In the 1870s, miners prospecting in Colorado's San Juan Mountain Range settled into a picturesque area called San Miguel Park. By 1878, a desire for permanency led these settlers to turn the camp into a town, which was incorporated that year under the name Columbia.

The arrival of a post office in 1880 put this Colorado town on the map both literally and figuratively. However, the post office eschewed the name Columbia in favor of the more creative Telluride (named for an ore of the nonmetallic element tellurium), and for the first decade of its existence, the village was caught in the grips of an identity crisis. The confusion over the name of Columbia/Telluride was finally resolved in 1887, when a petition signed by the majority of the town's taxpayers won approval for the name Telluride.

As families began to join the miners, so grew a need to accommodate the educational needs of their children. A two-story brick schoolhouse was established for the 37 school-age children in Telluride in 1885, and it still stands today.

On July 24, 1889, Butch Cassidy, Tom and Bill McCarty and Matt Werner rode into town and robbed the San Miguel Valley Bank of more than $20,000. The occurrence launched the gang’s now legendary career, and secured for Telluride a permanent spot in American folklore.

The Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, built by Russian-born Otto Mears, reached Telluride on November 23, 1890, with the first trains arriving three days later on Thanksgiving. Adding to the town's prosperity were gold strikes in the mid-1890s, and Telluride's population increased to more than 3,000.

Two catastrophes marked the turn of the century at Telluride. In 1901, a disastrous fire left 28 men dead at the Smuggler-Union mine. That winter, three avalanches in the course of one day buried the Liberty Bell mine, resulting in 16 deaths and 10 injuries. The disasters activated the Western Federation of Miners to demand better working conditions, and clashes between labor and management prevailed from 1901 to 1904, culminating in a 14-month strike.

Telluride hit its peak as a mining town between 1905 and 1911, bringing in more than $16 million in gold and silver. After that, production declined, especially during World War 1, and the area achieved near-ghost town status.

In 1931, the Rio Grande Southern discontinued its passenger trains, and by 1951, its freight trains as well. Mining experienced a brief comeback in the form of Telluride Mines, Incorporated, during World War II, but this enterprise withered by the 1960s.

The first hint of Telluride's future as a tourist attraction came in the 1960s, when jeep owners began taking visitors along abandoned mine and lumber roads into the back country. Snowmobiles let these entrepreneurs adapt the excursions for the winter months, creating a new, if modest, tourist industry for the town.

By the 1970s, developer Joseph T. Zoline brought a plan for a major ski resort to Telluride, after previous success in Aspen. The development of Telluride Ski Area, considered by many to be among the best ski mountains in North America, somehow did not gain the instant appeal of some other Colorado resorts, allowing Telluride citizens more control over the direction the town would take as it developed.

Telluride residents were determined that history not repeat itself. They understood the dangers of dependency on a single industry, which had led to Telluride's previous decline with the downturn of mining. Instead, the town has taken on the role of host for a number of illustrious summer festivals, including world-class jazz, bluegrass, film and wine events - among many others - which have brought the area new recognition as a creative gathering ground.