No history of ghost towns would be complete without a town named Quartz. There was a mining camp near the summit of Cumberland Pass about six and a half miles north of Pitkin. Information is scarce but what there is seems to indicate the Quartz existed about the same time as Pitkin and the other boomtowns in the area. It apparently was a fairly substantial settlement since there are still some ruins remaining, including a large mine building. Submitted by Henry Chenoweth.

Although practically nothing of the town remains today, before the turn of the century, Quartz was home to several hundred residents. At that time, the area was overtaken with gold fever and a gold rush all of its own. Quartz served as the freight transfer depot for the surrounding towns. Train cargo was transferred to wagons in Quartz for the journey over the Cumberland Pass to Tincup. In addition to the freight transfer and its ore sampling works, Quartz also boasted a jail on wheels. The town never bothered to build a brick and mortar jail and instead opted to use two old train box cars to house its outlaws. Ten miles from the junction of Quartz and Hwy 765 is the Alpine Tunnel. This tunnel pieces through the Continental Divide and is a monument to one of the world's must spectacular railroad engineering feats. Submitted by: Kevin Ward