista.
The local paper reported his wife was overcome with grief. Nobody ever figured out exactly what caused the poisoning, though some thought it might have been sabotage from rival mining operations.
The mine had already dealt with equipment theft and missing ore samples before this incident happened.
The nearby tunnel broke three world records at once
The Alpine Tunnel, crucial to St. Elmo’s success, set three world records when workers finished it in 1882.
It was the first tunnel through the Continental Divide in North America, the highest railroad tunnel in the world at 11,523 feet, and the most expensive tunnel ever built at that time, costing $296,358 (about $8.5 million today).
Workers drilled through more than two miles of rock by hand. It took 18 months and 400 men working day and night to finish the massive project.
Miners drew the line at blowing up fish
Even in a wild mining town, people had limits on what was acceptable. In 1912, folks got outraged when someone used dynamite to kill fish in the mountain lakes around St. Elmo.
Dead trout floating everywhere alerted authorities to what happened. The local newspaper called it ‘unsportsmanlike and destructive’ despite dynamite being normal for mining.
The sheriff offered a $50 reward (worth about $1,400 today) for information about who did it. Apparently, using explosives for mining was fine, but not for catching fish.
A controlling mother kept her kids as prisoners
Anna Stark ran her family with an iron fist, forbidding her children Roy, Tony, and Annabelle from joining town events or mixing with the miners. She thought her family was better than the ‘common’ townspeople.
Their home was oddly both the cleanest in town and a prison for the kids. Anna’s Home Comfort Hotel served the best food in St. Elmo while she kept her pretty daughter hidden from potential boyfriends.
When Annabelle finally escaped to work in Salida in 1922, she got married within just a few months.
Promoters claimed a mine shaft would reach China
Mining promoters in St. Elmo made wild claims to attract investors.
The Buena Vista newspaper bragged in 1888 that the Mary Murphy Mine’s vein ‘extends clean through the globe to the Celestial Empire’ and that they planned to dig ‘until the center of the earth is reached, and then negotiate with the Chinese government.’
These crazy claims actually worked – the Mary Murphy produced $4.4 million in gold (about $130 million today) before closing in 1936.
The mine shaft eventually reached an impressive depth of 2,210 feet.
Friendly chipmunks will climb all over you for food
You’ll find unusually friendly chipmunks living in a woodpile near the general store.
Unlike normal wild chipmunks, these little animals will climb onto your lap, hands, and shoulders for food.
People have been feeding them since the 1950s when Tony and Annabelle Stark started encouraging tourists to interact with them. You can buy sunflower seeds at the general store for these little creatures.
The colony has grown to over 100 chipmunks from three different species that call the ghost town home.
Gold rush brought 2,000 people to town in just 10 days
After gold was discovered nearby, St. Elmo’s population exploded from a few settlers to 2,000 residents in just 10 days during 1880.
Miners, shop owners, and saloon keepers rushed to the mountain location so fast that people lived in tents before real buildings could go up.
The 1883 count showed 400 men who could vote plus their families all living there. By 1883, at least 50 mines were running around St. Elmo.
This rapid growth ranks as one of the fastest boomtown explosions in Colorado mining history.
One family stayed long after everyone else left
The Stark family stubbornly stayed in St. Elmo when most residents moved away.
By 1930, only seven people still lived in town. After Roy died in 1934 and their mother Anna passed soon after, siblings Annabelle and Tony became the only year-round residents.
They bought many abandoned buildings at tax sales and ended up owning most of the town.
Despite having no modern comforts, they stayed until Tony died and Annabelle moved to a nursing home in 1958, having lived in St. Elmo for 78 straight years.
Life without electricity or plumbing until the 1950s
Annabelle and Tony Stark lived without modern conveniences in St. Elmo well into the 20th century.
They ran their store without electricity or plumbing until 1958, using oil lamps for light and carrying water from the creek.
Health officials finally stepped in when their living conditions got too unsanitary. Locals nicknamed Annabelle ‘Dirty Annie’ because she rarely bathed or changed clothes.
She protected the empty buildings by walking around with a rifle, despite being 20 miles from the nearest modern facilities.
Residents fought all the way to the Supreme Court to save their railroad
When the railroad company decided to stop service to St. Elmo in 1926, determined locals took legal action to save the tracks. They fought through multiple courts, eventually reaching the United States Supreme Court.
Sadly, the town lost the case and the company removed the tracks, cutting off St. Elmo. This was the first time in Colorado history when citizens sued to keep railroad service rather than get rid of it.
After losing the case, railroad workers tore up the tracks within just 48 hours.
Visiting St. Elmo Ghost Town
You’ll find St. Elmo 20 miles southwest of Buena Vista on County Road 162.
- Town open year-round; General Store open May-September
- No entrance fee (donations encouraged)
- Only outhouses available (no indoor bathrooms)
- Get there by taking County Road 162 west from Highway 285 for 19 miles
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