Haunted at Timberline Home

Main Street at the heart of St. Elmo, shown in the virtual tour, flourished during the building of the Alpine Tunnel, when the laborers came to town for weekends of booze and women. It was the prototypical Western boom town. In addition to servicing the constuction the the tunnel, it was the hub of activity for a variety of local mines. Several famous gunfights occurred on Main Street. The town hit its population peak just before the tunnel was completed in 1882, when some 1500 souls lived there. The opening photo shows the road into town at dusk during the late fall, shortly after the first snow. The tail end of the day's lighting is just touching the top of a mountain. In the virtual tour, the shadow of the man on the street is most certainly a ghost. Either that, or the photographer shooting the tour.

The top photo, below, shows a now-famous collapsing structure that you pass when driving from St. Elmo to nearby Hancock. Once you get to Hancock, just a few miles away, there is nothing left at the site but the foundation of an old saloon. The botton photo shows the remains of the engine house of the aerial tram of the Mary Murphy Mine, a short distance northeast of Hancock, which operated as late as World War II.