Then and now: the same view of Eureka, Colorado, photographed around 1900 and compared with the present day. Around 1900, Eureka, Colorado, was a small but bustling mining community in the San Juan Mountains, located along the upper Animas River between Silverton and Animas Forks. The historic photograph captures a town built around mining, with dirt roads, wooden buildings, wagons, and a constant flow of workers in one of Colorado’s most rugged landscapes. Eureka emerged during the region’s gold and silver boom in the late nineteenth century, after the Ute people were forced to cede much of the surrounding land and mining camps rapidly expanded across the San Juans. The arrival of the Silverton Northern Railroad connected Eureka with Silverton, Howardsville, and Animas Forks, allowing ore, supplies, and passengers to move through terrain that had previously been isolated for much of the year. Today, little remains of the once-active settlement. Most of the buildings have disappeared, leaving behind a quiet mountain valley where roads, forests, and the surrounding peaks have reclaimed a landscape that was once shaped by Colorado’s mining frontier.(Historic Vids)