St. Elmo, Colorado was originally settled in 1878 and was made official in 1880 when gold and silver began to bring many people to the area. Though it was first called Forest City, the small town's name was changed when the post office objected because there were too many towns with the same name. The new name was derived by Griffith Evans, one of the founders, who was reading a romantic nineteenth-century novel by the same name. Vintage photo restored by Kathy Alexander.