The San Juans & the Black Canyon
The 1873 sale of the high San Juans, the Ames plant where alternating current went to work, Butch Cassidy's first bank, and the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.
The 1868 treaty left the San Juan Mountains inside the Nuuchiu reservation, and prospectors were in them within a few years anyway. Rather than evict the trespassers, the government sent Felix Brunot to buy the mining country, and on September 13, 1873, Ute leaders signed away about 3.7 million acres of the high San Juans. Silverton was laid out the next year, and Ouray, named for the leader who carried the agreement to Washington, followed in 1876. After the White River fight of 1879, the Uncompahgre Utes of this country were removed to Utah in 1881; the Ute Indian Museum at Montrose stands on the farm Ouray and Chipeta worked before the removal.
Mining money paid for some firsts. Otto Mears built toll roads through canyons that seemed to forbid them, and US 550 between Ouray and Silverton follows his line. Near Ophir, the Ames plant began sending alternating current from George Westinghouse's equipment to the Gold King mill on June 19, 1891, among the first commercial uses of alternating current for industry anywhere, and the result helped Westinghouse win the Niagara Falls contract. Two years earlier, on June 24, 1889, Butch Cassidy and his partners had robbed the San Miguel Valley Bank in Telluride, their first known bank job.
North of the mountains the Gunnison River has cut a gorge through rock nearly two billion years old so narrow and sheer that parts of its floor see only minutes of sun a day. The Gunnison Tunnel, nearly six miles through the canyon wall, began carrying its water to the Uncompahgre Valley in 1909, when President Taft opened the gates, and the canyon became a national park in 1999.
What to See in The San Juans & the Black Canyon
4 places across the region, grouped by what they are.
Natural Areas
Historic Sites
Towns & Gateways
Scenic Drives through The San Juans & the Black Canyon
Stories from The San Juans & the Black Canyon
The Blackest Week
In the autumn of 1918 influenza reached Silverton, high and isolated in the San Juans, and in a few weeks killed about one person in ten, perhaps the worst toll of any town in the country.
The Supervolcano Under the San Juans
Twenty-eight million years ago a caldera near present-day Creede blew out some 1,200 cubic miles of rock in one of the largest explosive eruptions known on Earth. The San Juans are what was left.
The San Juans & the Black Canyon rewards the unhurried. Pick a base, fan out, and let the country between the headline stops surprise you.
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