Ophir - part 12 of Independence Day trip 2015

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From Cortez to Telluride - part 11 of Independence Day trip 2015

If you are driving Highway 145 and tired of seeing just grey asphalt in front of your car, you can slow down and make a turn to the Forest Road CR 630. You will be surprised how quickly everything around changes. In a matter of minutes just find yourself in a different world. You cannot fly low above the highway anymore and need to drive slowly... But now you can enjoy the trees that stay so close to the road you can touch the branches with your arm stretched out of the car window. You will enjoy seeing the mountain slopes running up and this winding road brings you to a tiny town completely lost between high mountains. This is the town of Ophir, a small mining place incorporated in... I don't know exactly when :) The Internet says in 1875, the sign near the town reads 1881...

 

Anyway, that was a time  of a gold rush and the town grew on Howard Fork banks surrounded with dozens of gold mines, some of them you can easily find if you look at this area using satellite view in Google Maps. In its best time the town population was about 500 people, so this town didn't grow up like on steroids like many others... Once the silver strike hit the state, most of the miners moved to Rico, a town nearby, but they returned back in a while to work their gold claims instead of Rico's silver. The nearest smelter was in Silverton and the miners sent their ore there via burrow trains. But it didn't last long and by 1910 most mines were closed and people started moving away. 

The town became emptier every day and by the 1950's just a few people still called Ophir home and by 1970 there was just a single remaining resident (I bet he had voted every year and made him a Mayor, again and again...). Not a very funny story, isn't it? 

But Ophir found a new life with the opening of the nearby Telluride ski resort in 1972. The population was growing year by year and that was about 113 residents at the census of 2000 and it grew up to 159 in 2010. 18% of households and families have children under the age of 18 living with them and you can find "Slow. Children playing" signs on the beginning of every street around the town.

We didn't see any stores in this town (not even a grocery) and, in fact, we were surprised to know how many people are living there all year round, we thought it's a place where people have summer cabins or so, but not full time residents. What we found though was the post office and, oh man, that was the smallest post office we've ever seen in the USA :)

It is a really quiet and peaceful place. The mountains are surrounding the town and the valley looks lush and green. Being there, we wanted to forget about the crazy life we have in Denver, we were tempted to turn off our cell phones, throw away the computers and other gadgets, forget the noise and traffic and just enjoy the natural living in such a nice place. When we stopped there all we wanted was to sit in the chair facing the creek and enjoy seeing the water running. This place is SO relaxing...

But, unfortunately, we are the people of the big city and can't stay in such places for a long time... We enjoyed being there for a while, but soon we slowly turned on the car and returned back to Highway 145. We were driving slowly in the beginning, but it didn't take long to get back to our usual life rhythm, and this is really sad. But the warm memory of this tiny town squashed between the mountains is very relaxing and helps us to feel a bit more relaxed when everyday life is piling up and buries us...

Continue reading:
Telluride - part 13 of Independence Day trip 2015

Pictures were taken on July 05, 2015