Preserving the Past

Preserving the Past. . Ouray was just eleven years old when the Beaumont Hotel celebrated its grand opening on July 25, 1887. The building immediately gained fame as western Colorado's most elegant hotel, marking Ouray as a place of wealth, importance, and permanence. For fifty years it lodged well-heeled mine owners, railroad men, and corporate executives who had business in the San Juans. But as the region's mines declined, the Beaumont's vacancy rate increased; by the mid-twentieth century it had lost its luxurious sheen, and in 1964 it closed altogether. Covered in a coat of hideous pink paint, it stood empty for thirty eight years, an eyesore on Ouray's quaint Main Street. But two investors rescued the Beaumont in the late 1990s and spent several million dollars restoring the building to its former glory. Today the Beaumont serves as a textbook example of historic preservation-and Ouray stands among Colorado's best-preserved Victorian towns. , Captions , Upper Left: Though the facade of the Beaumont Hotel has undergone several changes since its completion in the 1880s, careful historical preservation has faithfully restored the building to the late nineteenth-century glory. , Colorado Historical Society , Middle Right (L): In the early 1980s, the residents of Ouray, numbering fewer than 700, began a fund-raising drive to restore the City Hall's facade. Residents raised $120,000 to rebuild the city hall and library, and construction was completed in 1987 and 1988. , Colorado Historical Society , Middle Right (R): Though slightly different in its details, the newly restored building faithfully reproduces the turn-of-the-century charm of the original Walsh Library and Ouray City Hall complementing the community's diligent efforts to maintain the historic nature of the town's architectural heritage. , Colorado Historical Society , Lower Right: The Ouray City Hall, built in 1900, gained a second floor in 1901 when local mining king Thomas F. Walsh paid for the Walsh Library. In January 1950, the historic building suffered a disastrous fire that destroyed the building and the irreplaceable holdings of the library, leaving only the soot-stained walls standing. , Colorado Historical Society