Telluride Thinks Out of the Box

The fiction writer cherishes her mountain town's anti-commercialism, as epitomized by the local swap stop, a regional landmark

  • By Antonya Nelson
  • Smithsonian magazine, August 2009, Subscribe
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Telluride Colorado
Telluride, Colorado is Aspen's younger, less glamorous, not so naughty sister. (Scott S. Warren)

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One way to think about Telluride, Colorado, is as Aspen's younger, less glamorous, not so naughty sister. Telluride watched with envy and alarm as Aspen was transformed from low-key to outlandish, tomboy to sex symbol, its small businesses succumbing one by one to chic urban counterparts, haute-couture and -cuisine replacing Wranglers and hamburgers, hot tubs instead of horse tanks. Aspenization, I've heard it called. It conjures up a cautionary tale, the story of a town that made deals with developers, forsook its roots in ranching and mining and sold its soul for a hefty check.

Aspen residents saw too many of their open spaces filled with mansions and gated communities replete with movie stars. The locals found themselves dealing with traffic lights and traffic jams, then realized they'd priced themselves out of their own homes, property taxes having risen with the town's popularity. By the time everyone grew tired of the endless whine of private jets, Aspenization had become something to avoid—not so much Cinderella as Anna Nicole Smith. In Telluride, where I've spent all of my 48 summers, fear of following in the footsteps of a scary elder sibling has been around since the 1970s, when the first ski slopes began to open up.

Before that, Telluride had been in decline. In the '60s, the local mining company, Idarado, was extracting dwindling amounts of metals from the San Juan Mountains. The remaining miners were described, all too aptly, as a "skeleton crew": they rattled around the old ore-processing mill that stood between toxic ponds and hills of tailing. It could have been the setting of a creepy Scooby-Doo adventure; eventually it was a cleanup site.

My recollection of my family's early days in Telluride is one of dusty streets and oddball residents, an overabundance of roaming dogs, rusty implements hidden in brush and marsh (we had annual cause to evaluate each other's tetanus status), and abundantly available real estate. It was a town of things abandoned: people, pets, tools, jobs, homes. My family's summer houses (two miners' shacks, plus random sheds, with ten adjacent, gloriously empty lots for hanging laundry, throwing horseshoes, collecting rocks and planting aspen and spruce trees) were centrally located, up on a slight hill, in the center of the sunny side of town. There they stood along with Main Street businesses, banks and bankers, the old hospital (now the town's historical museum), Catholic, Baptist, Presbyterian and Episcopalian churches, grand Victorian homes of mining upper management and a remnant smattering of miners' cabins. The shady side, where the mountain's box canyon cuts off the winter sun, housed the ethnic miners and the prostitute cribs. The first condominiums went up there. From the sunny side of town you literally look down on the shady side; then, as now, the real estate rallying cry was "location, location, location."

My father and uncles (who were English professors in their other lives) became summer barkeeps, honorary deputies, temporary Elks Club members, Masons. They stocked fingerling trout; they were volunteer firemen. They hung around with people named Shorty and Homer and Liver Lips and Dagwood (who was married to Blondie). We decorated our Jeep and marched in the Fourth of July parades. In the 1960s, the transition from mining town to hippie enclave suited my family's temperament and budget. We'd been campers, and our miners' shacks were much-improved versions of tent or trailer. Graduate student drifters were our guests; some stayed on, becoming sheepherders or contractors or real estate agents.

The arrival of the skiers and condominiums sparked a plea for historic preservation and led to a strict set of building codes that remain in effect today. Gas stations are illegal within city limits as are neon signs and billboards. Modern structures have to fit into the town's historic scale and design. Just to change the color of your roof requires permission from the Historic and Architectural Review Committee (HARC). The codes are extensive.

Telluride is a beautiful place in which to wander, its gardens and houses well kept and properly scaled, the mountains themselves, protecting the little city in their bowl, forever breathtaking. Most of the stores are locally owned. There are no traffic lights, strip malls, box stores or massive parking lots. The ugliest thing within a 50-mile radius is the airport, and even it is set upon a stunning plateau, beneath majestic mounts Sunshine and Wilson and Lizard Head.

Along with HARC, another '70s arrival was the Free Box. It came from Berkeley, people said, and I suppose it was an early form of recycling: a bookcase-like structure into which people placed what they no longer needed and took what they liked.


One way to think about Telluride, Colorado, is as Aspen's younger, less glamorous, not so naughty sister. Telluride watched with envy and alarm as Aspen was transformed from low-key to outlandish, tomboy to sex symbol, its small businesses succumbing one by one to chic urban counterparts, haute-couture and -cuisine replacing Wranglers and hamburgers, hot tubs instead of horse tanks. Aspenization, I've heard it called. It conjures up a cautionary tale, the story of a town that made deals with developers, forsook its roots in ranching and mining and sold its soul for a hefty check.

Aspen residents saw too many of their open spaces filled with mansions and gated communities replete with movie stars. The locals found themselves dealing with traffic lights and traffic jams, then realized they'd priced themselves out of their own homes, property taxes having risen with the town's popularity. By the time everyone grew tired of the endless whine of private jets, Aspenization had become something to avoid—not so much Cinderella as Anna Nicole Smith. In Telluride, where I've spent all of my 48 summers, fear of following in the footsteps of a scary elder sibling has been around since the 1970s, when the first ski slopes began to open up.

Before that, Telluride had been in decline. In the '60s, the local mining company, Idarado, was extracting dwindling amounts of metals from the San Juan Mountains. The remaining miners were described, all too aptly, as a "skeleton crew": they rattled around the old ore-processing mill that stood between toxic ponds and hills of tailing. It could have been the setting of a creepy Scooby-Doo adventure; eventually it was a cleanup site.

My recollection of my family's early days in Telluride is one of dusty streets and oddball residents, an overabundance of roaming dogs, rusty implements hidden in brush and marsh (we had annual cause to evaluate each other's tetanus status), and abundantly available real estate. It was a town of things abandoned: people, pets, tools, jobs, homes. My family's summer houses (two miners' shacks, plus random sheds, with ten adjacent, gloriously empty lots for hanging laundry, throwing horseshoes, collecting rocks and planting aspen and spruce trees) were centrally located, up on a slight hill, in the center of the sunny side of town. There they stood along with Main Street businesses, banks and bankers, the old hospital (now the town's historical museum), Catholic, Baptist, Presbyterian and Episcopalian churches, grand Victorian homes of mining upper management and a remnant smattering of miners' cabins. The shady side, where the mountain's box canyon cuts off the winter sun, housed the ethnic miners and the prostitute cribs. The first condominiums went up there. From the sunny side of town you literally look down on the shady side; then, as now, the real estate rallying cry was "location, location, location."

My father and uncles (who were English professors in their other lives) became summer barkeeps, honorary deputies, temporary Elks Club members, Masons. They stocked fingerling trout; they were volunteer firemen. They hung around with people named Shorty and Homer and Liver Lips and Dagwood (who was married to Blondie). We decorated our Jeep and marched in the Fourth of July parades. In the 1960s, the transition from mining town to hippie enclave suited my family's temperament and budget. We'd been campers, and our miners' shacks were much-improved versions of tent or trailer. Graduate student drifters were our guests; some stayed on, becoming sheepherders or contractors or real estate agents.

The arrival of the skiers and condominiums sparked a plea for historic preservation and led to a strict set of building codes that remain in effect today. Gas stations are illegal within city limits as are neon signs and billboards. Modern structures have to fit into the town's historic scale and design. Just to change the color of your roof requires permission from the Historic and Architectural Review Committee (HARC). The codes are extensive.

Telluride is a beautiful place in which to wander, its gardens and houses well kept and properly scaled, the mountains themselves, protecting the little city in their bowl, forever breathtaking. Most of the stores are locally owned. There are no traffic lights, strip malls, box stores or massive parking lots. The ugliest thing within a 50-mile radius is the airport, and even it is set upon a stunning plateau, beneath majestic mounts Sunshine and Wilson and Lizard Head.

Along with HARC, another '70s arrival was the Free Box. It came from Berkeley, people said, and I suppose it was an early form of recycling: a bookcase-like structure into which people placed what they no longer needed and took what they liked.

The Free Box, situated a mere three blocks from my family's remaining house (still an uninsulated miner's shack resting on rocks rather than a real foundation, surrounded now by Victorian-style manors and manicured lawns), soon became the town's hub. There, locals would linger, glancing over its labeled shelves—boys, girls, men, women, books, housewares, jackets, shoes, etc.—to see what might be of use.

Over the years I've retrieved a down sleeping bag, coffee table, hammock, headboard, ice chest, file cabinet, sink, television and several typewriters (invariably with exhausted ribbons). My children have brought home countless toys and gadgets; guests have picked up temporary necessities, ski poles or sweatshirts, and returned them at visit's end. A hoard of young cousins brought home a giant papier-mâché cake with wooden handles and a trap door beneath its test-tube-size candles. Somebody had made it for a surprise party, built to allow a person (naked lady?) to pop out. The purple and white monstrosity sat in our yard for a few weeks, melting in the rain.

The Free Box is even a useful navigational tool. Place yourself there and west is out of town; east is toward the dead-end box canyon and inimitable Bridal Veil Falls; south is Bear Creek Road, the most popular hiking destination; and north leads—among other things—to our little house, crooked and dwarfed, on whose porch sit two perfectly good chairs carried home a few years ago from the Free Box.

In the old days, a man nicknamed the Polite Motorcyclist (he never revved his engine when he went by, coasting on gravity) stationed himself at the box, hand-rolling cigarettes and monitoring visitors. Brother Al, priest and civic servant, swept the sidewalk. For a while the city had essentially taken over the box's maintenance, which, the town manager estimated, amounted to something like $50,000 a year. Last fall some residents wanted to get rid of the box or at least have it relocated, complaining that the upkeep was costing the city too much and that it had become an eyesore—and it's true the contents were often of dubious use (broken crockery, half-filled food packages, outdated catalogs). To preserve the landmark, a local citizen's group, Friends of the Free Box, stepped in and since the winter have taken over the care of the box, posting a bulletin board to list big items and hauling away trash.

Still, in a town that every year seems to grow closer and closer to that place it feared becoming—movie stars and other extraordinarily wealthy people live here now; the gated communities and private jets have arrived; articles on the need for "affordable housing" run alongside the ubiquitous Sotheby Realty ads in the town newspaper—I don't think I'm alone in clinging to the markers of Telluride's resistance. The Free Box is one of those, a small patch of common ground. Drop off a DVD of a Cary Grant movie and see it fly into a stranger's parka pocket; hold up a black cashmere sweater and get a nod of approval—lucky you, to grab it first—from the thrift-store maven. Send the kids out to occupy themselves, to discover some curiosity or treasure there. Later, you can give it back.

You take and you give, give and take. Maybe we can reassure ourselves we won't entirely turn into Aspen if we still have the Free Box.

Antonya Nelson's Nothing Right is the latest collection of her short stories.


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Comments (12)

To Mr. E. Howard Holmes.

Not just two towns ruined but 5 towns. Your forgot the historic Black Hawk, Central City and Cripple Creek.

Having lived in the foothills of Colorado for 33 years, I am saddened to see what Black Hawk and Central City have become.

Posted by Lori Bandazian on September 25,2009 | 05:26 PM

Wonderful article -- your recollections of Telluride in your youth are similar to mine. I linked your essay to an essay I just posted on my blog, an alternative weekend guide for all the festival-goers headed there, http://away-together.com/2009/09/04/36-hours-in-telluride/#more-331.
Thank you for capturing Telluride's spirit, as epitomized by the Free Box.

Posted by Sarah Lavender Smith on September 4,2009 | 09:08 AM

Thank You for a wonderful article. This was a tough year for our beloved Freebox as your article points out. It took the energy of many folks in the Telluride community to work out the ideas and the solutions to satisfy the naysayers and keep our Freebox from being destroyed. Hundreds of people a day use it and whether you're donating or getting stuff you need it's a mutually gratifying experience. We LOVE it! We also support anyone in any other community who wants to start their own Free Box. To read comments or see video go to 'Telluride Freebox' on Facebook or feel free to contact the Friends of the Free Box by e-mail - freebox@t-cycle.org

Posted by Harold Wondsel / Friends of the Free Box on August 12,2009 | 12:41 AM

I was recently in California, visiting a friend who was making a major household move. In the midst of 'paring down' she had me try on several items of clothing she'd gotten at a FREE BOX in Berkeley.I am now enjoying some beautiful clothing, since I'm a couple of sizes larger than she is. More cities should have a free box, which would be on-going, rather than saving things for a once-a-year sponsored rummage sale, or a store where people have to feel embarrassed to get things from a clerk.

Posted by Alice Herber on August 7,2009 | 10:40 PM

Ms. Nelson's article is nice, but full of wishful thinking. You probably should have had a fulltime resident write it. The horse has long been out of the barn when it comes to Telluride's change. It's a city of have's and have-nots. It is not affordable to anyone that isn't either independently wealthy, or as a six figure plus job. It may have done a better job in keeping some chain retailers at bay, and some architectural limits, but that's where the differences between it, and Aspen end. I find it humorous to see Aspen-ites trying to paint their town as still having the mining-town feel, when in fact service workers have to live at least 30 miles away to even begin to afford a tiny hovel in which to live. Two towns ruined; to describe them otherwise one has to either be in denial, or on the Chamber of Commerce payroll.

Posted by E. Howard Holmes on August 6,2009 | 09:52 PM

As a former resident of both towns, I have to mostly agree with the descriptions of Telluride and Aspen, although I beg to differ with the characterization of Telluride as "less naughty"...I have yet to see naked men wearing paper bags over their heads (to protect the not-so-innocent!) racing bicycles through downtown Aspen.

Posted by Theodora Collins on August 5,2009 | 05:31 PM

Telluride sounds like a nice place to live and a part of America Culture and History that should be preserved. The almighty dollar seems to win in the end but i hope not in this case. The article was a very nice read!

Posted by atlanta georgia on July 31,2009 | 06:10 PM

Funny, when I first moved to Telluride I rented a room in the yellow Nelson house behind Antonya in the photo. It was cold but I was glad to have a roof over my head and I later found out my roomate was charging me three times what he was paying, just because it was a ski town. My poet friend in Maine had told me to keep an eye out for the writer Robert Boswell, who I much later discovered was Antonya's husband. I used the freebox many times back then and after visiting telluride last month I can say its as beautiful a place as ever. And the free box is just as active.

Posted by Dan Whittet on July 30,2009 | 06:34 PM

Contrary to Nelson’s claims, Aspen has managed to keep its mountain heart beating … despite the presence of Prada on the corner.

Like Telluride, Aspen was once a mining town with a rich and varied Western heritage. Yes, even the “quiet years” existed in Aspen after the Silver Rush and before our city reinvented itself as a world-class skiing resort. These days you can walk Aspen’s streets and pass mining cabins, beautifully preserved Victorian homes, funky ski chalets and sleek modern-day abodes. Aspen has a number of high-end retailers, and they are located amongst the grocery stores, pharmacies, bars and restaurants that also make downtown a vital and bustling place to be.

Telluride boasts a “Free Box” while Aspen has the “Thumbing Station” – a signed and designated place on the main drag that functions as a safe haven for hitchhikers. It’s been there for decades. There’s also the community joiners tables at breakfast spots; free (and often impromptu) concerts on the pedestrian malls; a community garden; theaters; local characters; and hundreds of other places and things that make Aspen a living and breathing place many call home. Oh, and construction is almost finished on a new headquarters station for the Aspen Volunteer Fire Department, complete with a museum illustrating its 126-year history, while doubling the size of the always affordable thrift shop next door.

Even the mayor lives in one of Aspen’s 2,500 affordable housing units and rides his bike to City Council meetings, where he leaves it unlocked outside City Hall.

Aspen has changed over the years, but it certainly hasn’t lost its soul or its sense of community. We’ve fought to maintain them. So keep up your vigilance, Telluride. May you also be able to retain some of your off-beat, community nature in the face of the same unrelenting economic pressures that threaten all of Colorado’s beautiful mountain towns.

Posted by Steve Barwick on July 30,2009 | 03:42 PM

Great piece!

Posted by Les Neuhaus on July 29,2009 | 04:33 PM

We have a cabin we visit, a good 45 minutes out of town, every year for the past 25 or so, watching the town grow up around the Free Box. You've absolutely done a marvelous job encapsulating the town's growth pains and its rough and tumble past, which still peeks out here and there, if you look for it and ignore the modern Aspenized trappings (they are there and in plenty!). Society Turn and the Condos that sprout like Easter Island heads on the way west out of town are what might have been without HRAC, thank goodness for HRAC! My wife and I compare our hometown Half Moon Bay with Telluride every year--same? a lot of smart people, a beautiful, God-gifted place, endless possibilities; Difference? Half Moon Bayers find much to dislike about each other, politics, civic vision, lifestyle. But, Telluride? They agree to disagree, find common ground with each other, "I don't like your politics, lifestyle or civic vision, but, hey, don't we live together in the most awesome place on earth? Let's make it better together..!" And, they do....

Posted by Tom Ferenz on July 27,2009 | 12:55 PM

Lovely article. As a resident of Missouri Heights in the Colorado Roaring Fork Valley I am within a 30 minute bus ride of Aspen and a 4 hour car ride to Telluride. Not only have I benefitted from the Telluride Free Box, but I have recommended to the recent Aspen Community Planning process to set up one. Note that Aspen but not Telluride has an historic "hitching post" sign which signifies the best location for hitch hiking out of town, although this practice has been out of style for decades. I hope to see Aspen have both Free Box and frequent hitch hiking, as well as easy sharing of all kinds of other material and intellectual resources in the future. I'll be happy if Telluride goes that way too.

Posted by Harvie Branscomb on July 24,2009 | 11:37 PM




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