Pandora, two miles east of Telluride, was settled around 1881 and was briefly called Newport. But in August of that year, when a post office was established, the name was changed to Pandora. Undoubtedly this was because of the Pandora Mining Company which in 1883 already had a forty-stamp mill, a boardinghouse and offices in profitable operation, according to the Colorado Mining Directory of that year.

Pandora is unique in Colorado history for its annual snowslides, for its long aerial tramways, and at present for its amazing jeep trail.

As early as March 20, 1884, the Rocky Mountain News was reporting:

“The Pandora snowslide which comes down every winter, and which has been looked for for some time came down Monday, sweeping everything before it and making a total wreck of the Pandora sampling mills. Quite a number of Telluriders visited the effects of this slide this week. Some say it was not the Pandora slide, claiming it came over the Ajax Mine, following for some distance the former course of the Pandora slide. At all events, it was a terror.”

But this devastating freak of nature did not discourage the pioneers. They rebuilt the mill, and through the years there has always been a large mill at Pandora. Twice it burned down but was always replaced. The Telluride Mines Company operated the mill up until 1956 when it was liquidated into the Idarado Mining Company, which also acquired the Tomboy Mines Company in the same year. Seventeen years after its inception Idarado thus consolidated all the big mining properties in the Pandora area under its own banner. These included the Pandora, Black Bear, Imogene, Barstow and the towers of the two spectacular trams into Pandora—the Tomboy from Savage Basin and the Smuggler Union. The Smuggler tramways landed at a site close to Ingram Falls from which ore was hauled to the mill past the Bridal Veil Falls and the present power plant down a two-thousand-foot cliff. In 1960 this old ore road had been converted into the last leg of Colorado’s most fantastic jeep ride.

For many years Pandora was a sizable town. In its heyday the Rio Grande Southern Railroad had a spur from Telluride that passed through and reached the mill under stoutly built snow sheds. In 1960 the hauling of ore from the mill was done by trucks, and only three or four families were living there.

The actual site of Pandora is about half a mile down the San Miguel River from the mill, and its superb setting is now marred by two enormous tailings ponds between it and the river. But the town’s backdrop of Ingram Peak with its two sets of falls, Bridal Veil and Ingram, cannot be matched anywhere in Colorado. Pandora is truly unique.

PANDORA’S SETTING IS SUPERB

In 1902 the population of Pandora was one hundred. Whatever its size, no town in Colorado can match its magnificent backdrop and jeep trail.