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Ridgway is situated in the heart of the rugged San Juan Mountains.  We are the Gateway to all the great mountain activities including mountain biking, fly fishing, boating, hiking, horse back riding, hot air ballooning, cross country skiing, down-hill skiing, snowmobiling and jeeping.  Our history is based on ranching and railroad.  The town offers an incredible small but informative Railroad Museum

The True Grit Cafe was built to recognize Ridgway's movie making history.  Back in 1967, Paramount decided to film the movie "True Grit" starring John Wayne, Glen Campbell and Kim Darby here in Ridgway, Colorado .  Sitting in the 'Grit', you can look out over the Town Park and see where the hanging scene was filmed, right behind the park is the old Train Depot you can see in the movie and if you just tilt your head up and look at the mountains you can see the famous Chimney Peak that is shown prominently in the big shoot out scene in the movie.  Ridgway has quite a history with two other movies that were filmed here including parts of "How the West Was Won" with Debbie Reynolds and John Wayne and "Tribute to a Bad Man" with James Cagney.  In nearby Silverton, " Northwest Passage " with Jimmy Stewart and "Naked Spur" with Gary Cooper were filmed.  Many commercials have been filmed out here including winter commercials for Wells Fargo Bank, Anheuser Busch and print ads for the Marlboro Company.