The job at Ouray Silver Mines seemed like a perfect fit for Brenda LeBrun: a chance to experience a new, beautiful place and to learn new skills working for the mine.

She arrived in Ouray in early May to work as a warehouse tech, at the mine site high on Camp Bird Road and in town on Highway 550. She’d worked as an underground operator at a mine in Montana, and working “on the surface” here offered a nice change.

LeBrun, 38, had visited Ridgway twice before, and both times, she could see her...