Fewer than a quarter of Ouray County voters had cast their ballots as of Tuesday. But as has seemingly become customary in recent years, elections officials expect a rush of ballots in the days lead...

  Ouray County voters will decide next week whether to fund roads maintenance and a plan to improve routes across the county for the coming decades. The countywide ballot measure, which asks voters to...

  Four finalists for the Ridgway town administrator position will visit next week, and members of the public are invited to meet them. The finalists are: • Dan Chandler, the current assistant county a...

CITY OF OURAY A change in the fee structure for professional climbing guides is intended to generate more revenue to manage the Ouray Ice Park. The Ouray City Council unanimously agreed Monday to a pr...

SILVERTON - Town and county officials are expressing concern that state officials are reluctant to take the lead role in managing the Bonita Peak Mining District Super-fund Site, despite "good-faith a...

OURAY COUNTY The Colorado Public Utilities Commission has approved a request from the Ouray Emergency Telephone Service Authority to increase monthly 911 surcharges from 70 cents to $1.25. The Ouray a...

OURAY COUNTY Concerned community members attended a meeting with fire officials Tuesday night who updated them on the Cow Creek Fire, estimated to have grown to 853 acres as of Wednesday morning. The...

OURAY COUNTY Hopes are high that the historic Idarado Houses located in a switchback on Highway 550 near Red Mountain Pass may soon be preserved. Pat Willits of the Trust for Land Restoration has long...

  Exciting events are scheduled around the county this Halloween season. In Ouray, celebrations will supplement the annual trick-or-treating down Main Street. Scary thrills for kids and adults alike w...

WESTERN COLORADO The scene was stark for its incongruity: billows of smoke rising in front of the jagged Cimarrons coated with fresh snow. Perhaps the most noteworthy thing about Ouray County's first ...

OURAY COUNTY More than 1,000 railfans from across the nation and Europe visited Ridgway on Oct. 12 and 13 to ride and learn about five historically significant railroad motor cars, commonly referred t...

OURAY COUNTY Former Ouray County Undersheriff Richard Herman has pleaded not guilty to charges alleging he solicited sex from a teenage boy and is scheduled for a three-day jury trial in April. Herman...

CITY OF OURAY Ouray mayoral candidate Greg Nelson is the only one of the seven candidates for City Council who has received donations thus far, and he and fellow mayoral candidate and current Mayor Pr...

In a profile of Ridgway School Board candidate John Countryman published in the Oct. 17 edition of the Plaindealer, a formatting error resulted in the number of years he’s resided in Ouray County bein...

OURAY SCHOOLS Editor's note: The Plaindealer invited candidates for the local school board races to introduce themselves. In the Oct. 17 edition we featured Ridgway School Board candidates. This week...

OURAY SCHOOLS A more than hour-long special session of the Ouray School Board with a “Teacher Council,” held Oct. 16 off campus, was attended by 21 people, mostly Ouray School teachers and three board...

RIDGWAY SCHOOLS Two of the candidates in Ridgway’s contested race for school board have raised campaign contributions outside their own personal spending and share top donors. This is the first school...

OURAY COUNTY Over the last 85 years, the Elks National Foundation has awarded thousands of college scholarships worth tens of millions of dollars to high school seniors, an effort that encompasses loc...

OURAY COUNTY Fire crews from around Ouray County responded early Wednesday morning to a wildfire that ignited in the Cimarrons east of Ridgway. Ouray County Emergency Manager Glenn Boyd said a group o...