Established in 1875 and occupied until the 1920s, Animas Forks is a ghost town northeast of Silverton in the San Juan Mountains. It sits at an elevation of about 11,200 feet. It survived primarily on the strength of speculative investment rather than…

San Juan County was established just before Colorado became a state in 1876. It initially stretched from the Utah border in the west to its present border in the east. The next year, the first state assembly allocated most of San Juan County’s western…

Located two miles northeast of Silverton, the Shenandoah-Dives Mill (also known as the Mayflower Mill) was constructed in 1929 and became the longest-running mill in the San Juan Mountains. Operating most years from 1930 to 1991, the mill processed a…

The Shenandoah-Dives Mining Company was active in the San Juan Mountains from the 1930s through the 1960s. As one of the largest mining operations in the region during the twentieth century, the company’s history exemplifies the boom and bust cycles and…

Silverton is a historic mining town established in 1874 in Baker’s Park in the heart of the San Juan Mountains. After the Denver & Rio Grande Railway (now the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad) reached the town in 1882, the surrounding…