The San Juan Mountains is a high and rugged mountain range in the Rocky Mountains in southwestern Colorado and northwestern New Mexico. The area is highly mineralized and figured in the gold and silver mining industry of early Colorado. Major towns, all old mining camps, include Creede, Lake City, Silverton, Ouray, and Telluride. Large scale mining has ended in the region, although independent prospectors still work claims throughout the range. The last large-scale mines were the Sunnyside Mine near Silverton, which operated until late in the 20th century, and the Idarado Mine on Red Mountain Pass, which closed in the 1970s. Famous old San Juan mines include the Camp Bird and Smuggler Union mines, both located between Telluride and Ouray.
The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, often shortened to Rio Grande, D&RG or D&RGW, formerly the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, was an American Class I railroad company. The railroad started as a 3 ft narrow-gauge line running south from Denver, Colorado, in 1870. It served mainly as a transcontinental bridge line between Denver and Salt Lake City, Utah. The Rio Grande was also a major origin of coal and mineral traffic.
San Juan County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 705, making it the least populous county in Colorado. The county seat and the only incorporated municipality in the county is Silverton. The county name is the Spanish language name for "Saint John", the name Spanish explorers gave to a river and the mountain range in the area. With a mean elevation of 11,240 feet, San Juan County is the highest county in the United States and also has the two highest elevation houses in the United States; the ‘Bonnie Belle’ above Animas Forks at 11,900’ – 11,950’ elevation and an unnamed house above Picayune Gulch at 12,000’ elevation.
La Plata County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 55,638. The county seat is Durango. The county was named for the La Plata River and the La Plata Mountains. "La plata" means "the silver" in Spanish.
Durango is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of La Plata County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 19,071 at the 2020 United States Census. Durango is the home of Fort Lewis College.
Silverton is a statutory town that is the county seat, the most populous community, and the only incorporated municipality in San Juan County, Colorado, United States. The town is located in a remote part of the western San Juan Mountains, a range of the Rocky Mountains. The first mining claims were made in mountains above the Silverton in 1860, near the end of the Colorado Gold Rush and when the land was still controlled by the Utes. Silverton was established shortly after the Utes ceded the region in the 1873 Brunot Agreement, and the town boomed from silver mining until the Panic of 1893 led to a collapse of the silver market, and boomed again from gold mining until the recession caused by the Panic of 1907. The entire town is included as a federally designated National Historic Landmark District, the Silverton Historic District.
ASARCO is a mining, smelting, and refining company based in Tucson, Arizona, which mines and processes primarily copper. The company has been a subsidiary of Grupo México since 1999.
Animas River is a 126-mile-long (203 km) river in the western United States, a tributary of the San Juan River, part of the Colorado River System.
U.S. Route 550 (US 550) is a spur of U.S. Highway 50 that runs from Bernalillo, New Mexico to Montrose, Colorado in the western United States. The section from Silverton to Ouray is frequently called the Million Dollar Highway. It is one of the roads on the Trails of the Ancients Byway, one of the designated New Mexico Scenic Byways.
The San Juan Skyway Scenic and Historic Byway is a 236-mile (380 km) All-American Road, National Forest Scenic Byway, and Colorado Scenic and Historic Byway located in Dolores, La Plata, Montezuma, San Juan, and San Miguel counties, Colorado, United States. The byway forms a loop in southwestern Colorado traversing the heart of the San Juan Mountains. The San Juan Skyway reaches its zenith at Red Mountain Pass at elevation 11,018 feet (3,358 m). Mesa Verde National Park was one of the original UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The Silverton Historic District and the Telluride Historic District are National Historic Landmarks.
The Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, often abbreviated as the D&SNG, is a 3 ft (914 mm) narrow-gauge heritage railroad that operates on 45.2 miles (72.7 km) of track between Durango and Silverton, in the U.S. state of Colorado. The railway is a federally-designated National Historic Landmark and was also designated by the American Society of Civil Engineers as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1968.
The Birmingham District is a geological area in the vicinity of Birmingham, Alabama, where the raw materials for making steel - limestone, iron ore, and coal - are found together in abundance. The district includes Red Mountain, Jones Valley, and the Warrior and Cahaba coal fields in Central Alabama.
The Rio Grande Southern Railroad was a 3 ft (914 mm) narrow-gauge railroad which ran in the southwestern region of the US state of Colorado, from the towns of Durango to Ridgway, routed via Lizard Head Pass. Built by German immigrant and Colorado toll road builder Otto Mears, the RGS operated from 1891 through 1951 and was built with the intent to transport immense amounts of silver mineral traffic that were being produced by the mining communities of Rico and Telluride. On both ends of the railroad, there were interchanges with The Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, which would ship the traffic the RGS hauled elsewhere like the San Juan Smelter in Durango.
The Shenandoah-Dives Mill or Mayflower Mill is an intact and functional but inactive historic ore mill 2 miles (3.2 km) east of Silverton, Colorado, United States. The mill was built in 1929 to recover gold, silver, lead, zinc, and copper from ore mined at the Mayflower mine and brought to the mill by an aerial tramway. Regularly active until 1945, it houses still-functional equipment for the separation by flotation of metals from crushed ores. It is the only intact and functional mill of its kind in Colorado. It was included in the expanded Silverton Historic District in 1997, and was declared a National Historic Landmark on its own in 2000. The mill is owned by the San Juan County Historic Society, which staffs an information and gift shop at the mill under the name Mayflower Mill. The mill is open for self-guided tours in the summer months.
Howardsville is an unincorporated community in San Juan County, Colorado, United States, along the Animas River at the mouth of Cunningham Creek. It is located about two miles from the town of Silverton and 8 miles from the famous ghost town of Animas Forks, and is on the same road as the ghost towns of Middleton and Eureka.
The Alamosa–Durango line or San Juan extension was a railroad line built by the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, following the border between the U.S. states of Colorado and New Mexico, in the Rocky Mountains. The line was originally built as a 3 ft narrow-gauge line between Alamosa, Colorado, and Durango, Colorado. Portions of the route survive: the now standard-gauged segment from Alamosa to Antonito, Colorado, and a narrow-gauge portion from Antonito to Chama, New Mexico.
Emil B. Fischer published six detailed maps of the San Juan area of southwestern Colorado between 1883 and 1898. A surveyor's son, he came to America around 1872. He moved to Durango in 1880 when the building of the Denver & Rio Grande Railway to the San Juan attracted widespread attention, then to Silverton. These maps aided silver and gold prospectors to file their claims; they enabled investors to locate mines and view their proximity to famous neighboring mines; and they encouraged tourists to visit the depicted mining regions and invigorate the local economies.
The Frisco Charcoal Kilns are remnants of silver mining in the Utah ghost town of Frisco. They remain as a visual documentation of the state's mining history
The International Smelting and Refining Company was a subsidiary of Anaconda Copper that operated primarily out of the International Smelter near Tooele, Utah. The International Smelter began operation in 1910 as a copper producer handling ores from Bingham Canyon and was expanded into a lead smelting operation in 1912. Copper smelting finished at International in 1946, and the lead smelter shut down in January 1972. The closure of the smelter would lead to the associated Tooele Valley Railway to be shut down ten years later in 1982. The company also handled several other Anaconda owned interests. After the shut down of several of the International Smelting sites, environmental reclamation has been performed by Anaconda Copper's successor company ARCO and the EPA Superfund program.
Edward G. Stoiber was an American mining engineer and owner of the Silver Lakes Mines and Mills near Silverton, Colorado. Stoiber went to Germany and completed a mining degree program. When he returned he began working as a mining engineer in Leadville, Colorado. In the mid-1880s, he went into business with his brother Gustavus, establishing a mill and mine in San Jan County near Silverton. By 1887, the brothers decided to part ways, with Edward keeping the Silver Lake mine. The following year he married Lena Allen Webster who would become joint owner of the business and an operational manager. Edward focused on mining engineering, which was crucial to find economical ways to mine and process low-grade ore. He investigated mining practices and ore processing until he was able to become a profitable enterprise that also brought prosperity to the San Juan mining district. Lena was a hard-driving, yet also caring manager, ensuring that the mining operations were effective. That included wearing men's clothes and performing work as needed. They were involved in community, philanthropic, and industry efforts, including dual-membership in the American Institute of Mining Engineers.
