The Denver & Rio Grande Railway's tracklayers reached Durango, Colorado, on July 27, 1881. Finally, gold and silver ore could be shipped out of the San Juan Region by railroad at lowered freight rates. Smelters sprang up almost immediately at Durango. The D&RG chose this site for a town because of the availability of coal. This volume illustrates Durango's development year-by-year, as the town progressed and the D&RG upgraded its railroad facilities. Once Otto Mears' Rio Grande Southern arrived on the scene in 1890, this town was an interchange point between the two railroads. By 1891, Durango had built a horsecar line, later improved to an electric trolley route, which lasted until 1921. The D&RG added a third rail at Durango to service their standard-gauge trackage to Farmington, New Mexico, later narrow-gauged in 1923. Volume XI contains 376 pages, 321 black-and-white and 17 color photographs, along with 26 detailed maps.
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