St. Elmo is a preserved mining ghost town up Chalk Creek

Drive southwest from Buena Vista up Chalk Creek Canyon and the road climbs to St. Elmo, a wooden town that looks much like it did a century ago.

St. Elmo was founded around 1880, high in the canyon, to serve the mines worked in the hills around it, including the Mary Murphy. The Denver, South Park and Pacific Railroad pushed a line up Chalk Creek to the town’s edge, and for a short time St. Elmo was a busy supply and shipping point for the whole mining district. When the mines slowed and the trains stopped running up the canyon, the people left, but many of the buildings stayed.

Today St. Elmo is often described as one of Colorado’s best-preserved ghost towns, and its historic district is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The point worth understanding is that it survives because it was largely abandoned, not torn down or built over. The wooden storefronts and cabins are fragile and historic, so they ask for the same care you would give any old landmark: look, photograph, and leave things as you found them.

For a new resident, St. Elmo is a clear lesson in how mountain towns here lived and died with their mines and rail lines. The town existed for a reason, and it emptied for a reason.

For the documented history, see History Colorado’s National and State Register resources on St. Elmo, and check the U.S. Forest Service’s Pike-San Isabel National Forests pages for road and visiting conditions up Chalk Creek.