Calhan Paint Mines, CO
The Paint Mines are a collection of eroded gulches of sandstone-capped clay colored by leaching
minerals, ghost-white hoodoos and elaborate labyrinths of eroded rock.
They cut through the landscape southeast of Calhan, where they have formed over millions of years. Resembling the fantastical gullies and drainages of the Badlands of South Dakota, the Paint Mines lie in the valley of the Big Sandy Creek drainage, a tributary of the Arkansas River.
They are named for clays found there, thought by archaeologists to have been used by American Indians to make paint.
The colors — butterscotch yellows, rusty oranges and faded greens that glow in the sunlight that scorches the surrounding landscape — have attracted humans for thousands of years.
Time hasn’t eroded people’s curiosity about the mines, says Donna Sheeter, superintendent of interpretation for El Paso County Parks.
“Everyone has their own special interest in the site. That’s what is so fascinating about it. Some people are attracted by the archaeology, others the history, the plant life, the prairie, the photographic opportunities. Some folks just like the colors and the formations.”