Ghost Town Tuesday; Hooper, CO

Hooper is a small dying railroad town located at the junction of CO 17 and CO 112 just west of the Great Sand Dunes in Alamosa County.

Hooper was founded as a rail siding along a spur of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad. I don't have an exact date when Hooper was founded but it appears on the 1901 map of Colorado in Costilla County as Garrison. Alamosa County was split from Costilla County in 1913.

1901 Map of Colorado

Hooper no longer serves a rail road and is lined with mostly abandoned buildings. The town has generally hovered somewhere around 100 residents or less throughout it's entire history. Most of the buildings appeared to have served a purpose at some point in the mid-20th century.

Oddly Hooper is still considered a town and even has a town hall building.

When I passed through Hooper in 2015 the Sangre De Cristo Elementary School appeared to have been closed for several decades. The structure now sits behind a chain link fence.

Comments

Jim said…

Went to school in Hooper from 1-5th grade in the 60s. Surprised it's still standing.

5:08 PM

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