Rural Colorado hopes to cash in on its dark skies

IT IS CALLED Colorado’s last boom town. Ten thousand people stampeded into Creede in the late 1800s in search of the silver hidden within the San Juan Mountains. The town was the epitome of the Wild West, a hangout for outlaws and conmen. But more than the shoot-outs and gamblers, it was the mines that made Creede. For nearly 100 years its prosperity was tied to the price of silver. The town’s last mine closed in 1985 and only about 300 people remain. Ghost towns and the creaky remnants of old mining camps litter the mountains. Now environmentalists and residents are looking to another sparkly resource to revive the economy: the stars.