This year is historically special for the nation, the state of Colorado and Durango. It marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the 150th anniversary of Colorado’s statehood and the 150th anniversary of the founding of Animas City.
The Animas Museum acknowledged the anniversaries with a focus on Animas City last weekend.
Pam Dyer, president of the La Plata County Historical Society’s board of directors, introduced local historian and Animas Museum-founding former director Robert McDaniel, who delivered a presentation exploring Animas City’s origin story – and misconceptions about it that have permeated retellings.
He challenged the popular notion that Animas City “stubbornly” stood its ground against the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad and rejected its promise to turn the townsite into a thriving boomtown (a title that would be ascribed to Durango).
On Aug. 26, 1876, six real estate investors purchased 640 acres along the Animas River, marking the creation of Animas City, he said. The first settler on the land that is today Durango, Robert Dwyer, had procured his homestead even earlier.
“Animas City soon followed. It did not grow quickly. It was not, for say, a mining town. It was not at this point a railroad town – and really as we shall see, never really was,” he said.
Animas City might not have grown quickly, but by 1880 it had a “post office, a bank, a school, a hardware store, general and drug stores, a livery, a newspaper, a church, seven lawyers, three doctors, a dentist, a couple of blacksmiths and a population of 286 people,” McDaniel said.
He described it as a small yet thriving town with a stronger “rural, Midwestern flavor” than Durango or Silverton.
McDaniel took an interlude from Animas City itself to discuss the D&RG’s beginnings and how it would lay the foundation for Durango’s development, which ultimately spelled the end of Animas City.
In brief, D&RG was the “brainchild” of William Jackson Palmer, who after fighting for the Union Army in the American Civil War went on to work on the westbound Kansas Pacific Railroad project, during which he met William Bell, McDaniel said.
He said Palmer had an idea for a new railroad with a north-south route, a vision that would eventually evolve with the competition. Palmer partnered with Bell, who was mostly involved in the real estate side of D&RG, which was incorporated in 1870.
Bell had previously founded Colorado Springs, and railroads had a knack for building up communities, “throttling” them and building their own towns in their place, he said. Pueblo, Trinidad and Colorado City were just some examples.
He said rumors about the D&RG coming through the Animas Valley had started in the late 1870s, and Animas City residents were “rubbing their hands together” in anticipation.
“You’ve all heard the story that the railroad came in, negotiated with the town fathers of Animas City to develop the land and things like that. Long story short, turned ’em down,” McDaniel said. “Which on the face of it would seem to be a pretty stupid thing, especially with hindsight, and we know what happened to Animas City.”
He said that narrative never made sense.
He juxtaposed the writings of Retha Luzar’s “The Animas City Story” and even the late Duane Smith’s “Rocky Mountain Boomtown” – which both addressed supposed clashes between D&RG and Animas City – with the late Allen Nossaman’s “Many More Mountains, Volume 3: Rails into Silverton.”
“If the Denver & Rio Grande and Animas City couldn’t come to terms, they were the railroad’s terms, and any meetings were more than likely window dressing,” McDaniel said, quoting Nossaman.
He offered another Nossaman quote, saying there was no doubt D&RG had its sights set on the low, level land along the Animas River, about 2 miles south of Animas City where Durango sits today.
Likewise, he said he doesn’t know where others have gotten the idea Animas City leaders refused any proposition from D&RG. He said he hasn’t managed to find any conclusive evidence of such.
Bell was unsuccessful in persuading Dwyer to sell his land. But he managed to convince six other homesteaders to do so, McDaniel said. Oddly, there is no record of those homesteaders – save for George Hitchings – ever living in La Plata County. Rumors of the railroad coming through cropped up in the late 1870s, and Bell was already purchasing land by early 1879.
“The point of this was, Bell was out there conniving to get this land for a townsite no later than the early part of 1879,” he said. “… Their scheme to make money was not just real estate development. It had to do with developing coal resources, selling agricultural lands, water rights and bringing the smelter down from Silverton, which then would generate a lot of rail traffic for the railroad, ensure Durango’s economic prosperity, and so on.”
cburney@durangoherald.com
