Telluride and Real Estate Blog

Article by Ted Wilson Telluride History Club The View - April 1, 2025

Photo by Steve Cieciuch

Redvale, the small town between Norwood and Naturita, might have inadvertently solved the mystery of who gave Telluride its name. I’ll come back to that.

According to the Town of Telluride’s website, Telluride “was founded in 1878 and was originally known as Columbia. It was renamed in 1881 to avoid confusion with another mining camp. Telluride was reportedly named after tellurium, a gold bearing ore, although a popular myth attributes the name to people saying, ‘To hell you ride’ upon departing for the mining camp.”

Countless books, articles and websites share similar explanations, with the twist that tellurium was never found here, thus adding to the mystery as to why the name “Telluride” was chosen.

Let’s eliminate “to hell you ride.” That’s just a nickname that came later.

It’s probably more accurate to say that Telluride was named after telluride, rather than tellurium. Gold or silver combined with tellurium is called a telluride ore, known in the mining world back then.

Telluride was only the name of our post office at first. The dominant explanation is that the Postmaster General rejected “Columbia” since there was a mining camp with the same name in California, and thus the possibility of too much misdelivered mail. The original post office application for town can be viewed online in the National Archives. It was submitted in 1878, but at some point, the handwritten name “Columbia” was crossed out. Written above it was “Telluride.”

So, for about a decade, you had a town called Columbia with a post office called Telluride. In old newspapers, some business ads used Telluride, some used Columbia. News articles wrote it as “Columbia (Telluride),” and so on. It must’ve been annoying. In 1887, a petition signed by 169 voters “praying that the name of the Town of Columbia may be changed to that of Telluride” was unanimously approved by the town council and that was the end of the confusion.

Except, the confusion persists today. Why “Telluride”?

Let me introduce George Savage Andrus, who was very much in the thick of things when Telluride was just a mining camp called Columbia. Andrus was the mayor in 1880, served as treasurer on the Board of Trustees (town council) and held other government positions. He was a mining engineer and U.S. deputy mineral surveyor. He built a mill near Pandora. He helped form the Masonic Lodge in Telluride — in his cabin. Andrus sold Telluride the land that would become Lone Tree Cemetery (for so cheap it could almost be considered a donation). L.L. Nunn is listed as being part of those land transactions in town minutes, so Andrus was also connected with that local legend.

Back to Redvale and this forgotten article buried on page three of The Telluride Journal on February 17, 1910: “The town of Redlands, down the San Miguel river in Montrose county, has changed its name to Redvale. The change was brought about through the establishment of a post office, it developing that California has a town and post office named Redlands, and because of the similarity of the abbreviations of ‘Col’ and ‘Cal’ the authorities foreseeing confusion in mail matters declined to grant the petition for the Redlands office so it was changed to Redvale. The same conditions are to blame for the name of Telluride. When the camp first started and the town was laid out, it was called Columbia and so incorporated. When application was made for a post office it was found California had a Columbia post office and the petitioners were instructed to search out another name. Under the impression that tellurium was a frequent ore hereabouts the name Telluride was suggested by Geo. Andrus an assayer and metallurgist then located here, now at Globe, Arizona, and this name was adopted. It is not known that a pound of tellurium has ever been found in this camp. But what’s in a name anyhow?”

This newspaper article might be the closest we’ll get to a first-hand account of who came up with what is now a world-famous town name. When the article was printed in 1910, the editor of The Telluride Journal was Francis Edward Curry, and the owner was Charles Fremont Painter. Curry started the first newspaper in our valley in 1881. He must’ve been a deep well of local knowledge. Painter was the mayor right after Andrus and they served on town government together. They were also fellow Masons. Curry and Painter knew Andrus, personally.

Was Andrus, a U.S. deputy mineral surveyor, wrong about the presence of telluride ores in our mountains? There are several accounts of prospectors discovering tellurium veins here. Maybe they misidentified them. That mystery lives on.

Still, trusting in Curry and Painter’s newspaper article, I would sign a petition that gives George Savage Andrus credit for our town name.

Ted Wilson is a local history buff who volunteers on the San Miguel County Historical Commission. Contact Ted with stories from our region’s rich past: tedtelluride@gmail.com. References: Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection (Colorado State Library). Notes on Town of Telluride Council Meetings (Rev.), 1880-1977, compiled by Pam Pettee.

To read the full Telluride Daily Planet article please click this link.