From Silver Bust to Ski Town
Near Telluride, Colorado
Telluride nearly became a ghost town twice. The first blow was the Silver Panic of eighteen ninety three, which crushed silver prices and closed mine after mine. The town clung to life on gold and base metals for decades, but the long decline continued, and by the middle of the twentieth century Telluride had only about five hundred fifty residents rattling around a town built for thousands.
When the last big mine, the Idarado, finally closed in the late nineteen seventies, it looked like the end. Instead it was a beginning. A visionary named Joseph Zoline looked at the deep snow that had once tormented the miners and saw a resource.
On the twenty second of December in nineteen seventy two, the Telluride ski resort opened for business. Around the same time, the town found a second calling as a festival town. In nineteen seventy four alone, both the Telluride Bluegrass Festival and the now world famous Telluride Film Festival held their first true seasons, the film festival launching that August at the old Sheridan Opera House.
The snow that broke the miners had become the town's fortune.
