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Animas River

Animas Canyon Toll Road

Added by yongli on 07/06/2020 - 16:38, last changed on 10/26/2022 - 09:44
The Animas Canyon Toll Road was built in 1876–78 to connect the mining town of Silverton to the coal beds and agricultural produce of the Animas Valley near what is now Durango . The roughly thirty-mile wagon road operated for about five years before it was overtaken by the Denver & Rio Grande...

Animas Forks

Added by yongli on 11/04/2015 - 13:55, last changed on 08/14/2022 - 21:18
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 productive mining , though several nearby...

Animas River

Added by yongli on 02/29/2016 - 16:32, last changed on 11/02/2022 - 12:43
Until recently, the Animas River—known in Spanish as “El Río de las Ánimas,” or “The River of Lost Souls”—was one of only a few undammed rivers in southwestern Colorado. The Upper Animas River Canyon bears the legacy of the longest hard-rock mining operations in southwestern Colorado. The mineral-...

Gold King Mine Spill

Added by yongli on 06/18/2021 - 17:06, last changed on 08/14/2022 - 21:02
Around 10:30 am on August 5, 2015, an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) crew ruptured a plug of rock and soil at the Gold King Mine north of Silverton , releasing an estimated 3 million gallons of contaminated wastewater. This water ran into Cement Creek, a tributary of the Animas River , and...

La Plata County

Added by yongli on 08/16/2016 - 10:31, last changed on 11/29/2022 - 14:44
La Plata County covers 1,700 square miles in southwest Colorado. It is named for the La Plata River and La Plata Mountains, both of which are named for the Spanish word for “silver.” La Plata County is bordered to the north by San Juan County , to the east by Hinsdale and Archuleta counties, to the...

San Juan County

Added by yongli on 06/27/2016 - 15:27, last changed on 11/02/2022 - 12:43
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 portion to the newly formed Ouray County, and...

Shenandoah-Dives Mill

Added by yongli on 08/25/2016 - 12:08, last changed on 11/02/2022 - 12:43
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 total of nearly 10 million tons of rock and...

Silverton

Added by yongli on 02/01/2017 - 14:17, last changed on 11/12/2022 - 10:10
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 region experienced a mining boom that lasted...
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