The hut’s shiny newness makes Waldorf unique for still another reason—our only ghost town with a Quonset hut!...
To reach Saints John, less than eight miles away as the crow flies, you have to take a long circuitous route. But it is a scenic ride, and the pastoral seclusion of Saints John should be worth the trip. The town lies between Glacier Mountain on the southeast and Bear Mountain on the northwest. It snuggles along the banks of Saints John Creek which runs into the Snake River at Montezuma. At the head of Saints John Creek is Bear Pass which leads over into the Swan River, a tributary of the Blue, and on to Breckenridge.
It was from that direction that discovery of Saints John was made. A prospector by the name of J. Coley came over Bear Pass from Breckenridge in 1863 and found silver ore on the crest of Glacier Mountain about a thousand feet up from the town. He smelted his find in a crude furnace with a flue built from a hollow log encased with rocks and clay obtained from the lode for mortar. The outlines are still there.
According to Verna Sharp, Montezuma historian, Coley took his ingots into a bar in Georgetown and showed them around. Promptly other miners came flocking in and made more finds on Glacier Mountain. They called their little settlement Coleyville until a group of Free Masons arrived in 1867. This group altered the name to Saints John, for John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, patron Saints of Masonry.
The camp already had a sober upright character and had welcomed a number of traveling preachers. Prominent among them was Father John L. Dyer, the Methodist minister who is remembered in Colorado for his fine book, The Snowshoe Itinerant, as well as for his good works. Father Dyer came by the way of Swan River in 1865 and staked some claims on Glacier Mountain. His route was chosen for the mail between Montezuma and Breckenridge which began tri-weekly service in 1869 and was carried by horseback via Saints John.
In 1872 some of the claims on Glacier Mountain were combined into one property by a company backed with Boston financing. To handle the ore, the Boston company built the best milling and smelting works their Eastern engineers could devise. Later they acquired all the mines on the north side of Glacier Mountain. Their next project was to erect a suitable company town in place of the ramshackle camp. Their plans called for a two-and-a-half story boardinghouse, a company store, an assay office, an ornately trimmed guest house, a mess hall, a foreman’s home, a superintendent’s home, and residences for the miners. (But oddly there was no school, and the children had to walk to Montezuma.) In 1878 the company town of Saints John was completed.
Unique among mining camps, it boasted that it had no saloon. Instead there was a library of three hundred volumes, donated by Boston friends. Eastern and European newspapers were also sent regularly from the home office. The culture of this pretty, silver town was to be emulated by the gold town of American City—but not its sobriety.
The superintendent lived in town about seven months of the year. During his absence his house was cared for by the manager of the boardinghouse. She permitted a few of the residents to view its wonders. The house was completely furnished with Sheraton furniture, Lenox china, plush draperies, oil paintings, and objets d’art on what-nots added the last touch of elegance.
But then came over-production of silver, followed by the silver panic of 1893. The Boston Mining Company shut down, and the superintendent walked out of his home without bothering to lock the door, leaving the furnishings intact. The house was still standing in 1960 but the contents had long since been stolen or vandalized.
The Saints John mine was re-opened and worked in the 1940’s and early ’50’s. But no one lived there. The town of Saints John has been a true ghost town for over half a century, and is unique in our collection for its former decorum, for its being the only company town of the lot, and for its pastoral prettiness.