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Since moving back to Ouray County just over a year ago, local artist Josef Mayfield hasn’t let off the gas pedal. When not at his day job as deputy co...

September 20, 2023

Feature

Music & Makers Festival celebrates arts

The inaugural Ouray Music & Makers Festival is set to bring together artists, performers, musicians and creatives from across the county and state...

August 30, 2023

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Spotlight on the Arts: Floyd Day

Floyd Day’s artistic muse hasn’t always been cows, despite drawing and painting nearly 1,000 of them since moving to Ouray County in 2000. Before movi...

August 23, 2023

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A STORY OF HEALING, HISTORY

The stone building at 420 Sixth Ave. in Ouray has plenty of stories to tell. Built in 1887 as the St. Joseph's Miners' Hospital, it now helps keep loc...

August 2, 2023

Feature

Spotlight on the Arts: Enda Junkins

Anyone who spends enough time in Ouray probably knows Enda Junkins as a villain. A nationally recognized psychotherapist and motivational speaker who ...

July 19, 2023

News

Crews working to fill 1950s-era well along U.S. 550

Reclamation part of orphaned and abandoned well program

By Chart Riggall

September 4, 2026

It’s not what you think. A towering steel drill rig that’s been perched along the side of U.S. Highway 550 in recent weeks isn’t probing for gas, or oil, or even a route to the Far East. The operation...

Main, News...

Trump declares disaster for Gold Mountain, Aspen Acres fires

By Chart Riggall

September 4, 2026

President Donald Trump has signed off on a major disaster declaration for the Gold Mountain and Aspen Acres fires that unlocks millions of dollars in Federal Emergency Management Agency relief funds f...

Main, News...

Hickenlooper hopeful for fire disaster order

Senator tours flood-damaged areas, surveys planned fire mitigation efforts

By By Chart Riggall chart@ouraynews.com

September 2, 2026

U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper said Friday he was optimistic the Trump administration will declare the Gold Mountain Fire a federal disaster, arguing Congress “wouldn’t settle for” the White House withho...

Main, News...

County employees remain on paid leave

EMS paramedic, deputy emergency manager sent home days after fire started

By By James Hanlon james@ouraynews.com

September 2, 2026

Ouray County has had two emergency-related employees on paid administrative leave since the early days of the Gold Mountain Fire. A third employee, Road and Bridge Superintendent Ty Barger, was placed...

News

Businesses share struggles with senator

'You guys are in crisis,' Hickenlooper tells proprietors wrestling with aftermath of Gold Mountain Fire

By Mike Wiggins mike@ouraynews.com

September 2, 2026

Ouray County business owners bent the ear of U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper on Friday, sharing stories of declining profits and mass cancellations in the wake of the Gold Mountain Fire in the hopes the D...

Katie Langford Special to the Plaindealer

Remote-triggered avalanche in San Juan Mountains

First responders receive first COVID-19 vaccines