Re: Animas Forks on the Silverton Northern RR. A new clue.

The mill in question is the Frisco Mill, at the Bagley Tunnel. Tunnel work began in 1904, while the mill was built around 1912. The photo of the mill on Pg. 238 of Sloan & Skowronski suggests that the grade was completed but tracks never laid. While their history may be correct, my own investigation of Animas Forks leads me to believe that the grade was never more than an idea or initial survey.

The end of track at Animas Forks is seems to be quite the end, the turntable and mill tracks being in a rather tight spot. There is no reasonable way for the grade to have gone further up the canyon from the mill, and no evidence of a grade exists. From the turntable location, the only way "up" would have been the alignment of the current Jeep road, or switchbacks up the same hill face. No evidence of either exits. Additionally, it seems unlikely to me that in 1906 the grade would have been placed on the established wagon road through Animas Forks.

It is, perhaps, possible that something was graded from the Animas Forks town site up to the Frisco Mill, with the balance of the connection to the end of track to be completed in the future. If that is the case, I suspect the current Jeep road to be on or nearly on what was graded.

My father and I have inadvertently vetted much of Sloan and Skowronski's text in the field, and this topic is one of a small number of loose ends we still debate.