A ride down Colorado’s breathtaking Million Dollar Highway is not only a sight to behold, but it is also a ride that, for some, will send your blood pressure through the roof.
Some people call this stretch of highway through Ouray and the San Juan Mountains the most dangerous highway in America. Is it really? Who built this road, and what were they thinking?
U.S. Highway 550 runs from New Mexico to western Colorado and is home to a portion of the road known as the Million Dollar Highway. This highway runs from Bernalillo, New Mexico, to Montrose, Colorado. Between Silverton, Colorado, and the Town of Ouray, there is a stretch of road that got the name “Million Dollar Road” back in the late 1800s.
When Was Colorado’s Million Dollar Highway Built?
The awe-inspiring and downright dangerous mountain road got its start in 1883. That year, the county of Ouray commissioned Otto Mears to build a toll road that led from the town of Ouray up to the top of the Uncompahgre Canyon. The road to Red Mountain was completed in September of that year at the cost of nearly $10k per mile…