HISTORICAL TELLURIDE
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THE TRANSFER BUILDING Sandstone Skeleton is Poised for Activity & Preservation BY STEPHEN ELLIOTT
LIKE A CRUMBLING GREEK TEMPLE, the hollow structure at the southwest corner of Pacific Avenue and Fir Street serves as a reminder of a time left behind. The sandstone walls of the Telluride Transfer Company warehouse still stand strong, but, ever since the building’s roof collapsed in 1979, starlight has shone through the portals that once held windows. The warehouse is, along with its neighbor the Stronghouse Building, one of the last vestiges of the town’s warehouse district, where freight came and went at a frenzied pace, the lifeblood of the town’s mining industry. “It’s the last real historic remnant of this entire neighborhood,” Telluride Historical Museum Executive Director Kiernan Lannon says. The Telluride Transfer Company first built a stone building on the property in the 1890s, but that building burned down in 1905, in a blaze that the Telluride Daily Journal called “the fiercest in Telluride’s history.” The company rebuilt in 1906, and the sandstone building served as a livery barn, warehouse and company office until the 1950s, according to the town’s historical records. 58
visittelluride.com | summer / fall 2016