Photograph of St. Elmo — Photograph by Rolf Blauert Dk4hb, Public domain. Via Wikimedia Commons.

St. Elmo Historic District

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

From the record

“Saint Elmo is a ghost town in Chaffee County, Colorado, United States. Founded in 1880, Saint Elmo lies in the heart of the Sawatch Range, 20 miles (32 km) southwest of Buena Vista and sits at an elevation of 9,961 feet (3,036 m).”
Wikipedia article Saint Elmo, Colorado, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 46 National Register listings published here for Chaffee County · listed in 1979 · category: District.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service · the Wikipedia article

The listing

Address. Pitkin, Gunnison, 1st., Main and Poplar Sts., St. Elmo, 81236
When was it listed? September 1979
Category. district
Census division. Buena Vista
National Register reference number. 79000577 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

25 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 25 fires within 5 miles of St. Elmo Historic District between 1993 and 2020, burning about 19 acres in total. 8 started naturally. 3 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Natural	8
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	5
Recreation and ceremony	5
Arson/incendiarism	3
Power generation/transmission/distribution	2
Debris and open burning	1
Smoking	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
4 September 2013	Natural	under an acre	Pike and San Isabel National Forest	WELDON GULTCH
28 September 2020	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Pike and San Isabel National Forest	BIG GRASSY
20 September 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Pike and San Isabel National Forest	ALPINE
16 September 2018	Natural	under an acre	Pike and San Isabel National Forest	GROUSE CANYON
15 September 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Chaffee County	ALPINE LAKE
15 September 2007	Natural	under an acre	Pike and San Isabel National Forest	COAL CREEK
12 September 2010	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Pike and San Isabel National Forest	PTARMIGAN LAKE
4 August 2000	Natural	under an acre	Pike and San Isabel National Forest	COAL CAMP

Every fire recorded in Chaffee County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 26 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 26 workings within 5 miles of St. Elmo Historic District: 23 past producers, 3 occurrences. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Gold, Copper, Silver, Gold, Lead, Silver, Zinc. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
Alpine No One	Granite	Past Producer
Beryl Gem Claims	Beryllium, Tantalum, Niobium (Columbium)	Occurrence	Vein
Black Hawk	Copper, Zinc, Gold, Lead	Past Producer
Buckhorn Tun	Gold, Zinc, Copper, Lead, Silver	Past Producer
Carey Mill	Gold, Silver, Zinc, Lead	Past Producer
Dmd	Molybdenum	Occurrence	Chalcopyrite, Molybdenite
Garfield Quarry	Limestone, Dimension	Past Producer
Iron Chest Mine	Gold, Silver, Copper, Lead, Zinc	Past Producer
Mary Murphy Group	Silver, Gold, Zinc, Lead, Copper	Past Producer	Vein
Mary Murphy Mine	Zinc, Silver, Gold, Lead, Copper, Manganese	Past Producer	1949

Every working recorded in Chaffee County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

1 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Photograph	Property	Distance	Listed
	Morley Bridge	2.3 miles	2003

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 79000577 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Chaffee County	All 46 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.