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More on ghost towns and mine sites..
Camp Bird Mine
Unmatched scenic beauty and historical significance of a bygone era!
During the 1870’s, the Camp Bird Mine site was thoroughly explored for silver. It wasn’t until 1895 that the camp bird lode in gold became the greatest discovery. Over the years, the camp bird placed among the top three gold mines in Colorado. With total production over the years between $30 – $50 million.
Camp Bird Mine was named after the thieving Canada jays that were known to pilfered miners lunches. A small settlement, Camp Bird, grew below Imogene basin at the head of Canyon Creek. It consisted of many small white frame homes with gabled green roofs, a school, post office, and for a brief time, a general store. The largest structure was the huge red mill with a sloping roof to prevent having to lift the ores. Pack trains, wagons and in winter freight sleds hauled supplies and ores along the narrow shelf road between Ouray and Camp Bird.
Several miles above the town, at the end of aerial tram- was the mine itself and a huge three-storied boarding house to house the three hundred or so men who labored in the deep shafts. The house was ornate with electric lights, steam heat, modern plumbing, and a reading room.
The Camp Bird Mine and settlement was one of the most dangerous spots in CO with the nearly vertical walls of Canyon Creek, and consistently occurring snow slides killing dozens of men and horses over time. Hardly a winter passed without mishap of some sort on this vital but dangerous road.
Between 1916 through 1930’s Camp Bird mine closed and opened intermittently depending on the economy. Operations have resumed with varying intensities ever since.
Today Camp Bird is posted against trespassing. Two outstanding buildings, the mine office and the mine manager’s house (featuring aturret) are only partially visible from public vantage points.
As your car grinds its way upward above Canyon Creek, visualize the pioneer drivers and stagecoach passengers desperately clinging to swaying and creaking wagons, and gazing vertically downward into the awesome depths of the canyon. Six miles later you arrive at Camp Bird situated slightly to your left where the vertical walls widen out into a circular basin. Here in sight of the town, another road forks off to the right and goes on up to Mount Sneffels and Yankee Boy Basin. From Camp Bird you must gain permission to go the next two miles to the site of the original mine….the last stretch requires a jeep, horse, or hiking boots.
Gothic
A wild lawless frontier town with a wicked reputation!
Two prospectors discovered the Sylvanite Mine in 1879 and started a stampeded to Gothic. Gothic’s busiest years were 1880 and 1881 when its population was estimated at anywhere from four hundred to four thousand. The town had a newspaper, four hundred buildings, eight saloons, and a dance hall. Gothic had a wicked reputation as a lawless frontier town, an image aided by the town founders arrested for murder and escaped – twice. Ulysses S. Grant expressed a wish to see a wild mining town – and was taken to Gothic.
The town is now owned by the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory which conducts ecological research in Gothic every summer. The town site today features the last resident and mayor of the town, Garwood’s Judd ‘s old home, the two story town hall which dates from about 1880. Town hall is now the visitor’s center for the Rocky Mountain Biological lab where visitors can learn more about the laboratory’s current projects and purchase souvenirs.