Red Mountain Colorado USA - Up until a few years ago it was possible to go through mine tunnels from the Idarado mine entrance (the Treasury Tunnel) on Red Mountain Pass, clear through to Pandora where the Idarado Mining Company's Telluride mill is located.
 
It wasn't a straight shot, but involved a trip down a 1,500 foot shaft at the Black Bear Mine.
 
More than 100 years ago a mining investor and railroad man named Andrew Meldrum proposed building a six mile tunnel large enough to accommodate a narrow gauge train.
 
It would have connected the Silverton Railroad in Ironton with the Rio Grande Southern Railroad in Telluride.
 
Meldrum was originally a blacksmith for the Sheridan Mine above Telluride, and was later a stationmaster on the Rio Grande Southern Railroad, and for a short time served as that road's superintendent.
 
In the early 1880s he had made a small fortune grub staking prospectors.
 
He was also an original investor in the Yankee Girl and Guston Mines.
 
Meldrum sold his one-quarter interest in the Yankee Girl for US$32,000.
 
He also sold his interest in the Guston for a mere US$7,000.
 
Both of these mines were worth millions just a few years later.
 
He was nearly ruined from a bitter divorce in the late 1880s.
 
In 1893, Meldrum began raising funds for his tunnel venture that was to be built on a straight line from Ironton to Telluride.
 
Meldrun estimated that it would take two years and US$5 million to complete the railroad tunnel.
 
However, he also predicted a profit of US$600,000 per year due to the rich ore that would be found while driving the tunnel.
 
In addition, ore could be loaded directly into ore cars for transport to the mill in Telluride, the tunnel would ventilate the mines, and water draining into the tunnel from the Red Mountain Mines would be used to generate electricity.
 
Construction on the Meldrum Tunnel began in 1898 by the Meldrum Tunnel and Mining Syndicate with the backing of Scottish investors.
 
The company worked from both the Ironton end on the Silverton Railroad right-of-way and the Telluride end.
 
But, by 1900, only 800 feet at the Red Mountain end and 2,850 feet at the Telluride end had been completed.
 
This was not far enough to reach the rich ore that would be mined 50 years later by the Idarado Mining Company.
 
Although the work had only cost US$250,000, the Boer War in South Africa drained the finances of Meldrum's Scottish investors and they were unable to supply the remainder of the needed capital.
 
The company was listed in the Colorado Mining Directory for only one year in 1899.
 
Meldrum never recovered financially from the Meldrum Tunnel although he did buy a ranch in Delta and constructed the first stone house in that area.
 
He raised race horses on that ranch, but again was unsuccessful and he moved back to Ouray were he lived out his life in poverty.
 
Meldrum never gave up on mining having located the Scotch Girl claim in the late 1920s.
 
Just before his death he leased the mine to G.A. Franz who developed it for his Banner American Mill located where Panoramic Heights sits today.
 
Andrew Meldrum died at the Spangler's Hospital (today's Ouray County Museum) in 1939 at the age of 94.
 
He is buried in an unmarked grave in Cedar Hill Cemetery.
 
An interesting question is why Otto Mears, owner of the Silverton Railroad, and the D&RG, which controlled the Rio Grande Southern, never showed any interest in Meldrum's project that would have joined the two railroads.
 
Perhaps, by 1900, with most of the mines on Red Mountain recently closed down, the project seemed too risky.
 
Ironically, in 1948, the Idarado Mining Company extended the Meldrum Tunnel on the Telluride side and mined the area profitably for the next 30 years.
 
Both ends of the Meldrum Tunnel are easily visited today.
 
On the Ironton side the tunnel passes directly under mile marker 84 on Highway 550.
 
The tunnel has long since collapsed but you can follow the depression that was the tunnel several hundred yards from the highway down to the tunnel's waste rock piles near Red Mountain Creek.
 
On the Telluride side the tunnel emerges from the mountainside a few hundred feet up the Black Bear Road in Pandora.
 
The Idarado Mining Company's track still comes out of the large gated portal.
 
Author unknown.