Location: Colorado < USA
Nearest Airport:
Telluride at 15
Miles
Car: recommended
Telluride is a rare beauty indeed- unbeaten, culturally astute and fantastically diverse. Telluride not only boasts some of the best skiing in Colorado, it is also dubbed the 'Festival Capital' of the Rockies. Once a numerous and nomadic people, the Utes were the first visitors to the Telluride Valley. Making their summer camps along the San Miguel River, they hunted in the surrounding mountains for elk, deer and mountain sheep. The town of Columbia was established in the Telluride valley in 1880. With the coming of the railroad in 1890, the town flourished and Telluride's population soared to 5,000. The town boasted all the amenities of a thriving community plus saloons, gambling and a much-heralded red-light district. The wealth of Telluride attracted the likes of Butch Cassidy and his 'Wild Bunch', who began their brazen bank robbing career at the San Miguel National Bank in 1889.