TELLURIDE: A Name to remember

Though the “To-hell-you-ride” moniker never fails to come up in a discussion of the name “Telluride” (as in the outcry bellowed by nervous train conductors as they passed through town), its likely origin is less colorful.  In 1881, the young mining camp of Columbia was re-christened Telluride to avoid postal mix-ups with a settlement in California of the same name.  Though the story behind the rename is obscure, telluride (TELL-u-ride) is a compound of the non-metallic element tellurium (te-LOOR-e-um), which is typically found alongside gold and silver.  Telluride students even commandeered tellurium’s atomic number on the periodic chart, “52,” for their high school newspaper.  Paradoxically, tellurium wasn’t found mixed in the heavy metal deposits that vein the local mountains, but considering the element is prefixed with the Latin “tellur” or “of the earth,” it’s fitting of the dramatic terra firma that marks the region.

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