St Elmo ghost town Sawatch Range Ceramic Art Tile

Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.

Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.

Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.

St. Elmo sits at 9,961 feet in Chaffee County, in the Sawatch Range of the Rocky Mountains. It lies about fifteen miles southwest of Nathrop, at the end of Chaffee County Road 162, within the Pike-San Isabel National Forest.

St. Elmo was a silver and gold mining settlement founded in 1880. The Denver, South Park and Pacific Railroad reached it in 1881, but the line was abandoned in 1922 as mining declined, and the permanent population dropped to almost nothing. Many original buildings still stand.

The settlement was first named Forest City in 1880, but the name conflicted with another Colorado post office. Within months the residents renamed it after Augusta Jane Evans's 1866 novel St. Elmo, one of the most widely read American novels of its era.

From Nathrop on US-285, take Chaffee County Road 162 west for about fifteen miles past Mount Princeton Hot Springs. The graded road is passable by passenger car in summer and closes to vehicles once winter snow arrives, typically from November through May.

Yes. The townsite is publicly accessible and the General Store opens seasonally in the warmer months. The town is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and looked after in cooperation with the St. Elmo and Chalk Creek Canyon Historical Society.

Mount Princeton at 14,196 feet and Mount Antero at 14,269 feet are within view. Higher into the canyon are the Mary Murphy Mine, the Hancock townsite, and the Alpine Tunnel approach. Tincup Pass, an old four-wheel-drive route, crosses the Continental Divide to the west.

The General Store has sold small bags of feed at the porch for years, and the chipmunks at St. Elmo are habituated to people. They are most active from June through September and will sit on the railings looking for crumbs.

St. Elmo is one of the best-preserved ghost towns in Colorado, and people who have driven Chalk Creek Canyon tend to remember it. A Small or Medium reads well on a side wall; a Coaster Set carries the same image into everyday use. A handwritten note from the studio is included.

The art lives in a palette of weathered timber, alpine green, and stained-glass jewel-tones, which sits comfortably in Mountain-modern, Cabin-revival, and Jewel-tone Maximalist rooms. It also reads alongside other Sawatch and Rocky Mountain pieces in the WenderVista atlas.

Mountain-modern reading rooms and Colorado vacation rentals lean into reclaimed timber and stained-glass colour, both of which the St. Elmo art carries. A single Large above a console works as the anchor of a small wall; a 4-tile Mural extends it without crowding.

Above a console or sideboard, a single Large reads as the anchor. Above a standard sofa, a 4-tile Mural fills the wall with room to breathe on either side, and a 9-tile Mural becomes the visual centrepiece for a larger room.

Yes. The Dura Satin finish resists scratches and stands up to backsplashes, showers, and powder-room walls. The Matte finish has the same durability with no sheen. The Glossy finish is best for framed wall art in dry rooms.

A microfibre cloth and water. The colour lives in the surface itself, slowly infused under high heat and pressure, so it does not lift with ordinary cleaning. Avoid abrasive pads and harsh solvents.

Yes. Every WenderVista tile is original work by Reid Wender, hand-finished in the studio in Knoxville, Tennessee. There is no licensing of outside imagery; the atlas is one curator's eye.