Calumet, Colorado

Calumet is a former mining town founded in 1904, near the portal of the Calumet Coal Mine complex. Calumet is now a ghost town in Huerfano County, Colorado, United States, northwest of Walsenburg.[1] One of the mines, Calumet No. 2, was briefly owned by Henry J. Kaiser and maintained by Kaiser Steel[2] between 1924 and 1971. Although small even for an underground coal mine, in 1961, the Calumet Mine was the county's leading producer.[3] The name Calumet refers to a type of ceremonial pipe.[4] The hamlet never did grow large enough to have its own post office and was abandoned by the 1970s.

Contemporary Calumet, and Colorado State Highway 69.

Red Dawn

A fictionalized version of Calumet, Colorado, not as a tiny ghost town but as a fairly vibrant community with a substantial population, was depicted in the 1984 war film, Red Dawn. Calumet is the movie's central setting. This created town of Calumet was chosen to be the film's central location so that it could be related to almost anywhere in the US, an ambiguous American township with deliberately vague landmarks and names. This town was originally to be Calumet, Michigan but due to the isolated location of Calumet, Michigan, it made more sense to base it in a central state, like Colorado. The choice of Calumet, Michigan was made by a producer who came from the area of Calumet, Michigan.

Red Dawn was actually filmed in the town of Las Vegas, New Mexico, the "stand-in" for the fictionalized version of Calumet.[5]

References
  1. Calumet Colorado
  2. "Miners ABC". kmitch.com.
  3. "Huerfano County news". kmitch.com.
  4. Dawson, John Frank (1954). Place names in Colorado: why 700 communities were so named, 150 of Spanish or Indian origin. Denver, CO: The J. Frank Dawson Publishing Co. p. 12.
  5. "Red Dawn (1984)". IMDb. 10 August 1984.


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