It was here that passengers on the Silverton Railroad transferred to
a four-horse stage to continue their journey to Ouray. Actually the
Silverton Railroad was later extended some two miles farther down
the creek to Albany Gulch to pick up ore although Ironton was
considered the real terminus. The railroad grade may be seen as it
circles in the heavy timber at the left beyond this log cabin and to
the town at right.
[Illustration: D.K.P., 1960]
_From Telluride_
[Illustration]
Pandora, two miles east of Telluride, was settled around 1881 and was
briefly called Newport. But in August of that year, when a post office
was established, the name was changed to Pandora. Undoubtedly this was
because of the Pandora Mining Company which in 1883 already had a
forty-stamp mill, a boardinghouse and offices in profitable operation,
according to the Colorado Mining Directory of that year.
Pandora is unique in Colorado history for its annual snowslides, for its
long aerial tramways, and at present for its amazing jeep trail.
As early as March 20, 1884, the _Rocky Mountain News_ was reporting:
“The Pandora snowslide which comes down every winter, and which has been
looked for for some time came down Monday, sweeping everything before it
and making a total wreck of the Pandora sampling mills. Quite a number
of Telluriders visited the effects of this slide this week. Some say it
was not the Pandora slide, claiming it came over the Ajax Mine,
following for some distance the former course of the Pandora slide. At
all events, it was a terror.”
But this devastating freak of nature did not discourage the pioneers.
They rebuilt the mill, and through the years there has always been a
large mill at Pandora. Twice it burned down but was always replaced. The
Telluride Mines Company operated the mill up until 1956 when it was
liquidated into the Idarado Mining Company, which also acquired the
Tomboy Mines Company in the same year. Seventeen years after its
inception Idarado thus consolidated all the big mining properties in the
Pandora area under its own banner. These included the Pandora, Black
Bear, Imogene, Barstow and the towers of the two spectacular trams into
Pandora—the Tomboy from Savage Basin and the Smuggler Union. The
Smuggler tramways landed at a site close to Ingram Falls from which ore
was hauled to the mill past the Bridal Veil Falls and the present power
plant down a two-thousand-foot cliff. In 1960 this old ore road had been
converted into the last leg of Colorado’s most fantastic jeep ride.
For many years Pandora was a sizable town. In its heyday the Rio Grande
Southern Railroad had a spur from Telluride that passed through and
reached the mill under stoutly built snow sheds. In 1960 the hauling of
ore from the mill was done by trucks, and only three or four families
were living there.
The actual site of Pandora is about half a mile down the San Miguel
River from the mill, and its superb setting is now marred by two
enormous tailings ponds between it and the river. But the town’s
backdrop of Ingram Peak with its two sets of falls, Bridal Veil and
Ingram, cannot be matched anywhere in Colorado. Pandora is truly unique.
[Illustration: Joseph Byers, 1902-16; D.P.L.]