Legacy - Durango
Overview of Durango looking to the southwest at Smelter Mountain. The 1891 county courthouse is prominent in the lower right. Catalog number: 02.11.1.1
While the new La Plata County was smaller than the original, its county seat was still somewhat remote. New towns including Animas City and Rockwood were established along the Animas River, but their citizens still had a considerable journey to Parrott City for legal business. In 1880, the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad platted out the new town of Durango. When the rails arrived in 1881, Durango became the focus of the county in many ways and the county seat was moved again in November of that year.
La Plata County has changed considerably over the past 150 years. At the Animas Museum, our mission is to share and preserve the history of our county for the next 150 years.
“… its prospects for the future are in the highest degree favorable to a large and prosperous settlement. Leaving its gold and silver mines out of the question, the great extent and excellence of its coals, the production of its farms, its quarries of lime, granite and sandstone, deposits of iron ores, its splendid water courses, its great forests of timber, and, above and beyond all, its advantages for the location of large reduction works, are sufficient to attract and must inevitably acquire millions of new capital and thousands of industrious people in the next few years.”
Frank Hall, History of Colorado, Volume IV, 1895
References
Frank Hall, History of Colorado, Volume IV, 1895.
Allan Nossaman, Many More Mountains, Volume I, 1989.
View the presentation recorded February 10, 2024 at the Animas Museum.