Past | History of the Land and Places

During the time of the Hanging Flume, the area along the Unaweep Tabeguache Scenic and Historic Byway was even more remote than it is today. There was no highway and very few rough roads that traversed the rugged landscape. Highway 141 that parallels the river today wasn’t constructed for another 30 years.

Much of the land was inhabited by the Ute Indians who hunted, lived and worked the land as they needed. It wasn’t until the miners from Telluride made their way down the San Miguel River and started staking claims on the land that the conflicts between the Utes and the white settlers began. In 1873, the Brunot Treaty was signed forcing the Ute’s off the land and onto a reservation in Utah and Southern Colorado. With the Utes off the land, the settlers claimed the land for their own and changed the landscape forever.

At the time of the Hanging Flume’s construction, Telluride was the largest city around with roughly 5000 residents. Check out the census timeline on the right to see how mining affected the area’s population around the turn of the century.