16 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.
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Named for an Ore That Was Never Here
Telluride took its name around 1880 from tellurium, the element behind gold-telluride ores prized in other mining districts. There's just one twist: those telluride minerals were never actually found in the ground here.…
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Telluride - Butch Cassidy's First Bank Job
· Historical Marker
On June 24, 1889, a young Robert LeRoy Parker walked into the San Miguel Valley Bank in Telluride and committed his first bank robbery, stealing $21,000 and launching the career of Butch Cassidy.
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A Speck Gives You Garlic Breath for Weeks
· 0.1 mi
Tellurium has one of the strangest party tricks in all of chemistry. Get even a microscopic trace into your body and you will reek of garlic, powerfully, for days or even weeks. Your body treats tellurium much like…
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Rarer Than the Gold They Dug For
· 0.1 mi
Tellurium, the element this town is named for, is staggeringly rare. In Earth's crust it sits at roughly three parts per billion, making it about eight times scarcer than gold and on par with platinum. That puts it…
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The Rare Metal Powering Solar Farms
· 0.1 mi
That obscure element behind the town's name has quietly become a clean-energy workhorse. Paired with cadmium to make a compound called cadmium telluride, tellurium forms the heart of a leading kind of thin-film solar…
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The Element Literally Named Earth
· 0.1 mi
The name tellurium comes straight from the Latin word tellus, meaning earth. The element was first teased out of a puzzling gold ore in seventeen eighty-two by Franz-Joseph Muller von Reichenstein, a mining official…
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Telluride Historic District
· 0.2 mi · Scraped Hmdb
Imagine a town carved into a box canyon, once overflowing with gold and silver, now a playground for skiers and film buffs. That's Telluride. Founded in 1878, Telluride exploded as a mining boomtown. Miners flocked…
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Smuggler-Union Hydroelectric Power Plant
· 2.7 mi · Scraped Hmdb
Get ready to witness a feat of engineering fueled by the raw power of a waterfall! The Smuggler-Union Hydroelectric Powerplant, perched dramatically beside Bridal Veil Falls, played a pivotal role in shaping Telluride's…
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Lewis Mill (Telluride, Colorado)
· 4.5 mi · Scraped Hmdb
Peering up at those skeletal remains? That's the Lewis Mill, a silent giant from Telluride's mining boom days. Built in 1910, this mill processed ore pulled from the surrounding mountains. It was a 60-ton capacity mill,…
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Valley View Leasing and Mining Company Mill
· 7.3 mi · Scraped Hmdb
Imagine this valley buzzing with activity – the Valley View Leasing and Mining Company Mill was a vital link in the silver and gold mining boom of the early 1900s. Built in 1920, this mill, also known as the Matterhorn…
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Ouray Historic District
· 9.6 mi · Scraped Hmdb
Step back in time as you explore Ouray's Historic District, a perfectly preserved piece of Colorado's mining boom! This district, almost the entire original town, showcases the heart of Ouray's late 1800s prosperity.…
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St. Elmo Hotel
· 9.6 mi · Scraped Hmdb
Step back in time at this beautifully preserved 1898 hotel, a reminder of Ouray's glory days as a bustling mining center. The St. Elmo Hotel was constructed in 1898 on Main Street in Ouray, Colorado. It opened its doors…
