Encampment

History

Known also as "Grand Encampment", this town along the Colorado-Wyoming border was, at the turn of the twentieth century, a booming center of copper mining and smelting. At one point a sixteen-mile tramway was built to carry copper ore from the mountains into the town for smelting. This steam powered tramway was, at the time, the longest in the world. A sharp drop in copper prices and disastrous fires drove the mining company into bankruptcy. Mining operations ceased in the early twentieth century. A large sawmill operated in the town between 1950 and 1998. The town's economy in the first part of the twenty-first century is driven by timber, ranching, and recreation.

Geography

The town is between the Sierra Madre and Snowy Range mountains.

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• American Robin

  Turdus migratorius Linnaeus, 1766 · Aves
  314
• Black-billed Magpie

  Pica hudsonia (Sabine, 1823) · Aves
  281
• Common Raven

  Corvus corax Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  236
• Northern Flicker

  Colaptes auratus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  210
• Bald Eagle

  Haliaeetus leucocephalus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  194
• Broad-tailed Hummingbird

  Selasphorus platycercus (Swainson, 1827) · Aves
  188
• Red-tailed Hawk

  Buteo jamaicensis (Gmelin, 1788) · Aves
  167
• Red-winged Blackbird

  Agelaius phoeniceus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  147

Largest nearby schools

• Encampment K-12 School
  Other · Encampment · 115 students · 6.1:1 ratio

Most recent

• M 2.7 — 2025-11-30
  15 km SSW of Walden, Colorado
• M 3.4 — 2024-09-14
  9 km SSE of Saratoga, Wyoming
• M 3.1 — 2024-09-02
  21 km NW of Steamboat Springs, Colorado
• M 3.3 — 2023-06-03
  8 km SSE of Saratoga, Wyoming
• M 3.6 — 2023-06-02
  9 km SSE of Saratoga, Wyoming
• M 2.5 — 2023-04-29
  3 km NE of Saratoga, Wyoming