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Eureka

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1875–1942. 9 miles northeast of Silverton via Colorado 110 and Engineer Pass Rd.
  • (Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)
  • (Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)

Beyond Hillside Cemetery, Colorado 110 follows the Animas River to some spectacular ghost towns and mining ruins. Five miles above Silverton lie relics of the original county seat of Howardsville (1874–1939), where the Old Hundred Mine offers a tram car tour. Another 5 miles up the road, Eureka, the county's only company town, is littered with the huge cement foundations of mills. Among these skeletons stepping up steep mountain-sides are various concrete ruins of the Sunnyside Mill, a major gold, silver, lead, and zinc producer from 1873 until 1991. Archimedes must have smiled upon Eureka: More than $50 million in precious metals flowed out of this town and some 200 miners lived here as late as the 1930s, when Eureka's precipitous decline began. Eureka was dismantled and its homes moved to, among other places, Silverton, Durango, and the Idarado Mine on Red Mountain Pass.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Thomas J. Noel
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Data

What's Nearby

Animas Forks
Hillside Cemetery
San Juan County History Museum (San Juan County Jail)
San Juan County Courthouse
Town Hall

Citation

Thomas J. Noel, "Eureka", [Silverton, Colorado], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/CO-01-SA18.

Print Source

Buildings of Colorado, Thomas J. Noel. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, 566-566.

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