Hours listed are not accurate. We drove to check out this museum buy to find it closed despite it…read moreshowing open on Yelp. Business is closed unless you pay a $20/person fee for a tour.

Bottom Line: A unique and quirky museum featuring a carefully curated collection of pharmacy…read morememorabilia and artifacts. I love American history, Americana, weird history and local museums so I was eager to check out the Ouray Alchemist. The Ouray Alchemist is a small museum that only offers private tours and storytelling about Wild West pharmacies. To visit the museum you must call or email ahead to schedule your visit. The admission fee is $12. The tour duration can range from an hour or more but if you have limited time you can let the museum know. Curt, the owner and a retired pharmacist, has spent his lifetime collecting, and restoring where appropriate and necessary, artifacts related to pharmacies in the 1800s Wild West and particularly Colorado. His collection is incredible! My jaw dropped multiple times. I was impressed with the entrance to the museum which is from an c. 1888 Aspen drugstore but I was also impressed with the volume of artifacts and the many antique mercantile displays. Two things that really caught my eye were two sets of antique drawers for selling spools of thread and two soda fountains. The one soda fountain in particular was incredible . . . it had been fully restored to working condition. The marble and chrome (presumably) front of the soda fountain was like a work of art. As a lover of history and museums I really enjoyed this visit as did my husband. But for those who aren't into guided tours or lengthy museum visits, this might not be the best choice in Ouray. Also, I wouldn't recommend it for kids because its almost like a lengthy show-and-tell but don't touch type of experience. The museum also has a small gift shop and they sell products for high altitude adjustment.

Interesting displays, including audio features and a rotating special exhibit; broad range of…read morecultural, environmental, and economic stages touched on in a short time; and a very reasonable admission fee. If you can visit on a walking tour day, it's well worth the time (1.5 hours), and you are able to go inside some of the most historic buildings, like the opera house, and the "New" Sheridan Hotel and connected bar. Ours was by Ashley, and he was engaging, friendly, fielded every question with aplomb. It may be hard to engage small, active children but older kids and adults will find plenty of interest.

I'm glad my friends who visit Telluride each year recommended I stop in this museum. It was the…read moreinitial hospital during the mining days, which was later converted into a museum. It had so many interesting displays and pieces of history, from the Native American Indians times, through the boom-and-bust mining days, to the present-day ski resort revitalization of this charming town. The exhibits are strategically placed to allow you to experience how the area evolved. It is easy to walk around, taking your time examining specific items that are of interest to you. The small gift shop is charming and has a number of books and periodicals of the town's history that may be difficult to find elsewhere. For a nominal entrance fee, you can easily spend an enjoyable hour or two learning the history of this great town. There is also a museum donation canister at the entrance way, which I gladly deposited additional money in as I finished my tour as it was definitely worth it!

This was an awesome quick stop on our trip. The part that made our day was that the owner took us…read morearound on a personal tour and history lesson of each of the train cars and the surrounding equipment. Our 4-year-old daughter and the kid in me loved every minute of this tour. Totally recommend this stop.

Very sweet little stop-off! We stopped here on our way from Ouray to Montrose Airport to eat our…read morelunch with 2, 5, 8 yr old at the picnic table adjacent to the rail cars. Kids were able to get on and explore a few of them (the others are just in restoration stage at the moment, that's all). Adjacent museum has a few great dioramas, plus many books about the area and railroading. Plus it's FREE! Give a lil' donation though, it's how all the restorations are funded :-)

Wild west museum located in Montrose, CO. This was an amazing museum for all ages. The items are…read morefrom the 19th and early 20th century. The main building is set up like a small town consisting of salon, drug store, dental office and more. Filled with authentic items. Then you walk outside to the outdoor town. Homes from many different years, school house, hotel, sheriffs office and many more. The kids will love it! So many items I'm sure they have never seen before. Such a wonderful educational experience. They do offer tours but not on the day we were there. The kind lady in the office said please come back to her if we had any questions. This is a must visit!

Lady at the desk asked if we wanted a guided tour and that it would be $15 (non-guided tours were…read more$13 but she didn't give us that option - we had to see that online after we left). We agreed but only got 15 minutes with a tour guide due to school groups. Wish they would've advised us that we wouldn't be getting the full experience and have a guide of the whole grounds. Bunch of different artifacts that doesn't go together and had no explanation of anything since we didn't have a tour guide. Founder was there and seemed rude to his staff.

This place was very interesting. We were on a girls trip to Colorado and went on a drive from…read moreDurango to Silverton to see the trees changing colors. We stumbled upon this museum and we were interested in seeing what they had to offer. It was a mining museum that had collections of rocks and minerals, uniforms and tools used by the miners and other items that were interesting. For those folks that need it, they do have a small elevator. This is also next to the restroom on the lower floor. Besides the rock/mineral room, I found the assay section interesting, where they had scales and weights used to weight the gold or minerals mined. In the gift shop I found two rocks I liked and bought them and a few postcards. Included in the tour is a visit to the jail and the quarters for the acting sherriff. The sherriff quarters had glimpses of a typical bedroom and kitchen for the late 1800's. My sister went to the jail and she said it was an open room with an iron ball with lots of chains to connect the prisoners to. Outside the jail is caboose used to haul minerals from the mines.

Tried to visit the museum but it was closed. The only small indication was a small notice on one of…read morethe building's doors. We tried to call the museum's number to see if they had an outgoing recorded message with more information, but no answering machine and no-one answered. While restaurants and shops in Silverton were open post COVID, doing business carefully with social distancing, mandatory masks, limited capacity and so forth, this museum is closed :(( I think it's a huge miss because tourists could bring some much needed funds, if they were only given a chance. While perusing around the museum's grounds we witnessed other 3 cars stopping by and trying to visit to no avail. I wish I could give them more stars, but I am literally giving them one star each for the two things we were able to visit...the train car from the Durango & Silverton railroad and the grounds we strolled upon.

Fun and educational! Very friendly staff. Everything was clean, well kept. Lots of great things in…read morethe gift shop. Reasonably priced. Plenty of parking. Would stop again.

I found this to be an excellent addition to my San Juan trip. Coming back from Ouray to Denver, I…read morewas tempted to stop in here after seeing it. I'm glad I did! For only $6, you can see a huge amount of artifacts and history collected into one place. They recently redid the building, so it's very new and clean inside. There's a nice winding path that takes you all through the Ute Story, from the creation and Bear Dance, to interaction with other tribes, and the eventual coming of the white man and their put into reservations. It's very touching and somber, but enlightening as well. The Utes roamed, loved, hunted and camped nearly all the Rocky Mountains we play in now. Do yourself a favor and see the history that was here before many of us came, and still lives on to this day!

Great museum in Creede! It was raining during our visit so this was a great option for us…read more We did the 30 minute audio tour which was well done and informative. The museum was 50 degrees inside and they do have community jackets that can be borrowed during your tour. There is also a gift shop where you buy your tour passes.

Fantastic displays of history. The family contribution at the end of the tour was incredible.read more

Oh gosh.. we joined the historical special ghost tour and we learned so much about Lake City!…read more Loved learning about the cat houses, the Wild West way of dealing with "bad people", Alfred Packers mark on the town, and cool, little known facts about some of the buildings... we even met a local who has encountered many ghosts ... but I will leave this for you to enjoy when you stop by the museum

This is a wonderful local museum with a great staff. Stop by and see this place and learn about the…read morelocal history.

What a surprise and treasure. We've been to many museums in little towns this is one of the best…read moreI've ever seen. What an amazing collection and display of life in the 1800's. We drove by the museum on the way to and from the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. From the highway it didn't look like much but my husband wanted to stop. I was blown away by the extent of this collection. I highly recommend a visit.