Uravan (a contraction of uranium/vanadium) is a former uranium mining town in western Montrose County, Colorado, United States, which still appears on some maps. The town was a company town established by U. S. Vanadium Corporation in 1936 to extract the rich vanadium ore in the region. As a byproduct of vanadium extraction, small amounts of uranium were also produced, at the time mostly used as a yellow pigment for ceramics. The town was located approximately south-southwest of Grand Junction along the San Miguel River. At one time, over 800 people lived in Uravan, and the town housed a school, a trading center (store), medical facilities, tennis courts, a recreation center, and a pool. The school and some other facilities remained operational until at least 1983, however Uravan was shut down by mid-1985, and no trace of its former buildings remain. Uravan is now an uninhabited, undeveloped Superfund site. Prehistory There are several prehistoric sites near Uravan on the Colorado State Register of Historic Properties: Dolores Cave was inhabited from about 600 BC to AD 1400. A corn cob dated about AD 1500 was found in the site, which indicates that corn was grown in the area after the Ancient Pueblo People (Anasazi) abandoned their Colorado pueblos in the 13th century. Tabeguache Cave II is a large prehistoric rock shelter occupied from about AD 600 - 1500. There is also a Tabeguache Cave and two other rock shelters near Nucla, Colorado. History Gold In 1885, placer gold was discovered in a tributary of the San Miguel River, Mesa Creek, nine miles from Nucla, Colorado. The Montrose Placer Mining Company constructed the Hanging Flume on the east wall of Dolores River Canyon. 20th century uranium mining During World War II, Uravan provided part of the uranium needed by the Manhattan Project for the first atomic bomb. Because of wartime secrecy the Manhattan Project would only publicly admit to purchasing the vanadium, and did not pay the uranium miners for the uranium ore (in a much later lawsuit, many miners were able to reclaim lost profits from the U.S. government). In the beginning of the Cold War, to ensure adequate supplies of uranium for national defense, the United States Congress passed the U.S. Atomic Energy Act of 1946, creating the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) which had the power to withdraw prospective uranium mining land from public purchase, and also to manipulate