Telluride Historical Museum: Winter at a glance
[click "Play" to hear Beth Roberts talk about the Telluride museum's Winter program]
Once upon a time, the doctor on duty performed an appendectomy – on himself. At the Telluride Historical Museum. But it was not a museum then. The building, built in 1896, was a community hospital back in the days the likes of Butch Cassidy hung out on Main Street.
Today the Telluride Historical Museum contains a collection of about 9,000 artifacts and 1,500 historic photographs. Exhibits focus on hard rock mining (displays of equipment, models of mines and mills), the Ute Indian heritage, the development of AC electric to honor the fact Nikola Tesla built the world's first AC-generating plant in town. There is a replica of the mining cabin that once belonged to the "Tomboy Bride," Harriet Backus, and tributes to Victorian architecture and fashion, including fancy dresses worn by Big Billie, Telluride's top madam at the turn of the century, when red lights had nothing to do with Christmas.