BRILLIIANT

NAME: Brilliant COUNTY: Colfax ROADS: 2WD GRID #(see map): 3 CLIMATE: Mild winter, warm summer BEST TIME TO VISIT:Spring, winter, fall

COMMENTS: Not Much Left REMAINS: A few partially intact buildings. The following towns: Gardnier, Swastika, Brilliant, and Blossburg are now part of Vermejo Park Ranch owned by Ted Turner and are now private gated property.  You can no longer visit them unless you have premission and you probably won't as it is a hunting reserve with no less than a $450 per night stay.  Ted Turner believes in reclaimation work and has taken it upon himself to bulldoze many of the exsisting structures of some of the towns and you will be luckily to find even stones of said previous structures.  I believe some of the old coke ovens for Gardnier may be viewed from the Raton golf course, but that's as close as you will probably get. In addition, Turner is not a preditor hunter and the bear and coyote population have skyrocketed.  It's not uncommon to find grizzly or black bears at these locations.  If you can get in a 4 wheel drive is good, but the road is in fairly good condition and is regrated often by another property owner who lives at the top of the canyon.  You will have to make it through severial posted and locked gates however.  You need to up date these towns so folks will not be dissapointed when they arrive to find them locked.

The town of Brilliant was owned by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad and took form in 1906. It was a coal-mining town supplying coal to the Santa Fe Railroad for locomotive use. In 1907, the population was 350 and supported a telephone company, a school, several hotels, a boarding house, mercantile stores, a sheriff and a town doctor. The town continued a lively existence until 1935. Today no one lives there but there are a few partially intact buildings to mark the site. Courtesy Henry Chenowith.

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