Mining brought many of the first settlers to Southwest Colorado in the 1870s, and the mining frontier was, to a great degree, an urban frontier. Communities such as Silverton, Ouray and Telluride were established close on the heels of the first mineral discoveries in the San Juans.
Farmers, merchants, and trades people soon followed the miners. The miners, after all, couldn't grow their own crops nor manufacture their own equipment. To serve the needs of both miners and farmers, towns were established in teh Durango area beginning in 1876.
Parrott City, the brainchild of John Moss, sprang to life in the summer of 1876 at the mouth of La Plata Canyon. Using lumber from a sawmill erected near the future site of Hesperus, WIlliam Valiant and others build a "Courthouse, jail, a good two-story hotel, stores and a number of houses." At that time, according to Valiant, there were 30 to 40 people there.
Parrott City became the new county seat when La Plata County was reorganized on June 12, 1876, it remained the county seat until voters moved it to the new town of Durango in 1881.
The year 1876 was the nation's centennial, and Colorado gained statehood on August 1 that year. Another new town was founded on the banks of the Animas River late that summer named Animas City. The Animas City name had been applied to an earlier log settlement built by the Baker Party in 1860 about 14 miles north of present Durango, but this settlement was abandoned the following year.
The new Animas City offered many basic services - a hotel, post office, blacksmith shop, bank, newspaper,
school, general stores and, of course, saloons. With a centeral location in an area bound to grow, Animas City's future seemed assured.
The Denver & Rio Gande Railroad, however, throttled Animas City's future. Knowing that it would build its San Juan Extension through the Animas Valley, the railroad purchased land from homesteaders a couple of miles to the south and founded the new town of Durango in 1880.
With the backing of the railroad, Durango never looked back. Located on the Animas River where natural transportation routes converged and blessed with an abundance of nearby coal resources, Durango became a dominant community in Southwest Colorado.
Other towns sprouted up in the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s. A cluster of buildings on Levi Carson's ranch in a meadow along Elbert Creek became the settlement of Rockwood. Situated a couple of miles north of Baker's Bridge, Rockwood got a post office in July, 1878. It gained importance as a terminus for toll roads to Animas City, Silverton, and Rico, and was the staging area for construction of the D&RG's spectacular rail line through the Animas River gorge.
La Plata City came to life about 1880 a few miles up La Plata Canton from Parrott City. Though it was said to have a few hundred residents in the 1880s, it experienced the same fate as Parrott City - both were abandoned by the early twentieth century.
Just downstream from Parrott City on the La Plata River, the coal-mining town of Hesperus got its start about 1890. Located near the Hesperus and Ute coal mines, the town got a boost when teh Rio Gande Southern built its line through Hesperus in 1891.
Two other coal mining towns, Porter and Perins, prospered in direct relation to the mines they served. Porter, located up Wildcat Canton, had a post office from 1891 to 1908, while Perins, located west of Perins Peak, flourished from 1906 to 1926. Few traces of either town exist today.
A number of small communities, many of them Hispanic in character were located within or near the boundaries of the Ute Reservation. La Posta and Elco
were located on or near the Animas River; La Boca lay south of Ignacio and Bayfield on the Pine River; Tiffany and Allison lay between the Pine and Piedra Rivers; and Arboles and Frances were located on the Piedra River.
Bayfield and Ignacio, La Plata County's two largest towns outside of Durango, were both founded on the banks of the Pine River. White settlers had been in the valley since the 1870s, but Bayfield wasn't established until 1898, when the town was laid out on land owned by W.A. and Laura E. Bay.
Ten years later the town of Ignacio was platted on land owned by Hans Aspaas and H.L. Hall between the D&RG Railroad's Depot and the Ute agency. The agency was established on the Pine River in the 1870s, and the D&RG built its San Juan Extension through the Pine River Valley in 1880-81.
The towns that survived and grew were faced with many problems-law and order, sanitation, fire protection, animal control and, of course, generating revenue to deal with these and other problems. Today, community members increasingly value the heritage of these communities and are taking steps to preserve that heritage for future generations.
Both Aspaas and Hall had purchased their land from Ute families.
