On theme for the United States’ 250th anniversary on July 4 and especially Colorado’s 150th anniversary of statehood on Aug. 1, the Animas Museum in Durango hosted “La Plata County, 150 years ago, Part II.”
It was a history lesson hosted in the old classroom at the museum and on Zoom, and began with a scene setter focused on the Ute Nation that occupied much of what is now present day Colorado – along with Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico – and lived a migratory lifestyle and traded with other tribes.
Animas Museum’s Charles DiFerdinando and Susan Jones led the presentation, taking attendees on a trip through the latter 1860s and focusing on the Utes, the Spanish, and prospectors and settlers.
The point was never lost that prospectors settling in Colorado – including in what would become modern locales such as Silverton and Durango – were illegally inhabiting what was still officially Ute territory.
DiFerdinando walked through a brief history of Felix Brunot – for whom the Brunot Agreement between the U.S. government and the Utes is named – and his negotiations with the Utes on behalf of the federal government in 1873.
Jones said much of western Colorado – not yet a state – was “dumped” into one large county called Guadeloupe in 1861 shortly after President Abraham Lincoln was elected and during the ramp up of the Civil War.
“The thing is, they spelled it wrong,” Jones said of the county’’ name. “They spelled it G-U-A-D-L-O-U-P-E. So, probably, somebody realized their spelling error, and six days later the name was changed to Conejos, which means ‘rabbit’ in Spanish.”
DeFerdinando showed mapmaker and artist Emil Fischer’s 1895 painting of Francis Marion Snowden’s Cabin, which depicts settlers arriving in droves to a green valley surrounded by mountains.
“It’s almost a cartoon, and this is his take on what would become the town of Silverton,” DeFerdinando said.
He pointed out a party scene in the lower right portion of the piece, with a man hoisting a liquor jug into the air, others dancing, and another man vomiting – apparently from having too much to drink.
“It was sort of a commentary on the crazy times that were happening,” DeFerdinando said. “But anyway, this becomes the beginnings of the new town of Silverton in the summer of 1874.”
The presentation ended with a short note on Durango’s founding and its quick ascension to county seat of La Plata County because of its majority population
Jones said the history series will continue on July 11 and Aug. 8.
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