Though conversations have been ongoing for years, national and state historic designations for the Animas Canyon Toll Road between La Plata and San Juan counties remains pending.
Before the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, pioneers traveled from Animas City to Silverton on a wagon road that wound from Bakers Bridge to Silverton, east of U.S. Highway 550.
“It was the first road from Animas City to Silverton, before Durango even existed,” said Bev Rich, director of the San Juan Historical Society. “That’s pretty historic in itself.”
Erika Warzel, national and state register historian for the Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation, said the state and Forest Service are gathering information on the road.
Forest Service officials did not return calls for comment.
“The Forest Service is working to address comments from History Colorado to ensure the information provided in the nomination is thorough and consistent with National Register guidelines,” Warzel said.
“Once comments have been addressed, the nomination will be signed by History Colorado and the Forest Service and then forwarded to the Keeper of the National Register at the National Park Service in Washington, D.C. for final review.”
In 1876, before Durango was established, the Animas Canyon Toll Road Co. began building a 32-mile thoroughfare on the river’s east side to connect Silverton miners with Animas City resources. But the completion in 1882 of the railroad, whose tracks overran segments of the wagon road, rendered the road disposable.
Today, the rough-paved relic is hooded by pines and aspens, its entrance tucked away on the northern edge of the Haviland Lake campground where it winds north to Electra Lake. There, the road is enveloped by the reservoir, built in the early 1900s.
A push for local historic designation came amid a 2010 land swap between the Forest Service and Glacier Club, a private golf course about three miles south of Haviland Lake.
In 2010, the exchange became official. The Forest Service gave up 228 acres just south of Haviland to Glacier Club, which wanted to expand residential development and its golf course. In return, the Forest Service received 160 acres at the Hermosa Creek trailhead west of Purgatory to restore endangered Colorado River cutthroat trout populations.
Concerned that it would derail the land exchange, the Forest Service initially requested La Plata County postpone a nomination for county historic listing. But a segment of the road was adopted to La Plata County’s register of historic places in early October 2014, just a week before construction on the road began 138 years before.
The nomination process, while slow, is one the state insists is very much alive. But local historic interests say the highest level of historic recognition is decades overdue for the toll road, and the process isn’t moving fast enough.
“It didn’t last long, but it was vital to the development of Silverton,” said Andrew Gulliford, professor of history at Fort Lewis College.
Gulliford was a vocal proponent for all levels of historic register listing, arguing in favor to county commissioners in a 2009 letter, when the land swap was pending.
“There are fragments of this road still perfectly intact,” he said. “There are few historic wagon roads anywhere in the American West, because most became highways. The highest standard is to place it on the historic registry. It’s important for southwest Colorado history, but also because it’s so rare in the state.”
Jon Horn is a principal investigator for Alpine Archaeological Consultants and a member of the Colorado Historic Preservation Review Board, which reviews nominations. He said national and state historic designations for the wagon road would make the strongest case for it to receive funding for its preservation.
“There is a section from Electra Lake to Cascade, down to the Animas River that has some really nice integrity,” he said. “You can still walk it; it looks like a wagon road.”
jpace@durangoherald.com
