The county seat (1887, 6,600 feet) was named, like the county, for the Eagle River, whose tributaries supposedly resemble the feathers in an eagle's tail. Eagle's population has soared to over 1,600 with the booming ski industry, propelled by a 1986, $6 million runway expansion of the 1947 airport to lure jetsetters. The main street, Broadway, is lined with turn-of-the-century brick commercial buildings, usually with tall, narrow, double-hung windows, often with arched tops and radiating brick voussoirs. At 201 Broadway the Diamond J Bar, earlier known as the Eagle Bar, Dempsey's, Louisa's, Spooky's, Jack's Bar, and the Copper Eagle, has recently acquired a two-story false front of barn wood. Inside are a spacious dining room, bar, dance floor, orchestra platform, pool area, and a meeting hall used by Eagle town officials and the police department, who have tiny offices next door.
The residence at 308 Broadway (1914), a one-story house with a hipped roof and dormers, has a front porch with fancy columns. At 405 Broadway is a house of rough-faced cast stone (1911) with neo-Victorian ornament. The bank (1912) at Third and Broadway has been unfortunately modernized. Less altered are the terracotta-trimmed buff brick Dice Brothers commercial building (1904) at 221–225 Broadway, the brick Community House (1900) at 2nd and Broadway, and the two-story log house at 332 Howard Street. The Eagle County Historical Society Museum is housed in a gambrel-roofed dairy barn (1882) moved in 1984 to Chambers Park for restoration as a museum and visitors' center near the picturesque Eagle County Rodeo Grounds.
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