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Colorado has more dead towns than almost any state in the country, and most of them died the same way: a vein of silver or gold ran out, a railroad pulled its tracks, or a single brutal winter ended the argument. What is left behind is not romantic decay so much as a paused moment, wooden storefronts and miners’ cabins standing exactly where they were abandoned, some at elevations where a person can barely catch their breath. Here are the most striking abandoned places in Colorado, what actually happened to each one, and what you need to know before you go.
Why Colorado Has So Many Abandoned Places: Boom, Bust, and Altitude
Most of these sites trace back to the silver and gold rushes of the 1870s and 1880s. Camps appeared within months of a strike, swelled to thousands of residents, and built saloons, newspapers, and schools at a furious pace. The collapse was just as fast. The Panic of 1893 crashed silver prices and gutted dozens of towns almost overnight. Others were beaten by geography: settlements perched above 11,000 feet simply could not survive their own winters. A few hung on into the 20th century before mines turned unprofitable. The result is a state littered with abandoned mining towns in Colorado, ranging from carefully preserved museums to ruins you are legally forbidden to enter.
1. St. Elmo: One of the Best-Preserved Colorado Ghost Towns
St. Elmo sits at roughly 9,960 feet in Chalk Creek Canyon, about 20 miles west of Buena Vista in Chaffee County. Founded in 1880 (originally named Forest City) as a supply hub for the surrounding mines, it incorporated in 1881 with close to 2,000 mostly male residents and the saloons and dance halls that came with them. Its fate was tied to the railroad: when train service through Chalk Creek Canyon ended in 1926, the population bled away, and by the 1950s the town was empty.
What makes St. Elmo one of the best Colorado ghost towns to actually visit is how much survives. Around 43 original buildings still stand, including a saloon, jail, mercantile, schoolhouse, and a hotel, and the town was designated a National Historic District in 1979. Much of that preservation is owed to the Stark family, who stayed through the decades of decline, bought up properties at tax sales, and eventually donated buildings rather than let them rot. The St. Elmo General Store operates seasonally in summer and fall. The last several miles in are unpaved but usually passable in a standard car.
2. Animas Forks: The Highest of Colorado’s Abandoned Mining Towns
If you want altitude, Animas Forks delivers it. At 11,200 feet in the San Juan Mountains, about 12 miles northeast of Silverton, it is one of the highest abandoned mining towns in Colorado you can still reach. Founded in 1873 as “Three Forks of the Animas” and built up around the Gold Prince Mill, it peaked in the 1880s with roughly 450 to 500 residents, a hotel, post office, general store, saloon, and even its own newspaper, the Animas Forks Pioneer.
The altitude that built it also broke it. A frequently cited 1884 blizzard reportedly buried the town under as much as 25 feet of snow, forcing residents to tunnel between buildings. Today about nine original structures remain, anchored by the two-story William Duncan House with its distinctive bay window. The buildings were stabilized in the 1990s and many can be entered. The land is managed by the Bureau of Land Management and the site is on the National Register of Historic Places. Animas Forks is a stop on the 65-mile Alpine Loop Backcountry Byway, and getting there realistically requires a high-clearance 4WD vehicle. The road is typically only open in summer.
3. Ashcroft: An Abandoned Place in Colorado Near Aspen
Two of the most accessible abandoned places in Colorado sit within a short drive of Aspen. Ashcroft, about 11 miles south on Castle Creek Road, was a silver town that hit roughly 2,000 residents at its 1880s peak, supporting two newspapers, around 20 saloons, and a school. The silver crash ended it within a few years. The Aspen Historical Society now maintains the remarkably intact remains, including the old hotel, saloon, and post office, framed by high peaks, which makes it an easy half-day trip from town.
4. Independence: A Colorado Ghost Town Killed by One Winter
Independence, higher up near the top of Independence Pass at close to 11,000 feet, was the first mining site in the Roaring Fork Valley, founded on a gold strike. It was abandoned after a savage winter in 1899, when the story goes that the last residents fashioned skis from building lumber to escape down the mountain. The Aspen Historical Society runs guided tours here in season.
5. Gilman: The Abandoned Colorado Mining Town You Cannot Legally Enter
Not every site on this list is open to you, and Gilman is the clearest example. Perched at about 8,950 feet on Battle Mountain south of Vail in Eagle County, Gilman was founded in 1886 during the silver boom and became a long-lived lead and zinc producer, later adding copper and silver. The New Jersey Zinc Company bought up the town starting in 1912, and unlike most camps that died young, Gilman stayed productive for the better part of a century. Mining wound down through the late 1970s and ended in the mid-1980s.
Then came the part that sets it apart. In 1986 the Environmental Protection Agency designated roughly 235 acres, including the entire town, as a Superfund site after nearly a century of operation left around 8 million tons of mine waste and contaminated groundwater. Residents were evicted in 1985 and 1986. Gilman is privately owned and strictly off limits to the public, both because of the toxic legacy and because of unstable ground and open mine workings. Trespassers still slip in for photographs, but it is illegal and genuinely dangerous. The EPA removed 50 acres of the town’s soils from the National Priorities List in 2021, and developers have floated resort plans on Battle Mountain for years, though the townsite itself remains a closed ruin.
6. Dearfield: An Abandoned Place in Colorado Unlike Any Ghost Town
Dearfield breaks the mining-camp pattern entirely, and it is one of the most historically important abandoned places in Colorado. Located in the sand hills of Weld County about 70 miles northeast of Denver, it was the largest Black homesteading settlement in the state. Oliver Toussaint Jackson, an entrepreneur born in 1862 to parents who had escaped slavery, founded it in 1910 using the Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909. A Denver physician, Dr. Joseph H. P. Westbrook, gave it its name, saying the fields would be “very dear to us.”
At its height in the early 1920s the colony farmed roughly 15,000 of its 20,000 acres and supported up to 70 families, with Jackson promoting it as a place where Black Americans could build independence and wealth through land ownership. Falling crop prices, drought, the Dust Bowl, and the Great Depression dismantled it through the 1920s and 1930s, until only Jackson and his niece remained by the 1940s. Jackson tried rebranding Dearfield as a weekend “Valley Resort” for Denver’s Black community, with a dance hall and fishing on the South Platte, and at one point even offered to sell the land to the federal government as a Japanese-American internment camp. Both efforts failed. Only a handful of buildings survive, including a filling station, a diner, and Jackson’s home. Dearfield was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995 and is, according to the National Park Service, one of just two Black homesteading sites in the Great Plains with original buildings still standing. The Black American West Museum and partners are working to preserve it.
7. Crystal Mill: The Most Photographed of Colorado’s Abandoned Places
Some abandoned places in Colorado are famous for a single image, and the Crystal Mill is that image. Built in 1892 on a rock outcrop above the Crystal River near the town of Marble in Gunnison County, the weathered wooden structure is often called one of the most photographed sites in the state. Despite the “mill” name, it functioned as a powerhouse, generating compressed-air power for the Sheep Mountain Mining and Tunnel Company until sometime after 1917. It has three parts: a compressor house, a gear house, and a penstock that dropped down to the river.
Reaching it takes effort. The mill is accessed from Marble via an extremely rough County Road 3 or by guided Jeep tour. The Forest Service warns that the alternate route from Crested Butte, Forest Service Road 317, should only be attempted by highly experienced drivers in small, high-clearance 4WD vehicles.
How to Visit Abandoned Places in Colorado Safely and Legally
A few rules separate a good trip to these abandoned places in Colorado from a dangerous or illegal one. Many of these sites are at high elevation and reachable only in summer, so check road and seasonal closures before you commit, and assume the high-country routes need 4WD and clearance unless a source specifically says otherwise. Treat every old structure as fragile and potentially unsafe to enter, since many are over a century old, and never go into mine openings, which can flood, collapse, or hold bad air. Respect ownership: some towns are managed by historical societies or sit on BLM land where you are welcome to look, while others, like Gilman, are private, contaminated, and off limits, with trespassing both illegal and hazardous. The standard guidance from Colorado tourism authorities is simple: take only photographs, leave structures and artifacts exactly as you found them, and let the next person discover the place the same way you did.
