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The Valley Floor LegacyThere’s only one easy way into Telluride, and that gateway passes through the Valley Floor. This wide, glacially carved dale is coursed by one of the last free-flowing rivers in the state, the San Miguel. Wetlands and meadows dominate the expanse, dotted with spruce, cottonwoods and thickets of willow. A large herd of elk, a colony of Gunnison’s prairie dog, beavers, coyote and Canada geese ply the valley. Telluride’s True Locals The Utes are represented as Telluride’s first residents, though they never wintered in the mountains. Native Americans summered in the high country, hunting big horn sheep, deer, turkey and grouse. The Valley Floor remained part of the Ute territory until 1873, when the U.S. government broke its 1868 treaty and forced the tribe to surrender four million acres of the San Juan Mountains “for a yearly annuity of $25,000, mostly in the form of goods.” The Valley Floor didn’t stay quiet for long. Spanish explorers and trappers, who crossed the area in the 1700s, had made note of the valuable mineral deposits the rugged landscape held. Trappers, who came in search of beaver and other animal pelts, hinted to pioneers about the riches of the region. Rumors of treasure spread. San Miguel City History has it that the first white man to settle in the valley was prospector Linnard “Lon” Remine in 1872. The newcomer and his contemporaries panned and sluiced the river for gold, making up to $15 a day. The Hayden survey team mapped the region in 1874, naming the swale San Miguel Park for the river that ran through it. Shortly thereafter, gold was discovered above the valley in Marshal Basin, and the gold rush was on. In 1876, Frank Brown, along with others, established a mining camp where Mill Creek flows into the valley (across the spur from the present-day Shell gas station). They constructed a water wheel to power a sawmill, cut timbers to build approximately a dozen log cabins and named the settlement San Miguel City. By 1880, the new settlement had several goods stores, a hotel, two stamp mills, one concentrating works, plus some two hundred people. Brown offered homesites for $15, but most newcomers walked a few miles up valley to where the land was free and closer to the ore-rich mountainsides. This new camp of Columbia prospered and eventually became the townsite of Telluride. By 1885, San Miguel City had 175 people, compared to Telluride’s 850. Changing Times When panning and dredging the river for gold played out on the Valley Floor, miners turned to placer mining, using high-pressure hydraulics to carve out the riverbanks. But claims in the nearby mountains proved to be richer lodes, and soon mining operations on the Valley Floor were abandoned. Brown turned to dairy farming, putting the land to hay and discovering that it was more valuable to feed miners’ horses and mules than the dairy products. During the late 1880s, the wide meanders of the San Miguel were channeled and straightened to accommodate the coming railroad. In 1890, the Rio Grande Southern Railroad chugged across the Valley Floor and into Telluride. For the next 40 years, the land saw a variety of uses under public and private ownership: dairy farms, a dump for mine tailings and recreation. A racetrack was constructed just east of San Miguel City with a half-mile track and grandstands, where horse races, calf roping, bronc busting, harness racing and track events were held at the arena. Ranch to Real Estate By the early 1900s, only two dozen families lived in San Miguel City. Decades of placer and hardrock mining took a toll on the fragile alpine environment. Joe Oberto began to buy placer claims on the Valley Floor in 1930, consolidating them into a single holding. Three dairies grazed cows, and only a few dilapidated homes remained in San Miguel City. By 1950, the dairies were gone and the train no longer thundered into town. In 1967 the Oberto family sold the consolidated property to Newmont Mining (Idarado) for less than $300, 000. Idarado had purchased the land to store tailings, but the citizenry rallied to prevent such use. The river was already polluted by tailings and wastewater, and the dale was scattered with mining refuse, tailings and garbage. Idarado, in turn, sold the Valley Floor to Denver-based Cordillera Corporation for $6.5 million in 1983. Cordillera was the parent company of the San Miguel Valley Corporation (SMVC). A few years later, SMVC developed plans for reservoirs, a golf course, hotels and housing to accommodate up to 7,000 people. Preservation As a National Historic Landmark District, the citizenry of Telluride felt that a modern development at the entrance to town would diminish the relevance of that designation. Additionally, the San Miguel River was one of the West's few remaining hydrologically intact watersheds. In July of 2001, the National Trust for Historic Preservation listed the Valley Floor as one of the 11 Most Endangered Places in the U.S., citing that the Valley Floor was unique to Telluride and an integral and irreplaceable part of the town’s cherished scenic beauty and heritage. After 25 years of unsuccessful negotiations and costly court battles between the Town of Telluride and SMVC, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled 6 to 1 on June 2, 2008, in favor of the Town purchasing the land from SMVC for $53 million, a legal act of condemnation. The 570-acre gateway meadow will remain a conservation easement in perpetuity—forever wild. |
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Copyright ©2008 Telluride Publishing, a division of Big Earth Publishing 
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