The story
Gilman clings to a 600-foot cliff above the Eagle River on US-24 — a company town built for the silver mines of Battle Mountain in 1886 and later run by New Jersey Zinc, whose Eagle Mine below became one of Colorado's great zinc producers. Generations of miners' families lived on the cliff, with a school, bowling alley, and company store.
In 1984 the economics of the mine collapsed at the same time the ground itself was condemned: the EPA ordered the town evacuated over toxic contamination — heavy metals in the soil and groundwater — and the Eagle Mine became a Superfund site. Residents left fast; houses kept their furniture.
That preservation-by-catastrophe made Gilman legendary among trespassers, which is exactly what visitors must not be: the entire site is private property, patrolled, hazardous, and posted. It is the best ghost town in Colorado that you should only ever see from the highway overlook.
What remains today
Dozens of intact houses, the school, mine structures and tramways — all visible from the US-24 overlook, none legally enterable.
Questions from the field
- Can you tour Gilman, Colorado?
- No. Gilman is private property inside a Superfund contamination zone, posted and patrolled, and trespassers are cited. The US-24 overlook gives an excellent — and legal — view of the whole town.
- Why was Gilman abandoned?
- The Eagle Mine's economics failed just as the EPA condemned the site in 1984 over heavy-metal contamination; the town was evacuated by order and never reoccupied.
From the field
The most valuable part of this record is the part only visitors can write.
Stamp your passport
Check in at Gilman — GPS-verified visits earn an inked stamp.
File a field report
Road conditions, what's still standing, what's gone — your report joins the record.
Add photographs
Credited, dated, and preserved as part of Gilman's permanent record.
No field reports yet — sign in to file the first.
Sources consulted
- — USGS GNIS feature 204669
- — EPA Superfund — Eagle Mine site records
- — Eagle County Historical Society