Last spring we made a trip down to the Great Sand Dunes National Park. We decided to take a dif­fer­ent route home than we nor­mally take so from the Sand Dunes we headed north on High­way 285 in the San Luis Val­ley towards Pon­cha Springs, Col­orado. On the way we dis­cov­ered there was a turnoff (CO Rd L156) close to the small town of Villa Grove which took us to the old ghost town of Bonanza, Col­orado with a cur­rent pop­u­la­tion of 14.  The town was orig­i­nally set­tled by Lieu­tenant Ker­ber some­time after the Civil War.  The town, at that time, was called Ker­ber City after the  Lieu­tenant along with the Creek, which still bears his name, Ker­ber Creek.  Some­time around 1880 sil­ver was found upstream from Ker­ber City.  After the sil­ver was found, the town took on the name Bonanza because the min­ers all thought they were going to get rich, which didn’t hap­pen.  At one time Bonanza had more than 500 res­i­dents. There are still many old build­ings stand­ing in and around the almost for­got­ten com­mu­nity. Autumn would be a great time to visit and pho­to­graph Bonanza as there are many aspen trees in the area. Below is a slideshow of some of the old build­ings still stand­ing around the ghost town of Bonanza.

Click on the photo below to view the old build­ings around Bonanza, Colorado

Need Lodg­ing Visit

Books on Ghost Towns of Colorado

Col­orado Ghost Towns and Min­ing Camps [Paperback]

Guide To the Col­orado Ghost Towns and Min­ing Camps [Paperback]

Trea­sure Tales Of Rock­ies [Paperback]