There is no shortage of compelling pictures of one of downtown’s most well-known landmarks, the Strater Hotel. This one, taken in about 1890, shows the smelter hard at work to the south and a horse-drawn streetcar coming up the dirt Main Avenue with its wooden sidewalks. The hotel was built in 1887 at a cost of $70,000 ($1.9 million today). It has essentially maintained the same exterior look for more than 130 years, with the one prominent exception being the removal of the cupola/clock tower in 1920. It was taken down because it was structurally unsound and at risk for falling off. The hotel initially had no plumbing or central heating, but over the years has been thoroughly modernized and updated a number of times.<br><br>Ed Horvat for Animas Museum, edhorvat@animasmuseum.org