Colorado Mining Towns: I Wanna Take You to Kokomo
Aruba? Jamaica? No, how about Colorado?
If you have never heard of Kokomo, Colorado, don't feel alone. Kokomo is a former mining town that, at one time, had a population of 10,000!
Kokomo, in Summit County, was named after Kokomo Gulch nearby, which was named after Kokomo, Indiana,and was a silver mining town that actually had a post office that remained in operation until 1965 that was established in 1879.
During the 1890s, Kokomo was the highest elevated town of any in the state that had been incorporated as a town. With silver having been discovered in Leadville, prospectors began looking for it all over the state and in an area known then as Tenmile Valley they found several large deposits and by 1881 Kokomo was born.
Due to the nature of building in those days, the entire town burned to the ground later in 1881 and, while it was rebuilt, the town ebbed and with the mines slowly declining, fewer and fewer people remained there.
In the 1960s, the Climax mine purchased the land and by the 1970s began storing mill tailings there.
Today nothing remains of Kokomo but the memory of yet another boom town that was unable to sustain itself.
We don’t have the rights to put the town’s photos on our websites, but you can check them out here.