St Elmo Colorado - Haunted Colorado Ghost Town

COLORADO LEGENDS

Haunted St Elmo

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St. Elmo Main Street.

This image available for photographic prints HERE!

St Elmo is one of the most preserved ghost towns in Colorado with numerous business structures and cabins. It is well worth the trip for a visit.

St. Elmo was originally settled in 1878 and was made official in 1880 when gold and silver began to bring many people to the area. Though it was first called Forest City, the small town's name was changed when the post office objected because there were too many towns with the same name. The new name was derived by Griffith Evans, one of the founders, who was reading a romantic nineteenth-century novel by the same name.

The town was laid out in six feet of snow and provided for the miners working in the nearby mines. Beginning with a high moral character, the settlement went the way of other booming mining towns, reaching a population of more than 2000 and taking on all the trappings of a single male population with saloons, dance halls, and bawdy houses. When the Alpine Tunnel was under construction, St. Elmo became the scene of raunchy Saturday night sprees.

In 1881 it became a station on the Denver, South Park and Pacific Railroad line where the tracks continued through Romley, Hancock and through the historic Alpine Tunnel. The settlement was considered a main source of supplies arriving by train for the area settlers and eventually included several merchandise stores, three hotels, five restaurants, two sawmills and a weekly newspaper called the Mountaineer. The miners worked at several mines throughout the area that were rich in silver, gold, copper and iron. The principal mines were the Murphy, the Theresse C., the Molly and the Pioneer. The Murphy Mine, situated high upon the mountain, 2000 feet above the railroad, shipped as much as 50-75 tons of ore per day to the smelters at Alpine. Altogether, there were over 150 patented mine claims in the immediate area.

In 1881 Anton Stark, a cattleman brought a herd to the railroad and was so taken with the town that he and his family quickly took up residence. Anton became a section boss for one of the local mines and his wife, Anna, ran a general store and the Home Comfort Hotel, which later became home to the post office and telegraph office. Anton and Anna raised three children - Tony, Roy and Annabelle, who worked in the hotel and the store. The hotel was said to have been the cleanest in town, the meals the best, and the supplies at the store more plentiful than the other establishments.

The Stark family were part of St. Elmo's elite, a high-class group that attended church regularly. Anna was said to have been a humorless woman who severely controlled the children, believing that they were better than the other townsfolk - miners, railroad men, prostitutes and hard women. The children were rarely allowed to leave home, forbidden to attend local dances or social activities and had only each other for company. In 1890 a fire destroyed the business section and the town was never entirely rebuilt.

The survival of the town was largely due to the Stark family and their descendents, who remained the sole year-round residents for many years. According to local legend, perhaps at least one of them, Annabelle Stark, still keeps a ghostly watch over the town.

Mary Murphy Mine near St Elmo, Colorado

Mary Murphy Mine, August, 2003, Photo by

Kathy Weiser

The failure of numerous mines, and the closure of the Alpine Tunnel in 1910 started the decline of St. Elmo. Though mining continued at the Mary Murphy mine up until the 1920's, many of the miners moved away in search of new gold strikes. The railroad continued to run until 1922 and it has been said that the rest of St. Elmo's population rode the last train out of town, never to return. In 1926, the railroad tracks were torn up and the railroad grade was used to drive from Nathrop to St. Elmo. But the Stark family stayed, believing that St. Elmo would thrive again, buying up property at tax sales.

For many years, Roy and Tony stark tried to influence developers in re-opening the mines, but when they were unsuccessful they turned to tourism, leasing the empty cabins to vacationers and continuing to run the general store. After Anton Stark's death, Anna realized that the tourism trade was not providing for the family and sent Annabelle to work in the telegraph office in Salida, 20 miles south of St. Elmo.

Continued Next Page

St Elmo Hotel 1934

Stark Store and Home Comfort Hotel, courtesy

Denver Public Library

St Elmo in 1984. Today, St. Elmo is one of the most

preserved ghost towns in Colorado.

This image available for photographic prints and downloads HERE!

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