San Juan County (1876), in the heart of the San Juan Mountains, has “three months of winter and nine months of mighty late fall.” The growing season averages only fourteen days in Silverton, the county seat, and the county does not have a single farm. Even sheep and cattle only summer here. It took gold, lead, copper, and zinc mining to lure people into this two-mile-high county, where three-fourths of the land is in national forests or wilderness areas. From a peak of 3,063 in 1910, the population has dwindled to less than 500 souls, nearly all of whom live in Silverton, the sole survivor of some sixteen mining towns.
Writing Credits
If SAH Archipedia has been useful to you, please consider supporting it.
SAH Archipedia tells the story of the United States through its buildings, landscapes, and cities. This freely available resource empowers the public with authoritative knowledge that deepens their understanding and appreciation of the built environment. But the Society of Architectural Historians, which created SAH Archipedia with University of Virginia Press, needs your support to maintain the high-caliber research, writing, photography, cartography, editing, design, and programming that make SAH Archipedia a trusted online resource available to all who value the history of place, heritage tourism, and learning.