In 1983, the Cordillera Corporation purchased approximately 860 acres from TVC and drew up plans for a community of 1,770 that included houses, condos, hotels, retail businesses, a golf course and a lake. Ten years passed, the Cordillera Corporation morphed into the San Miguel Valley Corporation (SMVC), and rumors about development were parlayed once more. Then in April 1993, the “April Fool’s Fax” made headlines. An SMVC memo mistakenly faxed to the San Miguel County Planning Department referred to designs that included draining the wetlands to create more developable land and purchasing The Telluride Times Journal, presumably to control public sentiment. Red flags were raised and the community jumped into action. The Valley Floor Preservation Partners (VFPP) formed, and a movement followed to procure 570 acres on the south side of the Highway 145 spur. On July 3, 2000, 1,500 people in a “Rally for the Valley” formed a human chain that extended from town to the Valley Floor. The stage was set for protracted negotiations and litigation between the Town of Telluride and SMVC. Declaring eminent domain seemed the only hope for protecting the Valley Floor, but that condemnation came with a hefty price tag: $50 million. On November 7, 2006, the Telluride constituency voted to approve an additional $10 million open-space bond, increasing Telluride’s acquisition funds to $30 million and leaving VFPP with a private fundraising goal of over $20 million. No one thought it could be done, but Telluride has some deep-pocketed admirers, and even the 99 percent donated what they could. In six months, VFPP raised $24.5 million and, by the court’s deadline, deposited the $50 million. The deal was done: The land that had once been a haven for elk and the summer hunting grounds of Native Americans would be preserved as open space forever. For over a hundred years, the front door to Telluride had played a supporting role in the region’s mining industry. Gold-seeking prospectors found the Ute’s summer camp along the San Miguel a profitable place for placer and hydraulic mining, and by 1876, the region’s first town—San Miguel City—was built near Brown Homestead. The miners needed supplies, so entrepreneurs constructed dry goods stores, hotels, stamp mills, concentrating works and a schoolhouse. When the town of Telluride sprang up east of San Miguel City, industry went with it. The rich bottomland soon proved more valuable as pasture for cattle and hayfields for the hundreds of mules that carried ore down from the mountains. By 1890, the Rio Grande Southern chugged across the Valley Floor to the mills at the east end of the valley, the meandering San Miguel having been straightened to accommodate the narrow-gauge rail. As the economy boomed, a horseracing track, nine-hole golf course and even a landing field for Telluride’s first airmail delivery in 1912 found level footing on the Valley Floor. It’s been less than a decade since the Town of Telluride acquired the broad glacial scrape to its west. Those who come to town today admire the herds of elk that have reestablished their claim to the summer pasture, now that The Valley Cows are gone. The fences are still there, along with the abandoned grade of the railroad track, the sheds and artifacts of bygone dairies, and the mining debris and tailings. It’s by no means an unscathed environment, but it’s open space, a rare sight in a place of little flat ground and rapid growth. The Valley Floor, a gift to quaint mountain-town lovers for eons to come, is not to be taken for granted. a 18
Telluride & Mountain Village Visitor’s Guide
summer | fall 2014
The land that had once been a haven for elk and the summer hunting grounds of Native Americans would be preserved as open space forever.
An aerial view of the Valley Floor from an old postcard dated 1941. (top right) San Miguel City offered a variety of amenities, including a golf club. In 1931, Hilda Ramsey stood under the sign for the Golf Club out by Society Turn. (bottom left) Earliest known photograph of the town of San Miguel City, 1880. (bottom right) Photographs courtesy of Telluride Historical Museum ©