Re: Eureka photo

Thanks again Fritz,

You are a Gold Mine for us by just being so local and so helpful. This Eureka photo is another classic to take us back to that age as if we were just standing there. For example those two tents show us just what Animas Forks looked like per reading the following: July 1, 1905 from Silverton Standard Newspaper:

"For temporary accommodations until buildings can be built, a village of tents makes white the little valley at Animas Forks. Some 100 men are to be given employment on the new 500-ton mill for the Gold Prince mine."

Was the false box front wall of the buildings all for show or did it protect from snow coming off the roof? The Silverton, Gladstone & Northern Engine house in the 1901 photo has the false box front, and it was still there in 1912 but gone by 1938 in Osborn's photos.

The article on Otto's Mears new machine shop during the 1910 inspection visit might have been the S.G. & N.RR's prior engine house as the tour went right up the Gladstone branch.

What was the Otto Mears' engine that got the entirely new boiler?

The State taxed buildings of the railroads in Colorado are accessible in the State Archives in Denver in the Equalization Report, often called the Governor's reports. Some years of these are on microfilm and free to read, but un-filmed books cost money to retrieve from storage.

You can almost picture someone modeling Animas Forks while the Gold Prince in being built and the railroad arriving, or modeling Eureka!