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...

  Despite concerns about the size and impact of the project, the Ouray Planning Commission has recommended approval of a major expansion of the Twin Peaks Lodge & Hot Springs. With only three of the f...

COPS This is an excerpt of cases handled by the Ouray County Sheriff’s Office from Oct. 7-13, 2019. Oct. 7 Deputies assisted the Colorado State Patrol with an accident involving a deer and car at High...

  The following is an excerpt of cases handled by the Ridgway Marshal's Office from Sept. 24 to Oct. 7, 2019. If you have information on any of the below active cases or of any other incident that you...

  All four candidates for the Ridgway School Board agree teacher pay and retention are the top issues for the district, they said during a candidate forum Tuesday night. Candidates Brian Patton, John ...

  After months of debate Ridgway’s town council unanimously adopted a new water rate structure, raising the minimum cost of water for residential customers and adjusting the points at which overage ch...

SILVERTON - Three people were injured in a off-highway vehicle accident on Stony Pass on Sept. 26, according to the San Juan County Sheriff's Office. Sheriff Bruce Conrad said there were actually two ...

  When Bette Maurer attended a Ouray City Council candidate forum on July 24, she did so with the intention of helping others understand the ins and outs of the job she’s spent six years doing. She ha...

  Ouray and Ridgway both have new law enforcement leaders, officially. Though Ridgway’s new marshal, Shane Schmalz, is a familiar face, he was promoted to the job last week with council approval. Schm...

To read this story, originally published by The Colorado Sun, click here. 

  John Wood was, in his words, “awestruck and gobsmacked” when he first laid eyes on Ouray nearly 20 years ago. It’s the place he wants to live the rest of his life, where he hopes one day one of his ...