La Plata Historical Society 2025

HISTORY LA PLATA

A publication of the La Plata County Historical Society

A Thousand Years of La Plata County History in 30 Years of History La Plata Publications

From the President

BY SIDNY ZINK

Thirty years ago, my predecessor, Duane Smith, wrote a letter for the very first edition of this publication. While much has changed since then, some challenges—like the rising cost of local real estate—remain the same!

Today, our Education Program continues to bring local students to experience the Turn-of-the-Century Classroom, keeping history alive for younger generations. While the Historic Bus Tours have faded over time, the “Summer Lecture Series” has evolved into the “Second Saturday Seminar Series,” allowing us to share and preserve our local stories with history lovers both near and far.

In this edition of History La Plata, we honor Duane Smith’s legacy and his invaluable contributions to the Historical Society. We also take a look back at the thousands of years of history explored in the past three decades of this publication, revisiting articles that have chronicled our shared past.

Through it all, our mission has remained the same: to collect and preserve the history of Durango and La Plata County.

Thirty years later, history is still alive, still relevant, and still guiding us toward the future. ❧

From the 1995 issue of History Durango

Looking Back...at History

THE HISTORY LA PLATA TEAM

Historic Durango was first inserted into The Durango Herald by the La Plata County Historical Society in 1995. Over the years, it grew in size and popularity. In 2011, we changed the name of the publication to History La Plata to reflect the Society’s commitment to sharing the history of the entire county. This edition revisits articles from the 30 years of History La Plata to walk us through thousands of years of local history. Some of the authors are no longer with us, while others are still actively committed to our history. We salute all the volunteer researchers, writers, and editors who have contributed to this award-winning publication

over the years. Thank you to the Ballantine family and The Durango Herald for their unflagging support. And a special thanks to our sponsors who have supported our efforts. Please patronize them and tell them how much you appreciate their commitment to preserving our history.

Some of the articles have been edited for length or to reflect new information that has come to light since their original publication. Contemporary locations have been updated, as needed, as have references to lapsed time. You can access the entire 30 years of History La Plata publications online at www.animasmuseum.org. ❧

Images and artifacts from the Animas Museum’s collection. More information about these treasures can be found throughout this issue.

Remembering Duane Smith (1937-2024)

BY ROBERT MCDANIEL

Itook my first college history class from Duane Smith in 1968, only four years after he had accepted a position at Fort Lewis College after earning a PhD at the University of Colorado. Inspired by Duane’s teaching style, I abandoned mathematics to major in history. Thus began a long association with Duane in the history business.

For decades, Duane’s history classes were among the most popular at Fort Lewis College. He had a remarkable ability to make history come alive. For example, the “final” for his innovative Baseball & the American Dream class included a baseball game played with 1800s rules. His focus on the human aspect of history was key. While places, events, and chronology all play a fundamental role in the telling of history, it’s people who make it interesting. Duane was a master at incorporating the human element in his teachings and writings.

During his decades-long teaching career at Fort Lewis College, Duane became one of Colorado’s most decorated professors. Among his numerous awards were Fort Lewis

College’s Alice Admire Award for Outstanding Teaching in 1978 and the Colorado Professor of the Year Award in 1990.

On top of a full schedule of teaching, researching, and writing, Duane found time for extensive service to his community. In the late 1970s and 1980s, it was said that he averaged over 60 lectures or talks a year for community groups. He also served on a variety of community boards and committees, including long service on the La Plata County Historical Society Board of Directors.

Along with Amy Thompson, Duane started one of the Historical Society’s longest-running and most popular kids’ programs—the Turnof-the-Century Classroom experience in the Animas Museum’s restored school room. Dressed as the principal, Duane taught 4th graders about the experience of living in and attending school in Durango in 1908.

Three years after starting his teaching career, he published Rocky Mountain Mining Camps—The Urban Frontier, the first of some 50 books he authored on mining, the West, Colorado history, the Civil War, baseball history, Mesa Verde National Park,

women’s history, Fort Lewis College, and Durango-area history. As a result of his expertise, Duane was selected to appear in many video productions, most recently in Ken Burns’ monumental series, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. When Duane and his wife, Gay, moved to Durango in 1964, the community was in the process of losing many of its historic structures in the name of “progress.” Perhaps the most devastating loss was the majestic 1891 brick and stone courthouse in August 1964. Duane and others understood that Durango was losing its architectural heritage and that the town’s western flavor—along with popular attractions like the Silverton railroad, nearby historic mining towns, and Mesa Verde National Park—was a key economic driver. Duane became an outspoken advocate for historic preservation in Durango and throughout Colorado. He was

a charter member of the City of Durango’s Historic Preservation Board in the late 1980s and later served on the Colorado Historic Preservation Review Board.

During his decades-long teaching career at Fort Lewis College, Duane became one of Colorado’s most decorated professors.

His efforts to preserve local historic landmarks included spearheading the drive to save Durango’s only remaining smelter smokestack, which he saw as the perfect monument to the mining and smelting industries that once drove Durango’s economy. While that effort ultimately failed, efforts to restore the old courthouse’s historic clock and bell in the new wing of the courthouse and the preservation/ restoration of the Animas City School succeeded.

The fruits of Duane’s efforts can be seen everywhere in our community and across the state of Colorado. His lifetime of achievement in the fields of history and community service garnered him many awards, all richly deserved. ❧

Duane Smith in one of his favorite roles as the principal in the Turn-of-the-Century Classroom experience at the Animas Museum. photo credit : Image courtesy of the Animas Museum

Geologic History Animas Valley of the

BY JONATHAN HARVEY, PHD

The landscape of southwest Colorado is the result of billions of years of tectonic upheaval, accumulation of sediment, violent eruptions, and carving by glaciers. The oldest rocks in the region are the igneous and metamorphic rocks that are exposed from Bakers Bridge north and east into the Weminuche Wilderness. Draped over that strong foundation is a great thickness of varied, colorful strata that record changing environments in the region. Some examples include the gray marine limestones of the Hermosa Cliffs along Highway 550, the red sandstones and mudstones found in the red cliffs

just north of Durango, and the tan sandstones and gray shales of downtown Durango and Horse Gulch.

More recently (~60 million years ago), the San Juan Mountains formed during a period of uplift and volcanic activity.

A series of large supervolcano eruptions piled up volcanic debris (covering much of the eastern San Juans). Hot, mineral-rich water circulated around those volcanoes, depositing economic minerals in veins. These deposits would eventually lay the groundwork for the mining boom that brought great numbers of people to the high country in the late 1800s.

These days, the Animas River drains away from the San Juan Mountains along

a deep glacial trough that was carved into the bedrock during a series of ice ages. During each ice age, the tongue of ice extended from Molas Pass down the Animas Valley as far as the north end of Durango; the terminus can be seen in the ridge of bouldery gravel (moraine) running along 32nd street. These glaciers spread broad sheets of river cobbles in outwash plains downstream, building the nice, flat benches on which most of Durango’s neighborhoods are built (including Skyridge, Riverview, Crestview, and “The Grid”). We are now enjoying a relative warm period, and the glaciers have fully retreated to reveal the magnificent landscape we call home. ❧

This geologic specimen contains chalcopyrite, pyrite, and galena in a matrix of quartz. These sulfide minerals are chemically composed of metal atoms bonded to sulfur atoms. For chalcopyrite, the metal is copper. For pyrite, it is iron. For galena, it is lead. Each of those minerals represents a major ore for that metal. Much of the mining that occurred in the San Juan Mountains was focused on extracting these sulfides.

Animas Valley in the 1940s, looking north from (now) College Hill. The terminal moraine from glacial times is visible in the midground of the photo. Tilted sedimentary strata are visible on Animas City Mountain (left) and Missionary Ridge (right). The volcanic Needles are visible in the background. photo credit : Animas Museum Photo Archives 14.06.12

photo credit : Animas Museum Photo Archives 88.20.245

Originally published in the 2022 issue of History La Plata.

Early Prehistory

Animas River Valley of the

The Animas River valley was home to various Indigenous groups before the Euroamericans and people of Spanish descent settled the lands around Durango. Up until about 500 years BCE (Before Common Era), these Indigenous groups were nomadic—meaning they moved about in search of food and the everyday life essentials—but were never fully tied to a specific location. Archaeologists use the term “Archaic” to refer to these people and their lifestyle. The Archaic also designates a period that began as long ago as 6000 BCE. The Archaic lifeway was replaced by one where corn, squash, and to a lesser degree beans supplied a major portion of the diet. Large and small game and wild plant foods augmented a corn-heavy diet. The “Basketmaker II” people, who appear to have migrated into our area around 350 years BCE, brought their seeds with them along with

the knowledge of how, when, and where to plant and grow their crops. They settled into small villages close to their fields and built the first semi-permanent houses in this valley. People were invested in the land in an entirely new way. They could not leave their crops unattended for long: someone had to stay in the villages year-round.

The best-known Durango Basketmaker II sites are the two rock shelters in the cliffs above Hidden Valley and two sites below the rock shelters along the terraces of the Animas River and near natural hot springs. The sites of the Falls Creek Rock Shelters (Rock Shelters), the Darkmold site, and Talus Village—each professionally excavated— supply most of our current information on the Durango Basketmakers. Radiocarbon dates on corn and perishable artifacts such as yucca cordage and baskets, along with treering dates, confirm that the Basketmaker II

people occupied the Animas River valley for up to 800 years. Archaeologists now suspect that influxes of Basketmaker II people brought artifacts and ideas to and from the Animas River valley from neighboring regions to the south and west.

Artifacts, perishable and non-perishable, and scientific analyses from the Durango Basketmaker II sites tell the story of a highly successful population who weathered environmental, physical, and nutritional stress, but the data do not indicate a population subjected to significant conflict. The primary weapon of the Basketmaker II was the atlatl or spear thrower. The atlatl consisted of two primary parts, a detachable shaft tipped with a stone dart point and a hand-held thrower. Dart points were made from local materials and from non-local such as obsidian (volcanic glass) from the Jemez Mountains in New Mexico. Stone was used for making everyday items such as knives, scrapers, and grinding tools. Stone pipes used in ceremonial or curative ceremonies were found at all of the above sites. An array of bone tools, many of which were used for depulping yucca for fiber production, reveals that the Durango Basketmakers were skilled in the production of a range of perishable goods. Besides their exquisite baskets, they made sandals, gopher-skin pouches, feather blankets, rabbit- and deer-skin robes, flexible cradleboards, sleeping mats woven from reeds and juniper bark, and women’s yucca aprons, to name a few.

berries, and shell beads and pendants. The shell was traded into the area from the Sea of Cortez and the Pacific Ocean. Status was also reflected in the rock images on display at the Rock Shelters through images of flutes or whistles, masks, and body embellishments. Images of animals, abstract forms, and human figures occur as single motifs or as large, complex panels.

This long-lived and highly successful Basketmaker II period drew to a close around 500 CE (Common Era). I believe the social and economic systems we see among the present-day Pueblos have their beginnings in the Basketmaker II culture, in large part because of the introduction of agriculture. Direct lineages to the Durango Basketmaker II are found in some of the clan stories of the Hopi tribe. ❧

point

Social and/or economic status was communicated through the kinds and quantities of the funerary objects. Basketmaker II burials were accompanied by blankets, robes, aprons, baskets, pipes, and ornaments made from stone, bone, juniper

BY MONA CHARLES An updated addendum to an article published in the 2015 issue of History La Plata.

Site map from Morris & Burgh’s excavation of the North Shelter at the Falls Creek site in 1938. photo credit : From Basket Maker II Sites Near Durango, Colorado by Earl H. Morris and Robert F. Burgh

Replica of a wrench made from deer antler, possibly used to straighten dart shafts. The original was excavated by Morris and Burgh in the South Shelter at the Falls Creek site in 1938. photo credit : From the Animas Museum’s Collection 17.02.12

Replica of a side-notched projectile

made from red chert. The original was excavated from the Talus Village site north of Durango, Colorado, by Morris and Burgh in 1940. photo credit : From the Animas Museum’s Collection 17.02.3

THE OLD SPANISH TRAIL:

Durango’s First “Highway”

BY SCOTT SINGER (Updated and Edited by Robert McDaniel)

Originally published in the 1997 issue of Historic Durango and the 2021 issue of History La Plata.

In the century before the mining boom that put Durango on the map, southwest Colorado saw a succession of traders, missionaries, explorers, and mountain men traveling a route that became known as the Old Spanish Trail.

In the early 1700s, southwest Colorado was home to the Weenuchiu (Weeminuche) Band of Utes (now known as the Ute Mountain Utes). During that time, Spaniards from the settlements around Taos and Santa Fe established trade routes into the Ute territory of southern Colorado. There is also evidence that Spanish miners entered the San Juans in search of precious ore. There are no written accounts of these trading and mining excursions, however, as unauthorized travel into Ute territory was illegal.

In 1765, Juan Maria de Rivera made two official Spanish expeditions into southwestern Colorado. We know from Rivera’s journals that his route from Santa Fe crossed the river he named El Rio de las Animas (River of Souls) south of present-day Durango. From here, he ventured as far as the Colorado River crossing at present-day Moab. Information from Rivera’s expeditions no doubt provided valuable information for the next (and most documented) Spanish expedition into southwestern Colorado. On July 29, 1776, Fathers Francisco Atanasio Dominquez and Silvestre Velez de Escalante—along with eight companions— left Santa Fe, believing that by following Rivera’s path, a northern route to the Spanish missions in California could be established.

The party entered Colorado near presentday Carracas, crossed the San Juan River, and followed it west, crossing in succession the Rio de la Piedra Parada (Piedra River), Rio de los Pinos (Pine River), and Rio Florido (Florida River). On August 8th, they descended to the Animas River near Wilson Gulch, the present route of Highway 160. Here, the friars crossed the river and set up camp on the opposite bank, a location about four miles south of downtown Durango. Their journey continued the following day through Ridges Basin (the location of present-day Lake Nighthorse), eventually reaching the Rio de San Joaquin (La Plata River) about two miles south of the modern-day town of Hesperus.

Dominguez and Escalante continued to follow the approximate route of Highway 160, crossing the Rio de San Lazaro (Mancos River) just east of present-day Mancos, before moving on to the large southern bend of the river that Rivera had previously named Nuestra Señora de los Dolores (Our Lady of the Sorrows).

In the following months, the party made its way into northern Utah before turning south to Arizona, and finally back to Santa Fe. The portion of the route this expedition followed through southwestern Colorado saw more travelers once Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821, which opened legal trade with the Utes and American traders. It wasn’t until 1829 that the route to Los Angeles was finally traversed in its entirety.

Throughout the 1830s and 40s, the Old Spanish Trail was a primary route for fur trappers traveling between Taos and the fur-rich streams of the southern Rocky Mountains.

Throughout the 1830s and 40s, the Old Spanish Trail was a primary route for fur trappers traveling between Taos and the fur-rich streams of the southern Rocky Mountains. Many of the best-known mountain men who explored the Southwest traveled this trail, among them William Wolfskill, “Peg Leg” Smith, Etienne Provost, Kit Carson, and Antoine Robidoux. It was Robidoux who established a fur trading post on the Gunnison River near presentday Delta. His wife, Carmen, who outlived Antoine by a number of years, was buried in Durango when she died. After the fur trade declined in the 1840s, Robidoux and others traveled the eastern portion of the Old Spanish Trail trading in another commodity—slaves. Indians taken from their homes in Utah and Colorado were bartered in New Mexico and California—a practice that had been going on for decades.

As newer overland routes from the East were established to the north and south, traffic along the Old Spanish Trail declined. More people headed west to the gold fields in California or to settle in Oregon. But during the busiest periods of travel along the Old Spanish Trail, travelers who followed the route through the Durango vicinity represented various walks of life, from pious Franciscans to horse thieves to slave traders. The evidence of their passing is seen in the names of the landmarks and rivers around us, and it is said there are rust stains left on the rocks from the shod hooves of horses climbing up the west bank of the Animas River. ❧

The Old Spanish Trail followed an ancient path through the valley of Basin Creek, south of Durango. Ridges Basin Dam, partially seen left of center, and Lake Nighthorse have inundated an important section of that historic trail. photo credit : Image courtesy of Robert McDaniel

Travelers on the Old Spanish Trail likely camped in the lush valley of the La Plata River near Hesperus, where they had good pasturage and water. photo credit : Image courtesy of Robert McDaniel

CREATING LAND TO CALL HOME:

Ute Land Cessions

BY RUTH

When European explorers first came to the San Juan Mountains area, the land seemed empty and open; however, this region had been the traditional homeland of seminomadic bands of Utes for centuries. The increase in mining activities began to strain relations established under an 1848 treaty with the United States. Although conflicts abated during the Civil War, a new treaty in 1868 defined a reservation for the Utes in the area west of an approximate north-south boundary between Steamboat Springs and Pagosa Springs.

Regardless of treaty boundaries, miners and would-be settlers poured onto Ute lands. The public was determined to mine the riches of the San Juans. Under increasing pressure from the United States, the Utes entered into the Brunot Agreement in 1873, whereby they were to receive annual payments of $25,000 in exchange for ceding 3.5 million acres. Congress ratified the agreement in 1874, and a lengthy process to remove the Utes from their San Juan Mountains homeland began. This agreement opened the region for mining, homesteading,

and the beginnings of small communities north of present-day Durango.

Despite the opening of lands for mining and settlement under the Brunot Agreement, demand grew for yet more Indian land. For 17 more years, the federal and state governments continued their efforts to relocate the Southern Utes and open up more of their lands for settlement

In 1887, the Dawes Severalty Act allowed for individually held lands by tribal members through an allotment system. With the allotments, individuals were awarded 160 acres, and after meeting certain conditions, they could retain or sell their land. The principles of this act were formulated into the 1895 Hunter Bill, which specifically addressed Indian lands in Southwest Colorado. After discussion, the Mouache and Capote Ute bands (now the Southern Ute Tribe) accepted these terms, and members applied for allotments. The Weeminuche Band of Utes (now the Ute Mountain Tribe), located in the southwest corner of the state, opted to retain their lands in common.

Beginning in 1896, tribal members selected allotments; lands not selected for settlement

by Utes would be opened for non-Indian settlement. The lands made available were located south of Durango in a narrow 15-milewide band that extended east-west across the county known as the “Ute Strip.”

On May 4, 1899, the unclaimed Ute lands were opened for selection. Advance newspaper publicity produced expectations of a land rush, but the rush never occurred. Land could be claimed by one of two processes: settlers could “run” for the land, or (more sedately) file on a parcel in Durango. Individuals rode out of town, located their parcels, and put in stakes for identification. Upon their return to Durango, they would file on their parcels. One future Bondad resident ran from the New Mexico state line to claim his land just north of the line.

As a result of the general chaos, there are accounts of duplicate claims where one person filed in Durango and another ran for the land. In the Bondad/Elco area, one dispute resulted in the shooting of one of the claimants. The young daughter recounted her fear at seeing her father shot by another potential settler. This case eventually went to court and became the first claim settled by court in the county.

The first pioneers settled on available land in cold upper river valleys. After 1899, the former Ute lands provided climates that were more suitable for a broader range of agricultural products and ranching activities. With the opening of the Ute Strip and settlement of lower-elevation parcels, the population increased across the area and established new settlements, including

Allison, Tiffany, Oxford, Falfa, Bondad/Elco, Sunnyside, and La Posta.

Following the initial settlement, land parcels were actively advertised and marketed. In the Ignacio area, prospective settlers or speculators were encouraged to contact the Los Pinos Indian Agency superintendent for descriptive information and brochures on available properties. From 1899 to 1938, unclaimed land and allotments within the Ute Strip were actively bought and sold.

In 1934, Congress passed the Indian Reorganization Act (also known as the Wheeler-Howard Bill). This act attempted to reverse the past U.S. government policy to assimilate Native Americans through the allotment system, the erosion of tribal sovereignty, and the destruction of native cultures. It called for the creation of tribal governments and constitutions. The act called for the end of tribal allotments established under the Dawes Severalty and Hunter acts. As a result of the Indian Reorganization Act, 200,000 acres of Ute Strip land that had not been settled were returned to the Southern Ute Indian Tribe by Congressional order.

These policies and land practices have resulted in the checkerboard nature of the Southern Ute Indian Reservation. Today, reservation lands include tribal allotments from 1896 (primarily in the La Posta area), unallotted surplus lands purchased by nonIndians, lands relinquished to the tribe after 1938, and unallotted tribal land owned in fee by the tribe. ❧

THE BRUNOT AGREEMENT

Increasing tensions between the Utes and the miners and settlers forced the territorial government to renegotiate with the Utes for land. Felix Brunot curried the favor of Ouray, a Ute leader whom the government erroneously believed was the “chief” of all the Ute bands. Brunot was able to reach an agreement in the fall of 1873 with Ouray, which would allow for mining and settlement in the San Juans, La Platas, and the river drainages. A delegation was sent to Washington, D.C. for approval, which was ratified and signed by President Grant on April 29th, 1874. Read the original agreement at https://treaties.okstate.edu/

LAMBERT Originally published in the 2010 issue of Historic Durango.

Southern Ute encampment on the Pine River near Ignacio around 1900. Chief Buckskin Charlie (fifth from left) and Severo, Chief of the Caputa band (sixth from left), pose wearing ceremonial regalia with their families (including Emma Buck, fourth from right). Photo by Frank Gonner. photo credit : Animas Museum Photo Archives 91.33.16

CLAIMING THE VALLEYS AND THE RANGELAND:

The First Homesteaders and Cattlemen

BY JILL SEYFARTH Originally published in the 2010 issue of Historic Durango.

Calmer pioneers than their goldhungry prospecting counterparts, homesteaders and ranchers in southwestern Colorado entrusted their future to the land. As soon as the Brunot Agreement was signed on September 3, 1873, hopeful homesteaders filed for land in the Animas Valley as well as the fertile lands fronting the Florida, Pine, and La Plata rivers.

Prospectors had come to the Animas Valley in 1860 and liked what they saw, but abandoned the region with the onset of the Civil War. Some returned in 1874, among the stream of new farmers, including Seth Sackett, who had served in Company I of the Colorado Cavalry. Seth and his wife Edith homesteaded property in the informal settlement known as Hermosa, near the spot where the Durango and Silverton Railroad now crosses U.S. Highway 550. The Sacketts’ log cabin still stands today.

In those pre-Durango days, settlers gathered at an informal community near Hermosa Creek where Andrew Fuller and Charles Trippe operated a store. The partners established a post office—Hermosa—on July 27, 1876. Fuller served as the first postmaster. His neighbor, C.E. Dudley, planted fruit trees in 1877 and built a flour mill at his Hermosa ranch. A cemetery located to the east is still in use. Other early settlers included Frank Williams, Frank Trimble, Robert Dwyer, Richard Gaines, T.A. Kerr, and J.P. Lamb. Hugh and Candacy Lambert staked out the highly desirable waterfall property on the west side of the valley, setting the stage for a violent confrontation over water rights that characterized the greatest challenges of farming in southwest Colorado.

Mellie Gallegos McCluer came to the Florida River valley from the Pueblo area with their two children and a third on the way. Tim’s half-brother, David Murray, joined the group and helped with the wagons and the McCluers’ 800 head of cattle. They filed the first 160-acre homestead along the Florida River, on land located near present-day U.S. Highway 160.

John Taylor, a former slave who served in the Union Army during the Civil War, is believed to have settled in the Pine River valley before the 1873 Brunot Agreement. The homesteading Pargin, Wommer, Bates, and Patton families followed in 1877. The last part of the families’ journeys into the region may have been on a recently established toll road connecting Pagosa Springs to the fledgling town of Animas City. The homesteaders would have stopped at Pine River, a stage stop on the toll road, located on the east bank of its namesake north of present-day Bayfield. By 1878, the stage stop had grown into a town of about 100 people with a post office, store, hotel, stage station, and flour mill. Pine River enjoyed some prosperity for a short time but suffered from a fire. The town lost its post office in 1898.

Prospectors had come to the Animas Valley in 1860 and liked what they saw, but abandoned the region with the onset of the Civil War.

Unlike their land-owning counterparts, early stock growers grazed large herds of cattle over vast unfenced public acreages. The Grimes brothers brought a thousand head of cattle to the Pine River valley from Texas in 1875. They shared the Pine River drainage with many range men, including Charley Johnson, the O’Neals, and George Morrison. Johnson had more than a thousand head of cattle and was known for his racing horses.

that he remembered “....old man Cox and sons on the lower Animas perhaps ran the biggest outfit of all, with over 2500 head.”

East of the Animas Valley, settlers also filed for land in the Florida and Pine river drainages. In the spring of 1875, Tim and

Since they were transient and did not file for land, many of the “open rangers” left no historical record. A large English outfit run by the Carlyles was reportedly located in the Florida drainage. Bayfield area pioneer Herman Shroeder wrote in a memoir in 1929

Another giant outfit ran cattle in the western part of La Plata County. Trinidad cattleman George W. Thompson brought about 5,000 head of cattle to the open range east of the Mancos River. His grazing area was recognized on the 1874 Hayden Expedition maps as “Thompson Park.” By 1880, the range area of Thompson’s Two Cross Ranch stretched from the La Plata Mountains into northwestern New Mexico. Like many of the open-range ranchers, Thompson moved away in about 1884 as homesteading and fencing cut into the immense stretches of land he had used for livestock.

Early homesteaders near Thompson’s range included farmers in Hay Gulch who supplied nearby Fort Lewis in the 1880s. Pioneering families like the Aspaases and Stecklers saw opportunities at the fort

and in the nearby mines. More than a few homesteaders in the area worked their homestead claims in their spare time after full days in the Wildcat Canyon or Hesperus coal mines, or the silver and gold mines in La Plata Canyon.

More land became available in 1899 when the federal government opened the Ute Strip in southern La Plata County. This land rush brought new settlers to the Tiffany and Allison area as well as settlement and development of Marvel, Red Mesa, Kline, and the surrounding lands. Some of the last homesteads filed in La Plata County were in the 1930s. They were located south of Marvel in the Picnic Flat area and west of Cherry Creek. Some of these lands were not well-suited to agriculture, but the lure of free land was a powerful draw. By that time, the first homesteaders were old-timers in La Plata County with many stories to tell about the exciting times of settling new lands. ❧

Thomas A. Kerr’s 1876 homestead near Hermosa in August of 1912. photo credit : Animas Museum Photo Archives 01.13.1

THE RISE AND FALL OF ANIMAS CITY:

TheValley’s First City

BY JILL SEYFARTH

Long before anything other than jackrabbits lived in Durango, six speculators envisioned a town along the Animas River. These six men—J. D. Ankeney, Ruel Nute, Hemel Schwenk, Ira Smith, William Earl, and Canfield Marsh—formed the Animas City Townsite Company and bought John Fowler’s 640-acre homestead. Their property straddled the Animas River from just north of Junction Creek to the general location of present-day 37th Street. Animas City was carved out of Fowler’s homestead into lots, blocks, and streets. An official plat was recorded in the United States Land Office on September 6, 1876. The Townsite Company issued 32 shares at $100 per share. After two years, the company announced that it was debt-free, and the town voted to incorporate itself.

For founders Canfield Marsh and his sonin-law, William Earl, the project was one of numerous investments, including the Earl House, a hotel-restaurant-saloon that Earl and his wife Julia had established at the base of

Anvil Mountain in Silverton. Fellow founder Hemel Schwenk capitalized on his property to create one of Animas City’s first, and probably most popular, commercial establishments, known as the Schwenk and Will Saloon.

Animas City enjoyed modest prosperity as the supply site for miners, farmers, and ranchers in the sparsely populated southwest corner of Colorado. The town was connected to the mines and outside world via trails and toll roads. The major way into Animas City from Santa Fe or Denver was via a route that passed near the present-day location of Pagosa Springs. A northern route carried travelers over Stoney Pass, through Silverton, and south.

By August of 1877, Animas City had 45 houses, 150 people, four stores, and a post office. Two years later, the official population had grown to 250 and included a justice of the peace and a teacher. Within three years, Animas City had meat markets, druggists, dentists and doctors, blacksmiths, wagon makers, lawyers, liquor stores, livery

“Animas

stables, barbers, carpenters, saloons, and a newspaper, The Southwest. The Bank of the San Juan, the first bank in town, opened in September of 1880. Churches and schools were also early institutions in town. Animas City residents established the first school district in La Plata County (Animas No. 1).

The citizens of Animas City were a pragmatic bunch. One early ordinance required all able-bodied men between the ages of 21 and 50 to devote two days out of every six months to work on the town’s streets and alleys. Non-workers were taxed $2 a day.

Tended streets or not, Animas City’s salad days ended in 1880 when the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad decided to build its own town, to be named Durango. With the modern convenience of a railroad and the full backing of the railroad’s real estate company, Durango lured businesses and homeowners alike. Animas City did not stand a chance.

Despite a large-scale exodus to Durango, the much-subdued little town still had some scrappy residents. The two towns sat side by side through the early 1900s, the Great Depression, and World War II. The strains of a big growth spurt after the war led to Animas City’s ultimate demise.

hardball and proposed that Durango forgive the water bill debt in exchange for a use agreement for their sewer facilities. Durango did not agree to the terms, and negotiations eventually broke down.

Additionally, the old ordinance requiring residents to tend to the streets was not working. The streets and the bridge over the Animas River at 32nd Street needed extensive maintenance and improvements.

Animas City enjoyed modest prosperity as the supply site for miners, farmers, and ranchers in the sparsely populated southwest corner of Colorado.

In need of water and in debt, Animas City reluctantly addressed the possibility of annexation into Durango. The idea was not well-received by many long-time residents. Informational meetings were held at the Animas School, followed by a week-long, rather slanted series in the Durango Herald-Democrat. Many residents like Josephine Yeager appreciated the benefits of the annexation. “My life got much easier because we could get City of Durango water after the annexation,” she recalled in a 2003 interview.

The vote on October 28, 1947, approved annexation 294 to 114. The town’s ordinance declared that Animas City would officially be annexed into the City of Durango on January 1, 1948, but the first annexation plat was not recorded until May 13.

A housing crunch after World War II, combined with an incipient oil boom in the region, sparked the development of properties in both towns. Animas City officials thought they had leverage with Durango, which wanted access to Animas City’s sewage lines. Already in debt to Durango for water services, Animas City decided to play

As part of the annexation, the streets were renamed and the city lots and blocks were renumbered to maintain consistency within Durango. Although the streets in Animas City were originally named for each of the six founders, only William Earl’s name has survived as Earl Street at the north end of town. ❧

Originally published in the 2006 issue of Historic Durango.

The Elkhorn Club around 1880, Animas City, CO. photo credit : Animas Museum Photo Archives 92.21.214

City 1876–1880” by Andy Chitwood. photo credit : Animas Museum

TheRailroad Arrives

BY ALLEN NOSSAMAN Originally published in the 2006 issue of Historic Durango.

Engineering has challenged the Rocky Mountains with numerous projects, but few have been as costly and complicated as the Denver & Rio Grande (D&RG) Railway’s successful effort to reach Silverton and Durango in the early 1880s.

The railroad, which had concentrated its earlier construction along the Front Range and in the Arkansas River valley, was so attracted by the projected mineral wealth of gold and silver mines around seven-year-old Silverton that it attempted—and completed— what was at the time the most ambitious raillaying project ever undertaken in the Rocky Mountain region.

The railroad had reached Alamosa by 1880. Silverton was approximately 110 miles northwest, but instead of taking one of several routes it had already surveyed, the D&RG astounded almost everyone by setting out on a complex choice that would ultimately cover 245 miles and cross the border between the State of Colorado and New Mexico Territory eight times. One reason for this unusual choice was the extensive coal resources present along this southern route, primarily in and near the Animas River valley. The other was the enormous potential of a new railroad town named Durango, for which the railroad and its connected companies became surveyors, platters, and salesmen.

Animas City—centered around what is now 32nd and Main—was already in existence, but as it had done at Colorado Springs, Salida, and Antonito, the D&RG avoided an existing town in favor of one of its own making. Still roughly 50 miles removed from Silverton, the city of Durango was prophetically devised to not only give the railroad a place to maintain and store equipment but to tap what would soon become a rich agricultural, livestock, and mining region on its own.

It was thus in the spring of 1880 that surveying, grading, and track-laying crews successively started out of the San Luis Valley, literally breathing down each other’s necks en route to the Animas Valley. Their path was one upon which virtually no surveying work had been done, and which represented the most rugged terrain yet penetrated by an American railroad. Challenges encountered on Cumbres Pass and the Toltec Gorge were monumental. A railroad which had never built a tunnel had to come up with two of them, and it ultimately took 63 miles of track to cover the 35 miles between the stations at Antonito and Chama. The first survey stake at Durango’s site was driven on September 13, 1880, but railroad

grading crews were only then working their way up the east side of Cumbres Pass. Railroad lobbying efforts for a post office at Durango were rewarded on November 19, 1880, but that was six weeks before the company was able to operate trains to the summit of Cumbres Pass—and still well short of the Continental Divide. The task of reaching the brand-new railroad town at Durango was a massive one. One company report indicated the railroad had more than 1,000 men and nearly 400 teams at work on various aspects of the construction at any given time.

The D&RG began running trains into Chama, New Mexico—an equally new town it had staked out in the valley of the Rio Chama—in January 1881. By then, surveyors and graders were working over easier terrain west of Chama. This included an innocuous crossing of the Continental Divide at a point actually lower than Chama. Slogging through first snow, then the mud it created, rail crews first paralleled the Rio San Juan and later reached another of the company’s new towns at Arboles, on the banks of the Rio Piedra, where trains started running the second week of June, 1881.

One month later, workmen were spreading freshly cut ties along Railroad Street in Durango. The tracklayers reached Durango the morning of July 27, 1881, and a work train chugged into the corporate limits of the town that same afternoon. The train likely included a special car that was used by the first agent, Frank Jackson, until a depot could be erected. To mark the arrival of this first steam locomotive, John L. Pennington ceremoniously yanked one of the iron spikes out of a tie-plate, and with three blows, Durango mayor John Taylor Jr. drove a silver spike— made from ore out of a mine on Junction Creek—in its place.

The first passenger train arrived two days later, with only a few cars hauling dignitaries, among them railroad officer and Durango promoter Alexander

C. Hunt and his son, Bruce, one of the new town’s first merchants.

It was on the southwest corner of the intersection of the new tracks and what is now Eighth Street that the first depot was built—an austere structure designed as a freight depot but which served as a telegraph office and passenger depot for longer than most had anticipated after its August 1881 opening. Wrangling over a site, then plans, then specifications for the projected passenger depot and office building delayed the erection of this structure from its mid-August inception until occupancy in late January 1882. While the freight depot is long gone, the passenger depot at the foot of what is now Main Avenue is in its 143rd year of service as the ticket office and headquarters of the Durango & Silverton

Narrow Gauge Railroad.

Coaling facilities, shop buildings, and a roundhouse were all erected in the railroad’s first year in Durango, with the roundhouse turntable going into service on December 9, 1881. Up until then, the D&RG turned its trains at the end of the line in Durango on an unusual elevated turning wye, the west end of which jutted out into space over what is now the intersection of US Highways 160 and 550. By the time the railroad was finally completed up the Animas Canyon to Silverton in the summer of 1882, Durango was everything its railroad-building founders had hoped it would be, with amazing volumes of people, ore, produce, livestock, and merchandise moving to and through the new metropolis by rail. ❧

Three children, likely of the Klahn family, and a burro in front of the newly laid railroad tracks in Durango, 1881. The Hogsback and Perins Peak are visible in the background. photo credit : Animas Museum Photo

Mother Mary Baptist Meyers

Sisters of Mercy

BY CHARLES DIFERDINANDO

Asmall band of three Sisters of Mercy, led by Sister Mary Baptist Meyers, arrived in Durango in April of 1882, via Conejos, Colorado, where the sisters had established a hospital two months earlier. They had come to Colorado from their Motherhouse in St. Louis, Missouri, at the invitation of Rt. Rev. Joseph P. Machebeuf, Roman Catholic Bishop of Colorado.

Bishop Machebeuf realized that the fastgrowing region of Southwest Colorado was in great need of health care, social services, and education. The Sisters of Mercy, whose mission was to provide these services, could help.

Soon after the Sisters arrived in Durango, they quickly set to work to secure suitable housing for themselves, buildings for a school and hospital, and financial backing for their venture. Durango in 1882 was still a boomtown, two years old and growing quickly. The city had outgrown its original boundaries, and the Fassbinder Addition north of the Animas River became a logical place for them to locate near St. Columba Catholic Church, which had been built in 1881 on land donated by Peter Fassbinder. Schoolrooms had been prepared in the church, and classes opened in May 1882. The bridge across the Animas on Main Street was considered so dangerous by the Sisters that

they did not want students using it, so they rented a building on the south side of the river for a school.

On May 27, 1882, two more Sisters arrived from Conejos after closing the hospital and school there, realizing the need was greater in Durango.

By the fall of 1882, a rather complicated educational and healthcare system had been implemented in Durango under the direction of Rev. Mother Mary Baptist Meyers. St. Columba Day School, St. Mary’s Industrial and Day School, a social service station, and Mercy Hospital of the San Juan opened on September 1st. The Sisters also cared for orphans brought to them, and made visitations to the poor, sick, and those in jail. Due to rapid growth, the schools changed locations several times between 1882 and 1883.

In 1883, a new building was constructed adjacent to St. Columba Church to house St. Mary’s School and Hospital. The industrial school became St. Mary’s Academy for Higher Education, a boarding and day school for young ladies. St. Columba School was the day school for both boys and girls of the town. Tuition from Academy students helped to finance the Sisters’ endeavors in the San Juan Basin.

With the guidance and planning of Rev. Mother Mary Baptist, construction began in 1884 on a new hospital. A 25-bed facility constructed of native sandstone opened in April 1885 in the 1900 block of East 3rd Avenue, a block east of the original hospital.

Rev. Mother Mary Baptist was an innovative administrator and an effective fundraiser. The Sisters developed an early form of HMO by subscribing railroad workers, mine workers, and other laborers at a small monthly fee for hospital care. The Sisters also contracted with La Plata County to provide such care.

In 1882, the county hospital was located in Animas City, and taxpayers were complaining about the cost of operating the hospital. Mercy Hospital agreed to provide indigent care for the county for a minimum of $800 a year, not to exceed $1,000, and the county commissioners accepted their offer.

After their early success in Durango, the sisters of Mercy, under the leadership of Rev. Mother Mary Baptist, went on to establish hospitals and schools in other Colorado communities such as Ouray, Cripple Creek, Manitou Springs, and Denver. The hospital in Durango began to outgrow its original building, and an addition was completed in 1893 to serve the growing San Juan Basin.

Rev. Mother Mary Baptist moved to Denver in 1889 and established another Motherhouse. She continued to lead the activities of the Mercy Foundation of Colorado from Denver, where a sanitarium, hospital, and nursing school were established, before being killed in a horrific train accident in 1901.

The Mercy Sisters’ legacy in Durango and Colorado continued after the death of Rev. Mother Mary Baptist. Many people living in the Durango area are alumni of St. Columba and Sacred Heart Schools, which were both staffed by Mercy Sisters until the 1970s.

Mercy Hospital has gone through many changes since its beginning in 1882. Even though there are no Mercy Sisters actively working in Durango in 2002, Mercy Medical Center continues to plan for the future and the construction of a new hospital to meet the needs of a growing population. Ironically, all other Colorado Mercy hospitals have closed, and the Durango Mercy Hospital, where it all began, continues into the 21st century.

Mercy Hospital moved to its new location in 2006. ❧

Originally published in the 2002 issue of Historic Durango.

The second Mercy Hospital as originally built in 1884; an extension was added in 1892. This photograph was taken by Frank Gonner in 1890. photo credit : Animas Museum Photo Archives

Rev. Mother Mary Baptist around 1882.

NATURAL RESOURCES:

Inviting and Impacting Development

BY ROBERT MCDANIEL Originally published in the 2005 issue of Historic Durango.

t was a land of milk and honey. With its abundant natural resources, southwest Colorado beckoned to the masses in the East and Midwest. Young men and women looking to start new lives, adventurers seeking to escape humdrum lives in civilized towns, entrepreneurs looking for investment opportunities—all were drawn to this untamed land full of promise.

The richness of this land has attracted and sustained people for centuries. Lush forests, abundant game, fertile soil, and adequate water supported a large Native population long before miners and farmers migrated to this area. Vagaries of climate and a tendency to overexploit available resources, however, challenged their ability to sustain life here. Future residents would learn these difficult lessons themselves.

The lure of gold and silver brought the first

white settlers to the San Juan Mountains in the early 1870s. Farmers and ranchers, attracted to the fertile river valleys of the San Juan River system, followed closely on their heels. Local outcrops of low-sulphur coal provided fuel for industries, homes, and businesses. Mining and agriculture, then, became the backbone of the local economy and remained so for decades. Water was an essential ingredient for both. Industrial plants like Durango’s smelters were located next to the Animas River, both to tap the water supply and to flush away wastes. Farms depended on irrigation to grow crops in the semi-arid climate. Falling water made hydroelectric generation possible—the Tacoma Power Plant, for example, went online in 1906. Water, in short, made all things possible. Lush forests of Ponderosa pine and Douglas fir provided the lumber to extend rail

lines and construct homes and businesses in the burgeoning towns. Overzealous lumber barons clear-cut vast expanses of these forests to supply both local and distant markets. The Forest Service was created in 1905, partly to better manage the nation’s forest reserves, and the San Juan National Forest was designated that same year. The twentieth century witnessed an inevitable decline in the mining and agricultural industries. Other natural resources picked up the slack. The incredible scenic beauty of this corner of Colorado had attracted tourists since the 1880s, but the trickle turned into a flood after World War II. By the end of the century, recreational uses had come to dominate the public lands. Scores of new residents continue to fuel a growth boom, impacting our economy and changing our communities.

This gusher was located in Long Hollow, south and west of Durango, and went into production in 1932. A number of oil wells drilled in Long Hollow from 1924 to 1927 were ultimately abandoned.

The San Juan Basin natural gas field has played a major part in the economy of the area since the first commercial gas well was drilled in 1921. The Basin also has a large area of coal-bed methane production. The local natural gas industry has been subject to the same boom and bust cycles as previous mining endeavors. Other energy resources in the San Juan Basin include relatively small oil reserves and uranium deposits.

Having an abundance of natural resources has been a blessing and a curse. Precious metal mines spurred initial settlement and drove the economy, but mining’s boom and bust cycles rocked the towns that depended on it. Farming and ranching provided more stability, but agriculture found itself at the mercy of a short growing season and periodic droughts.

Energy resource development pours money into our economy and contributes heavily to our tax base, but conflicts between producers and landowners result in community tensions. A landscape that offers inspirational views and endless recreational opportunities has lured thousands of new residents who, because of their sheer numbers, threaten the very quality of life that brought them here. Preserving our quality of life may be the greatest challenge of the twenty-first century. Doing so will require inspired leadership, balanced and informed decision-making, and wise use of our natural resources. ❧

Coal was an important natural resource for Durango and La Plata County. The 1920s coal operation seen here at the town of Perins, located on the backside of Perins Peak, was the last large-scale mining operation in La Plata County until King Coal opened in 1936. These coal miners are loaded onto mining carts to go into the coal mine. photo credit : From the Animas Museum Photo Archives 17.01.2

Durango literally owes its existence to the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. The railroad founded the town in September of 1880, and it grew quickly as the D&RG made its way to Silverton, carrying ore down to the newly built smelter in Durango and supplies and coal back up. Otto Mears, known as the “Pathfinder of the San Juans,” took notice of the new town. In 1881, he built a toll road from the new town to the mining camp of Parrott City via the Fort Lewis military post west of town, part of his network of 450 miles of roads.

In 1886, Mears built his last toll road, recognizing that horses, mules, and oxen were too slow and expensive; that railroads were faster and more cost-effective. He started building railroads over his toll roads, the first being the Silverton Railroad, completed in 1889, which connected Silverton to the mines in the Red Mountain District.

The Denver & Rio Grande considered an extension to the west from Durango but decided it was not feasible to build. After his success with the Silverton Railroad, Otto Mears realized that a railroad connecting Durango and Ouray could be built over his existing toll roads and would provide great economic benefits. By October 1889, enough of the route between Durango and the town of Dallas was surveyed for the Rio Grande Southern Railroad to be incorporated. With this knowledge and his experience, Mears had no problem raising money from New York investors to build the railroad.

The Rio Grande Southern (RGS) was a feat of railroad engineering in the difficult terrain of the San Juan Mountains. A town called Ridgway was established in 1890. Grading started that spring, but labor shortages and poor weather plagued the progress of construction. The RGS finally reached Durango on December 20, 1891, completing the route.

TheMost Improbable Railroad in the West

BY THE ANIMAS MUSEUM STAFF

These were the golden days for the RGS. The railroad thrived and prospered—mines were able to ship lower-grade ore more economically to the smelters, investors were encouraged by the progress, and more deposits of ore were discovered and mined. However, in 1893, Congress repealed

the Sherman Silver Purchase Act. Mines throughout the San Juans closed, forcing miners out of work. Mears tried his best to save the RGS but was forced into receivership in August of 1893.

For the next 60 years, the RGS kept going, always on the brink of disaster through

world wars, the Great Depression, and the harsh mountain climate. Finally, in 1952, the railroad filed for abandonment; equipment and tracks were scrapped by 1953. The “most improbable railroad in the west” still lives on in legend and countless model railroads around the world. ❧

Rio Grande Southern Locomotive #17, with crew, shown on the Ophir Trestle around 1895. photo credit : Animas Museum Photo Archives 01.32.1

Otto Mears, known as the Pathfinder of the San Juans, near Red Mountain around 1910. photo credit : Animas Museum Photo Archives 02.70.66

The Women Who Rescued the Ruins

BY JUDITH REYNOLDS

Tpublished in the 1997 issue of Historic Durango and again in 2021’s History La Plata.

hey met in parlors, poured tea, recited poetry, played Beethoven on an upright piano, and saved Mesa Verde—not bad for Colorado club women at the turn of the century.

Leading the charge to save Mesa Verde’s magnificent prehistoric ruins from “predation” stood the indomitable Virginia McClurg from Colorado Springs. As regent of the Colorado Cliff Dwelling Association, McClurg and her feminine army kept the issue of preservation before the public for more than a decade.

McClurg first visited Mesa Verde in 1882 as a correspondent for the New York Daily Graphic. Alarmed even then at the damage done by casual visitors and early relic hunters, McClurg returned again and again and began a campaign to preserve the “castled cliffs” for posterity. Official government protection was a long time coming.

The Durango women played a particular role in the long battle to save the ruins.

To accomplish this, McClurg had enlisted the support of women across America through the Federation of Women’s Clubs. McClurg had tremendous energy. Crisscrossing America, she gave nearly a thousand lectures on Mesa Verde. She also spoke (in French) to scientists in Paris at the exposition of 1900. She found supporters all over the globe, not the least of which were a number of Four Corners women, particularly the members of the Reading Club of Durango.

Twenty-four years after McClurg first gazed upon Mesa Verde, amazed and outraged, Congress finally passed a bill setting aside Mesa Verde as a national park. President Theodore Roosevelt signed it into law on June 29, 1906.

The turn of the century was a high-water mark in the era of American women’s organizations. Women knew that communities were built by individuals working together in groups. Jeannett Scoville, a charter member of the Reading Club, also belonged to the Ladies Library Association and the Village Improvement Society. Scoville and other club members first answered McClurg’s call in 1897, when the preservation message dominated a meeting of the State Federation of Women’s Clubs in Pueblo. The Durango women played a particular role in the long battle to save the ruins from curiosity seekers, relic hunters, and unscrupulous entrepreneurs.

While McClurg and her top lieutenants lobbied politicians in Denver and Washington, D.C., the Durango women kept the

preservation issue alive locally and acted as McClurg’s southwest Colorado contingent. When dignitaries traveled to Durango to see the ruins of Mesa Verde firsthand, Reading Club members met them at the depot, gave town tours, served sumptuous meals, and generally functioned as hosts. They also took on more daunting tasks.

According to historian Duane Smith’s history of Mesa Verde, McClurg and Durangoan Alice Bishop traveled to Navajo Springs in 1899 to convince Chief Ignacio to sign a rental lease for Mesa Verde. They didn’t succeed. Undaunted, a year later, Bishop and three Durango women traveled by train to Mancos, then by buggy to meet Ute leaders again. Much to their surprise, they succeeded, writes Smith, but the Secretary of the Interior refused to accept the “treaty.”

In 1903, Congress finally authorized official negotiations with the Utes. The signed agreement, however, wasn’t ratified by Congress until 1906. Meanwhile, numerous bills made their way into Congress only to die in committee. But by 1906, things had changed, largely due to the influence of McClurg’s army of women. Similar Senate and House bills made it onto the floor and were passed. Then Teddy Roosevelt made history by signing the final measure into law. ❧

Originally

Early visitors to Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde. photo credit : Animas Museum Photo Archives 06.43.1

Gathering of visitors in front of (likely) Sun Temple at Mesa Verde in the 1910s. photo credit : Animas Museum Photo Archives 92.22.157

The War with Nature

BY CHARLES DIFERDINANDO Originally published in the 2017 issue of History La Plata.

Two years into the war to end all wars, a new menace reared its head to threaten mankind and kill more people across the world than any war. The lowest estimate of the death toll is 21 million, but recent research estimates 50 to 100 million people worldwide died of influenza between 1917–19.

Influenza, or “La Grippe,” was a common disease that had affected humans for hundreds of years with periodic epidemics. The last epidemic of large scale was in 1889–90, but in the winter of 1917, a new lethal form of “flu” made its appearance in rural Kansas and spread to a military training camp. Part of the Fort Riley, Kansas, military complex, Camp Funston was one of the largest camps in the country, housing an average of 56,000 recruits. Most recruits and draftees from the western states were sent to Camp Funston, then deployed to other training camps around the country. Army Surgeon General Gorgas had planned for common disease outbreaks at training camps, but was powerless when this “New Flu” broke out. Civilian Surgeon General Rupert Blue was even less prepared when it broke out in the civilian population, telling people they would have to deal with it locally.

By March 4, 1918, cases of flu were being reported at daily sick call at Camp Funston. In three weeks, eleven hundred were in the hospital, and thousands more were being treated in infirmaries set up across the camp. Doctors reported that about 20% developed pneumonia and about 10% died. The disease was now an epidemic.

brought this new plague with them.

The draft had created a local labor shortage, and large employers such as the American Smelting and Refining Plant in Durango were forced to bring in labor from El Paso, Texas, to keep the plant at capacity. Those laborers brought their families and were some of the first flu deaths in La Plata County. The epidemic was now in Durango.

By early October, Durango reported seven cases of flu. Colorado State Health officials and the governor urged a statewide closure of schools, churches, theaters, picture shows, pool & billiard halls, and other public places. The lumber camp at El Vado, New Mexico, was infected and sent victims by train to Durango for treatment. Outbreaks were reported in Telluride, Rico, and other points on the Rio Grande Southern Railroad. Silverton was hit hard in late October. The Miner’s Union Hospital was full, and the city hall was converted into an emergency hospital. Durango’s Mercy Hospital and Ochsner Hospital were full as well. The Red Cross opened an emergency hospital in the Durango Exchange Rooms at the Century Building.

In a matter of days, Silverton went from 150 cases to 500.

By October 23, Colorado reported 9,000 cases of flu, including 250 cases in Durango. In a matter of days, Silverton went from 150 cases to 500. Undertaker R.E. McLeod was sick, so Durango undertaker Ray Goodman and Chester Black from New Mexico were sent to Silverton. Ninety-eight deaths had been reported in Silverton since October 16.

The Wilson White House and the military leadership didn’t want anything to interfere with troop movements, training, and deployment to Europe. Quarantine was not an option. They also didn’t want anything to affect national morale, so the epidemic was downplayed. The first military deaths from La Plata County were from flu and pneumonia. One of the county’s first draftees, twentyfour-year-old J.E. Mills of Tiffany, died at Camp Kearney, California. Guy Johnson, a Durango fireman, also died there after first being sent to Camp Funston. Durango newspapers carried reports of local boys who were sick at various training camps, and family members traveled to the camps to be with them. Some military personnel traveled home on furlough and

The Red Cross issued a plea for able-bodied men and women to volunteer as nurses for the community. Durango teachers, idled by school closure, answered the plea in total and worked helping stricken families, some becoming ill themselves. November 6 was Election Day. Voters at all polling places were supplied with sterile gauze masks provided by Democratic County Clerk candidate, Mrs. Ethel Jemison Porter.

On November 11, the day of the armistice ending the war, there was no special edition of The Durango Democrat due to illness among the printing crew. The flu had also hit the Ute Agency at Ignacio.

The flu continued to spread, but by December 18, it was subsiding. Health officials agreed to partially lift quarantine closures. Businessmen pushed for opening with Christmas on the way. Churches were allowed

to hold only one service or meeting per week. Pool and billiard halls could open. Lodges were allowed to resume weekly meetings, and picture shows could open on December 23. The editor of The Durango Democrat commented, “Good Joke... Quarantine has some peculiar things; the pool hall can be open 7 days a week, but churches only one!!”

Durango schools reopened on January 6, 1919, after being closed since October. Students and teachers were examined by health officials on opening day. La Plata County lifted the quarantine on January 8, except for dances.

On January 18, a Quarantine Notice was declared for all points on the Rio Grande

Southern Railroad due to new flu outbreaks. Animas City closed its school due to new flu cases, and later the Durango Red Cross reopened the emergency hospital because of the new outbreak.

Public health officials reported that from October 1, 1918, to January 7, 1919, there were 157 deaths in the city and county. Durango reported another outbreak starting February 19. On March 28, the Red Cross closed the emergency hospital in Durango. The number of cases in Durango continued to decline, but individuals were kept under quarantine. One of the last deaths attributed to flu, after two long years, was on May 8, 1919. ❧

photo credit : From the Durango Public Library’s digitized copies of The Durango Democrat, Fall 1918

Transition Time Narrow Gauge for the

BY JEFF JOHNSON

In 2023, the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad celebrated the 100th Anniversary of its three locomotives built in 1923. They have been in regular use between Durango and Silverton for over 70 years. The arrival of these class K-28 American Locomotive Company (ALCO) locomotives was only a small part of the noteworthy events and acquisitions on the narrow-gauge portion of the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad throughout the 1920s. The decade of flappers and jazz brought many changes to our little railroad, which are appreciated today on each trip between Durango and Silverton.

The original Denver & Rio Grande Railway (D&RG) was founded in 1870. By 1921, it had been through 50 years of rapid expansion, court battles, and receiverships. It had earned a dubious reputation by the early 1900s for safety issues resulting from deferred maintenance. In the early twentieth century, railroad magnates, bent on growth elsewhere, “reappropriated” what should have been the D&RG’s capital improvement funds. This resulted in a railroad with an

increasingly tarnished reputation due to track, equipment, and facilities neglect on this narrow-gauge line.

When the railroad reincorporated in 1921 as the Denver & Rio Grande Western (D&RGW), it was apparent that the narrowgauge lines linking Salida to Gunnison and Alamosa to Durango would need some heavy capital infusion to survive. D&RGW’s revenue opportunities and corporate growth were focused on the standard gauge route from Denver to Salt Lake City. The remnants of the old “baby railroad” would need support to allow it to operate into at least the next decade or two. Significant effort was spent replacing worn and by then outdated 1880s-era locomotives. Major rebuilds were launched on hundreds of 1900s-era railroad cars. Heavier rail, much of it from the old standard gauge line, was laid along the narrow-gauge portions between Salida and Gunnison, and Alamosa to Durango.

Other capital improvements from the 1920s (and into the 30s) included the purchase of 20 new, larger, and more modern steam locomotives and 10 rebuilt standard-gauge

locomotives converted to narrow gauge. Hundreds of boxcars and livestock cars were completely rebuilt. Most of the line was rebuilt with 70-pound rail (a 3-foot section weighs 70 pounds). Terminal facilities were upgraded as needed to accommodate these changes. The Silverton branch north from Durango would not see significant rail improvements until the 1980s under new ownership.

Another event during the 1920s involved the conversion of the line between Durango and Farmington to narrow gauge. Built in 1905, that branch began at Carbon Junction (near the highway bridge crossing the river south of Durango) and ran along the banks of the Animas River to Farmington. The early 1900s D&RG directors and executives were worried that other major railroads might build lines from the south toward Colorado’s valuable coal country. They built the line as standard gauge in an attempt to thwart potential competition, but subsequently struggled to resolve the unique infrastructure problems and the occasional headaches that accompanied blending both narrow- and

standard-gauge equipment, facilities, and track. By the early twenties, it was apparent that the previously feared competition had failed to materialize. Additionally, all suggestions made by the D&RGW to consider upgrading the entire narrow-gauge system to standard-gauge had been formally studied and rejected. The Farmington Branch survived until 1968. All track was removed by 1970 along with the line from Durango to Chama.

While our treasured narrow-gauge tradition in Durango is naturally geared to evoke the old west look and feel of our history, an irony remains. Many of the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge railroad locomotives and the upgrades from the 1920s, most brought about by an almost desperate need, serve as the mainstay of our infrastructure, operating daily service between Durango and Silverton. This pre-Depression and carefree decade of growth left us with a fleet of iconic locomotives and equipment that remains beloved by rail enthusiasts and is treasured for its ongoing service to our Southwest Colorado communities. ❧

K-36 LOCOMOTIVES’ 100TH ANNIVERSARY

This year commemorates the 100th Anniversary of the four K-36 locomotives on the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad (D&SNGR) roster, another railroad milestone of the 1920s. The 480-series K-36s arrived from the Baldwin Locomotive Works in the early fall of 1925, mainly for freight duty between Durango and Alamosa. It wasn’t until 1981, after upgrading track and bridges, that the heavier K-36s were used for passenger service to Silverton. Check with the D&SNGR and the Cumbres &Toltec Scenic Railroad for commemorative events being held this year.

Originally published in the 2023 issue of History La Plata.

Class K-36 locomotive #488 with doghouse tender in the Durango yard. The #488 is still in service on the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad. photo credit : Animas Museum Photo Archives 86.19.61

INVISIBLE EMPIRE:

The Ku Klux Klan in La Plata County

BY ROBERT MCDANIEL Originally published in the 2023 issue of History La Plata.

Awave of prejudice and intolerance rose out of the ashes of World War I and, to a certain degree, came to characterize the 1920s. The Ku Klux Klan, which had been dormant since the 1870s, came to life again, marching into Colorado in 1921. Within three years, the Klan became a formidable political force in Colorado, its candidates winning state and local races, including the U.S. Senate and governors’ races.

By 1924, the KKK had gained a stronghold in southwest Colorado, including active chapters, or Klaverns, in Bayfield and Durango. By the mid-1920s, Bayfield’s population was nearing 250. The Pine River Klan listed 118 members in good standing in 1925, many of whom came from the surrounding rural area. Bayfield’s Klan may have been the largest organization in town. Durango’s Klan membership wasn’t as robust per capita, and its members likely came mostly from the Durango-Animas City urban areas. The Durango chapter was every bit as active as the Bayfield chapter and even published its own newspaper, The Durango Klansman. The August 1925 issue broadly stated the Klan’s objectives:

“It is unselfish in its objects and desires. It believes in ‘America for Americans;’ it believes in just laws and their enforcement; it believes in the purity of women of this country; it believes in white supremacy; it is not politically ambitious, and it is not a political organization.”

The Klan’s overt political activities the previous year belied that last statement. A closer look at the Klan’s goals reveals that it was strongly Protestant and anti-Catholic; it supported Prohibition and opposed bootlegging (an activity many associated with Catholics); it believed that native-born white Americans were the “true” Americans, and it opposed immigration and foreign-born residents.

Klan members seemingly came from all walks of life—“just ordinary guys and a few professional people,” as one Durangoan remembered. Separate “clubs” existed for women and children. More members meant more revenue because the Klan, without question, was a money-making scheme in a variety of ways.

Since La Plata County had a very limited African American population, the Durango

Klan’s venom was largely directed at Hispanics, most of whom also happened to be Catholics. Interestingly, there is little evidence that the local Klan groups targeted Native Americans.

While the Durango Klan directed threats at St. Columba Catholic Church, it focused its invectives on Sacred Heart Church, which was predominantly Hispanic. In response to a Klan threat to drive the nuns out of the convent and burn it, St. Columba’s Father Kipp bought a shotgun and posted notices in the newspaper that, if necessary, he would use it.

To punctuate their efforts at intimidation, Durango Klan members burned crosses on Smelter Mountain. Occasionally, crosses were also burned at Greenmount Cemetery and near the train depot. Max Gomez, however, remembered Klan members being somewhat cowardly. In one instance, a group of young

Catholic men disrupted a Klan parade, routing the hooded marchers.

The Klan in Colorado faded almost as quickly as it arose, its leader leaving the organization under accusations of tax fraud. Having hit its high-water mark in 1924–25, the Colorado Klan organization shattered shortly thereafter. Somewhat surprisingly, the Bayfield chapter remained active well into 1928, sponsoring a big Fourth of July picnic that year that attracted a large crowd of people from the surrounding areas. Ultimately, factionalism and jealousy within the organization, and public and press opposition from without, spelled the end of the Klan in Colorado and locally. Looking back, some locals remembered that the Klan caused “quite a lot of trouble.” It created enemies, hurt business, and “didn’t do the town a damn bit of good.”. ❧

A 125 ft tall cross was burned on Smelter Mountain on the evening of April 22, 1925, after the KKK address by the National Klan Secretary, Rev. Markley. photo

Preserving Pioneer Voices

BY SUSAN

Another very noticeable characteristic feature was the scarcity of women on the streets; one infrequently met a woman or an old man.” Estelle Camp was talking about 1883 Durango when she made this statement in January of 1934. Certainly, pioneering, building railroads, mining, farming, and ranching were jobs for the young. Those young pioneers succeeded in building Durango and La Plata County. Many of them had survived economic hard times such as the Panic of 1873, the Silver Crash of 1893, and the Bankers’ Panic of 1907 through their own resourcefulness. By the 1930s, these “young” pioneers were in their 70s and 80s and disappearing quickly.

Fortunately, members of the Sarah Platt Decker Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution realized this and, in the late 1920s, started to gather their stories. Many of the oral histories we find in the first volume of Pioneers of the San Juan Country were taken in the 1930s but not published until 1942. This informal collecting of memories and oral histories was going on in La Plata County when the stock market crashed in October of 1929. Some of the notes, letters, and early drafts for Pioneers are preserved in the Animas Museum’s collections.

Meanwhile, the nation’s economy seemed to be out of control. By the time Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) was inaugurated in March of 1933, there were 15 million unemployed Americans. On November 7 of that year, FDR signed into law a program called the Civil Works Administration or CWA, directed by Harry Hopkins, a social worker who was one of Roosevelt’s closest advisors. The CWA was intended to be a short-term program putting four million unemployed people to work over the winter. What made the CWA different from other programs was that it was not meant to offer only menial but necessary jobs like ditch digging. It was also intended to help get unemployed white collar and professional people back to work on meaningful projects.

understood the urgency of collecting the stories of pioneering days, so he put together a project to do just that. Hafen hired 27 field workers, unemployed professionals in 35 Colorado counties, to conduct the interviews. The field workers were paid between $0.75 and $1.00 an hour, 30 hours a week, between December 1, 1933, and February 15, 1934. Because the project was so successful, it was extended for another 10 weeks in 1934.

The fieldworker for La Plata County was Adolph L. Soens, who was born in 1893 and graduated from Durango High School in 1911. Soens was a clerk at the American Smelting and Refining Company when World War I broke out. He joined the Army and was stationed in California during World War I, where he learned to fly. Soens married Christine Hansen, whose family also pioneered in the Durango area in the 1880s. In the 1930 census, the couple was living with Christine’s family in Durango, probably due to the depressed economy. Soens was recruited by Hafen and collected 44 interviews, including the story of Estelle Camp, who arrived in Durango in 1883 and noticed only young men on the streets. He also interviewed his motherin-law, Mary D. Hansen. Soens collected the stories of men and women, although, like other field workers, only from European Americans. Field workers were required to type up the transcripts and have them approved by the interviewee before submitting the final product to Denver.

“Another very noticeable characteristic feature was the scarcity of women on the streets; one infrequently met a woman or an old man.”

Over 200,000 projects were funded by the CWA, including one special project in Colorado. Leroy Hafen, the state historian,

The original transcripts from all 35 counties are in Denver, and today’s History Colorado is in the process of digitizing all of them. The Animas Museum has copies of many of the interviews conducted by Adolph Soens in the sprawling accession (92.22) acquired from Annetta Pauline Cobb in 1992. Her husband, Elvin, was a history teacher at Durango High School, and while working on a Master’s degree from Berkeley under the tutelage of the same professor who had advised Hafen, collected a lot of documentation about the history of Durango. Although we are not sure how it happened, Adolph Soens shared copies

of his transcripts with his friend Elvin Cobb. These copies may be read in the Animas Museum’s Research Library.

The CWA was declared unconstitutional in 1936. It had cost $200 million a month and had provided 4 million workers a financial and psychological boost during its short

life. At that point, other, more well-known “alphabet soup” programs like the WPA, NYA, and CCC took over. The CWA provided Coloradans, including those of us in La Plata County, a priceless testimony of what life was like before the sweeping social, political, and technological changes of the 20th century. ❧

JONES Originally published in the 2019 issue of History La Plata.

Adolph L. Soens in 1946. As the La Plata County recorder, Soens collected 44 interviews from men and women across the county. photo credit : Animas Museum Photo Archives 95.03.14

TRENCH WARS:

Archaeology, Durango, 1930s and the

BY MONA CHARLES Originally published in

the 2019 issue of History La

Plata.

Ihave researched, written about, presented on, admired, and even cringed over the state of archaeology in Durango during the 1930s. What a time to have been alive and involved with the local archaeological community. For better or worse, this decade singularly put Durango on the proverbial “archaeological map” of the Greater Southwest. Unlike Chimney Rock, Mesa Verde, or Aztec Ruins, Durango could

Two volumes of “Sherds and Points” were drafted by Helen Sloan Daniels and Zeke Flora in 1940 & 1941, after digging at various spots in La Plata County throughout the 1930s. photo credit : From the Animas Museum’s Collection 15.39.1

not boast of Chacoan-type architecture, impressive cliff dwellings, or Great Kivas. To the contrary, Durango’s prehistory lay hidden in the wooded mesas and terraces of the Animas, La Plata, and Florida rivers, and in the craggy rock shelters of the cliffs that jutted from the Animas River and Hidden Valley. Professional archaeologists at the time showed little interest in the ever-present shallow depressions indicating deep pit houses or upright stone slabs protruding from the hillsides marking storage cists, wattle-anddaub surface structures, and burial pits. If the professional community was not tempted by these subtle archaeological indicators, the same cannot be said for Durango’s amateur archaeologists and pot-hunters.

Unemployed and new to Durango, I.F. (Zeke) Flora wasted no time in joining the burgeoning local amateur archaeological community. Flora, a self-proclaimed pothunter, probed and trenched countless archaeological ruins in and around Durango, collecting antiquities. Flora sold artifacts and human skeletons to Harold (Happy) Gladwin at Gila Pueblo, Arizona, while keeping for himself artifacts and burned logs removed from long-abandoned structures to study their tree-rings in his home laboratory.

Artifacts and, most unfortunately, prehistoric human remains (especially skulls) gathered by Flora and his contemporaries were displayed in the “Museum Room” of the Durango Public Library. Most often, the displays were accompanied by unsupported and often theatrical interpretations.

Helen Sloan Daniels, a long-time resident of Durango and board member of the Durango Public Library, established a local division of the 1930s Works Progress Administration’s National Youth Administration (NYA) to be housed at the Durango Public Library. From

1936 through 1940, this local office employed young men to excavate archaeological sites that were in harm’s way. Meeting the demand for new subdivisions and increased infrastructure resulted in mass destruction of prehistoric sites in and around Durango. However, Daniels was not trained in archaeology and did little in the way of field supervision of these youths. This she left to Zeke Flora, Lola Sanders, Homer Root, and Lee Eddy. To their credit, notes, photographs, and drawings were made of these excavations. Most of the original documentation has been lost or misplaced, leaving only limited letters, photographs, and a single cursory publication.

The anonymity of Durango’s prehistory abruptly ended in 1937 with the discovery by Daniels and Flora of a cache of naturally mummified human remains in a rock shelter near Durango. Quite by happenstance, Daniels led a small group of people to the northernmost of two rock shelters. There they gazed on brightly colored rock paintings representing human (anthromorphs) and animal (zoomorphs) figures, concentric circles, and geometric designs. She soon told Zeke about the discovery, whereby the two wasted no time in completely emptying the archeological contents of a narrow rock crevice. The crevice contained layers of mummified human remains and

The anonymity of Durango’s prehistory abruptly ended in 1937 with the discovery by Daniels and Flora of a cache of naturally mummified human remains in a rock shelter near Durango.

associated artifacts, the like of which had never been found in Durango. Recognizing the scientific value of the rock shelters, Flora notified Earl Morris, archaeologist at the Carnegie Institute of Washington D.C., who made haste to visit Durango. Upon examination, Morris validated Flora’s theory that the mummies belonged to a period that Southwest archaeologists referred to as Basketmaker II; a heretofore unknown population that lived in the hills above Durango three centuries before and four centuries after the Christian Era. Morris went on to trench and partially excavate the rock shelters in 1938, Falls Creek Flats in 1939, and Talus Village in 1940. Flora accompanied Morris on these excavations and Morris employed Daniels’s NYA youth in 1938 and 1939. The resulting publication, The Basket Maker II of Durango, Colorado, by Earl Morris and Robert Burgh, serves as one of the most important publications on the prehistory of the Greater Southwest. Sadly, the acrimony that stemmed from the juxtaposition of the amateur and professional communities in Durango that began in the 1930s continued for many decades thereafter. Morris, Flora, and Daniels have all passed away, but vestiges of their contentious relationships emerge from time to time, even over 90 years later. If you would like to dig deeper into this period of Durango’s archaeological history, I recommend Points and Pithouses by Phil Duke and Gary Matlock, and of course, Florence Lister’s Prehistory in Peril: The Worst and Best of Durango Archaeology. ❧

Photograph taken by Helen Sloan Daniels in 1940 of Morris and Burgh’s excavation at Talus Village. Dr. Morris is measuring, and Dr. Burgh is taking notes. Frank Lee, one of the local “NYA Boys” hired by Daniels, is in the excavated floor.

photo credit : Originally published in Helen Sloan Daniels’ book, Adventures with the Anasazi

United States Vanadium Corporation

BY CHARLES DIFERDINANDO Originally published in the

2024 issue of History La Plata.

The dawn of WWII found Durango and the San Juan Basin still suffering from the effects of the Great Depression. Local mines were closed or operating sporadically, and the American Smelting and Refining Co. (ASARCO) plant in Durango had been sitting idle for eight years. The smelter had been closed for so long that locals commented that it was nice to see plant life returning to Smelter Mountain: years of exposure to toxic fumes and smoke had killed its vegetation. Others lamented that the lack of smoke meant unemployment.

In 1941, ASARCO decided to dismantle the existing plant in Durango and sell the salvageable material. A salvage company from Denver was contracted to do the work, which provided short-term jobs for locals. Tons of scrap metal were shipped from the site via railroad.

Pearl Harbor changed everything. Early in 1942, the dismantling of the old smelter halted. The United States Vanadium Corporation (USVC) was interested in leasing the plant site and purchasing the remaining machinery and infrastructure. On May 15, 1942, The Durango-Herald Democrat announced that “Vanadium Corporation Officials Arrive Today To Complete Plans For Local Plant, Start Construction.” USVC was able to quickly adapt the old ASARCO machinery for

vanadium production. The mill could handle 100 tons of ore per day from Dolores, San Miguel, and Montrose counties.

The Four Corners region contained the largest concentration of vanadium ore deposits in the United States. The Vanadium Corporation of America (VCA) had mines in Peru, the only other source of vanadium at the time. Carnotite was the main vanadium-bearing ore being mined domestically and abroad; it also contained radium and uranium. Uranium would become another secret production item.

In 1941, ASARCO decided to dismantle the existing plant in Durango and sell the salvageable material.

Vanadium production was done at the request of the War Production Board with USVC acting as agent for the Metals Reserve Corporation, a government agency. Because of urgent demand, it was hoped the plant would be in full production in three months. A multipurpose alloy, vanadium was used to harden steel for tools, ammunition-making equipment, gun mounts, tank and warship armor, helmets, etc.

Blair Burwell, General Superintendent of USVC, was a Durango native and a graduate of Durango High School and the Colorado School of Mines. His knowledge of Durango and the San Juans likely played an important role in USVC’s decision to locate in Durango, which made Colorado the nation’s largest producer of vanadium.

More than 350 Durangoans applied for positions at the vanadium mill. Pyrite ores from the Rico-Telluride area, shipped via the Rio Grande Southern Railroad, were used at the Durango mill to mix with vanadium ore to produce the sulfuric acid needed in the vanadium reduction process.

The Durango Weekly Herald of February 18, 1943, carried a United Press article by Leif Erickson titled “Southwestern Colorado, Major Source of Vanadium Yields Ore to Defeat Axis.” The article highlighted that vanadium production had doubled since the start of the war, due partly to the hard work of individuals who were encouraged to locate new ore deposits in the region. Durangoans Alphonso Butell and Curtis Johnson opened a mine on Lightner Creek, and Ben Owens, a handyman, and his wife were working a claim on Deep Creek.

USVC had mines and mills at Uravan and Rifle. The VCA had a mill and operations at

Naturita. The Dove Creek district developed when several pinto bean farmers began prospecting and mining. Thomas Curran and John Wade made discoveries on the Navajo Reservation in the Carrizo Mountains west of Shiprock, New Mexico. Some 50 tons of ore were trucked per day to Farmington and shipped to Durango on the D&RGW Railroad.

On August 12, 1942, a Durango Herald Democrat headline stated, “Smoke Issuing From Vanadium Mill Smokestack.” The roaster furnaces had been fired and would take 10 days to reach operating temperature with three shifts of men firing the furnaces around the clock. About 50 men were employed at that time. Ore arrived daily, keeping the crushers busy. Ore was stockpiled at Moab and Thompson, Utah, and Farmington, New Mexico. In Colorado, ore was stockpiled in Placerville and Durango until the Durango plant could begin operations.

The Durango plant went into full production for the duration of the war, with several upgrades to increase capacity. In 1943, USVC began reprocessing the vanadium tailings to recover uranium for the top-secret Manhattan Project. The addition of acid leaching technology in 1945 increased the recovery of uranium for the war effort. The uranium and vanadium plants were unaffected by the 1944 coal miners’ strikes, which shut down the Uravan and other defense plants; the Durangoarea coal mines were not unionized.

The mill operated until 1946, when it was closed. In 1949, it was leased by the VCA, which later purchased it for uranium processing for the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. The initial milling capacity of 175 tons per day was increased to 430 tons per day by 1956 and 750 tons per day by 1958. The mill shut down permanently in March of 1963. ❧

The Vanadium Corporation of America Smelter around 1952 at the base of Smelter Mountain. photo credit : Animas Museum Photo Archives 00.48.24

Christine Soens’ employee badge from the United States Vanadium Corporation. photo credit : From the Animas Museum’s Collection 95.03.204

Fort Lewis College in the 1960s

BY MEGAN REID Originally published in the 2018 issue of History La Plata.

ort Lewis College (FLC) grew from an 1880s military post near Hesperus to an Indian boarding school, high school, and junior college. In 1950, President Dale Rae felt a move to Durango would decrease costs and increase enrollment. Some citizens feared police would be shorthanded and families would have to lock up their daughters. Nevertheless, the college moved in 1956. Enrollment quadrupled by 1961, and plans were made to develop it into a four-year liberal arts college. Durango’s Chamber of Commerce raised $10,000 for businessmen Nick Turner and Jackson Clark to lobby legislators, which succeeded in 1962. Efforts were made to increase enrollment of military veterans, Native Americans, and other minority students.

Southwest history curriculum received

a boost in 1964 with donations of $10,000 from Arthur and Morley Ballentine, The Durango Herald’s publishers, and $1,500 from A.M. Camp, First National Bank’s president, establishing the Center of Southwest Studies. Dr. Robert Delaney was appointed director, and Homer Root cared for the growing collections housed in the library. A new library was constructed in 1967. Director Graham Sadler got help from students, staff, faculty, and townspeople to move the 35,000 books. Nearly 1,000 volunteers took part, forming a continuous line, with each person carrying one box of books at a time to the new library. “Project Book Binge” was completed in just threeand-a-half hours. Good deeds also abounded, leading President John Reed to say FLC students had a sense of responsibility, in contrast to

their constantly dissatisfied peers. Memorials were held after the assassinations of John F. Kennedy in 1963 and Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968. Students decorated the campus at Christmas and held parties for underprivileged children. Concerts, dances, and rope pulls were highlights of charity fundraisers.

FLC continues to carry on many of the goals, programs, and learning experiences established in the sixties. What started out as a small 2-year A&M college is now a thriving and popular 4-year liberal arts college offering numerous degrees at its unique campus setting. ❧

View from the lounge in the Ramon A. Miller Student Center between 1956 and 1962. photo credit : From Robert Delaney’s Blue Coats, Red Skins, and Black Gowns

Purgatory Founded on Oil Man’s Vision

BY ROBERT MCDANIEL Originally published in the 2018 issue of History La Plata.

Ray Duncan was one of many oilmen who moved to Durango in the 1950s. By the time the local oil boom subsided, however, Duncan had created a legacy none of his peers could match. Ironically, that legacy had nothing to do with the oil business.

The story has its roots in the local ski scene more than 20 years before Duncan came to Durango. The rise of recreational skiing in the U.S. had begun in earnest in the 1930s. The 1932 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid changed the way Americans regarded winter—millions learned you could have fun in the snow. The first rope tow in the U.S. was built in Vermont in 1934, and equipment improvements like skis with metal edges, cable bindings, and stiff leather boots made skiing more enjoyable.

Local ski enthusiasts caught the bug and formed the San Juan Basin Ski and Winter Sports Association (later renamed the Durango Ski Club). They forged an agreement with the San Juan National Forest to install the area’s first rope tow. Walt Balliger, Jack Lee, Bill Crawley, Gerry & Dick Yeager, and Fred Klatt, Sr. were among those who built and installed that first tow in Cascade Meadows on the flanks of Engineer Mountain in 1937.

Two years later, club members moved the tow back to Lechner Field (later known as Chipmunk Hill).

With the onset of World War II, many of the ski club’s active members joined the war effort. Club membership dropped from 75 to 42 members by November 1942. As the war escalated, gasoline and tire rationing compelled the Durango Ski Club to transfer ownership of its tow to the City of Durango in 1943 for use at the Third Avenue Ski Course (now Chapman Hill). As the war dragged on, the club finally disbanded.

The story has its roots in the local ski scene more than 20 years before Duncan came to Durango.

In 1948, Vernon Bodo, Arvo Matis, Dick Yeager, and others reorganized the ski club. It was an auspicious move that paved the way for Durango’s future as a ski town. Rope tows seemed to pop up all over southwest Colorado in the decade that followed. Meanwhile, Dolph Kuss moved to Durango in 1954 to take a job as the La Plata County Recreation Supervisor. Besides wrangling a new rope tow for Third Avenue, Kuss started Nordic and alpine youth ski racing programs. In the process, he met Ray Duncan, the local oilman who was also a ski enthusiast and community-minded citizen especially interested in youth programs. Duncan put the business plan together, founding the Durango Ski Corporation to fund his dream, and pulling together all the right people to get the job done.

The Nordic program occupied much of Kuss’s time, so the ski club, which actively supported the junior racing programs, needed an alpine coach. In Duncan’s words, “Dolph helped locate a coach, and the coach was Chet Anderson.”

Anderson had grown up in Steamboat Springs and skied with top competitors like Gordy Wren and Buddy Werner. Along with other Forest Service employees, he had studied different sites in southwest Colorado for their ski area potential. Driving back from a race at Crested Butte, Duncan famously remarked to Anderson, “Isn’t it a shame that we don’t have a bigger hill than Hesperus to train on?” Anderson, of course, replied that there was such a place—an area known as Purgatory between Durango and Silverton. In fact, as a result of the studies he had participated in, the Forest Service had designated Purgatory as a winter sports site.

In January 1965, the pieces started falling into place. Under difficult circumstances, Purgatory Ski Area was developed in less than a year. Support from local businessmen, many of whom had been active in the Durango Ski Club, proved critical to the success of the project. Just as importantly, Chet Anderson, with his skills, background, and leadership, willed the project through to completion. Most of all, Ray Duncan’s vision and courage in taking the risk to create Purgatory resulted in a turning point in

❧

Durango’s history.

A bulldozer/crane hoists a lift tower into place on Pandemonium for the new Lift #1 in October 1965. photo credit : Photo by Keith Blackburn; used with permission

Ray Duncan (center), founder of Purgatory Ski Area, with Chet Anderson (right) and possibly Friedl Pfeiffer (left), director of the Aspen Ski School. photo credit : Animas Museum Photo Archives

Chet Anderson (front) and Paul Folwell enjoy some powder turns in an area informally known as Disneyland, which would become part of the expansion into terrain later served by Lift #3. photo credit : Image courtesy of Paul Folwell

At the Museum

In 2025, the Animas Museum will focus on preparing for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the 150th anniversary of Colorado statehood in 2026. While exhibits will be shifting, the Museum remains open to the public. In the Museum’s main building, explore its history as the Animas City School in the restored 1905 classroom. Other exhibits examine the history of La Plata County. Wish You Were Here tells how (and why) folks came to the area. Law & Disorder tells the stories of local outlaws and the brave lawmen who brought stability to La Plata County. Working on the Railroad spotlights the railroad workers who were the lifeblood of

this critical local industry. Don’t miss Front Lines to Home Front: La Plata County’s Role in World War II before it closes in August, marking 80 years since the war’s end.

Be sure to visit the 1930s in the Peterson House on the grounds of the Museum. The Great Depression comes to life in this charming home. Step back further in time as you visit the Joy Cabin. Just steps from the Peterson House, it provides a glimpse into life in 1870s Animas City.

September is History Live! month, with events presented by Southwest Colorado Humanities Roundtable. To celebrate, we will welcome a traveling exhibit from

History Colorado called Ute Knowledge. This exhibit tells the story of how Ute Indians have used science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) to survive and thrive in the Rocky Mountains. The Ute people are Colorado’s longest continuous residents, and they have thrived here through their deep understanding of, and connection to, the Colorado landscape and environment. Ute Knowledge will open September 13th and be available for visitors and school groups to explore through mid-December. Other events in the History Live! Series sponsored by the Animas Museum will include a Heritage Makerspace Fair at the Museum on September 6th and Chautauqua speaker

Gail Beaton portraying Colorado Suffragist Sarah Platt Decker on September 26th at the Durango Public Library.

Our “Second Saturday Seminar Series” continues into its fifth year with programs every month, both live in the Classroom at the Museum and on Zoom. This year’s topics include the history of our local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, the 150th anniversary of the Hayden Survey, the end of World War II, and oral histories. On November 8th, we are excited to host Southwest weavings expert Mark Winter at the Center of Southwest Studies’ Lyceum. Our recorded programs are available on our YouTube channel, @AnimasMuseum. ❧

The Animas Museum is located at 3065 West 2nd Avenue, and is open Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays from 10 a.m.–4 p.m. and Wednesdays and Fridays from 1 p.m.–4 p.m.  Visit www.animasmuseum.org/ or call 970-259-2402 for the latest information. There is no admission charge, but donations are appreciated.

BOARD MEMBERS

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STAFF

Charles DiFerdinando, Visitor Services Manager

Briana Paxton, Operations Manager/Conservator

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photo credit : Image courtesy of Visit Durango/Hans Hollenbeck

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JOIN!

Our members are the heart and soul of the La Plata County Historical Society. Your support ensures that we can continue preserving and sharing the rich history of our region. As a member, you empower the Animas Museum to offer exhibits, webinars, lectures, school tours, history trunks, and our annual

publication, History La Plata. Your advocacy helps keep La Plata County’s history alive for both the community and visitors. We receive no funding from La Plata County and only limited funds from the City of Durango. While we seek grants and sponsorships, our members provide the essential foundation that

keeps our collections protected, our staff supported, and the Museum’s doors open. Only members have access to our research database and receive Artifacts, our informative newsletter. Join us today to become one of the most knowledgeable voices in our community about our county’s rich history.

A group of travelers at the Durango Depot. photo credit : Animas Museum Photo Collection