It’s hard to say precisely when Silverton, Colo., started to come apart, but the town election of April 7, 2020, might be a good moment to begin the story.
That was when a young, progressive New York lawyer and adventure skier named Shane Fuhrman beat the longtime fire chief Gilbert Archuleta, part of Silverton’s old guard, by 10 votes to become the new mayor.
To supporters, mainly of his generation, Fuhrman, 42, represented progress.
After working at top finance firms in Manhattan, he had returned to his native Colorado and renovated the old Wyman Hotel on Greene Street, not in the mountain-town Victorian style of the Grand Imperial a block away, but as an elegant, hip boutique inn, with rooms going for as much as $385 a night.
To Fuhrman’s opponents in the former mining town of 796 residents, he was the incarnation of the T Word, Telluride, and the A Word, Aspen, with their staggering housing prices, luxury outposts and billionaire denizens.
Persons:
Shane Fuhrman, Gilbert Archuleta, Wyman
Organizations:
Aspen
Locations:
Silverton, Colo, New York, Manhattan, Colorado, Greene, Imperial, Telluride