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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

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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

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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

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Popular trail needs new steward

Uncompahgre Riverway Trail founder, longtime volunteer ready to step down

By James Hanlon

September 23, 2026

Chip Marlow, the man who spearheaded the construction of the Uncompahgre Riverway Trail from Ridgway to Ridgway State Park, has maintained the multiuse path largely by himself for many years. Now 80 y...

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‘Super El Niño’ won’t be savior for West Slope

Officials: Warming Pacific temps may bring more snow but won't wipe out drought or fill reservoirs

By Chart Riggall

September 23, 2026

GRAND JUNCTION — Amid a stream of bad news for Western Slope water stakeholders last week, Russ Schumacher had the pleasure of opening the sluice. Nearly on the far side of the state’s worst drought y...

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Judge to hotel: End workforce housing

Injunction prohibits MTN Lodge from housing resort construction workers

By James Hanlon

September 23, 2026

A district court judge has ordered Ridgway's largest hotel to stop housing construction workers who are building a new Four Seasons in Mountain Village. In a preliminary injunction filed Sept. 16, the...

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Investigators close case on mine shaft death

Nearly a year later, authorities conclude Ridgway resident Jennifer Nelson accidentally drowned

By Erin McIntyre erin@ouraynews.com

September 23, 2026

Eleven months after rescue volunteers found Jennifer Nelson's body in a water-filled mine shaft on Red Mountain Pass, investigators are left wondering what her final moments looked like. Their case, w...

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City ready to cut losses with building

More than a year after purchase, council tells staff to sell empty Sixth Avenue property for reduced price

By Mike Wiggins mike@ouraynews.com

September 23, 2026

When the two-story building across the street from Ouray City Hall went up for sale last spring, Ouray city leaders scrambled to buy it, envisioning a top-tobottom renovation culminating in a new, lar...

Katie Langford Special to the Plaindealer

Remote-triggered avalanche in San Juan Mountains

First responders receive first COVID-19 vaccines