Denver & Rio Grande Depot
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Durango-Silverton Narrow Gauge Depot (Denver & Rio Grande Depot)
1882. East end of 10th St. (NR)
This standard clapboard depot with a gable roof and pedimented windows and doorways was restored during the 1970s by the San Juan County Historical Society. Since 1982 it has been used as a depot and ticket office by the Durango-Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. Next door, at 441 10th Street, is the frame depot (1890) which Otto Mears built for his Silverton Railroad. It contains the ticket office and stationmaster's quarters; a later addition housed the depot for another of Mears's narrow-gauge lines, the Silverton Northern Railroad. The SN operated a rail bus (a custom-made contraption with a 1916 Cadillac V-8 engine) between Silverton and Animas Forks until 1936 and to Eureka until 1942. One of these auto-rail hybrids, the Casey Jones, is on display behind the jail museum ( SA06).
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