Durango

Durango, city, seat (1881) of La Plata county, southwestern Colorado, U.S. It is situated on the Animas River in the foothills of the La Plata Mountains at an elevation of 6,512 feet (1,983 metres), about 100 miles (160 km) south of Montrose.

Durango was founded in 1880 during a mining boom by the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad and was named for Durango, Mexico. It developed as a shipping point for farm produce (including livestock) and local natural resources (timber, coal, oil and gas, gold, silver, lead, uranium, vanadium) and has some light manufacturing (including beverage production).

The city, a popular year-round tourist centre, is the headquarters of San Juan National Forest. The Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad (1882), constructed to haul ore from the mining town of Silverton (45 miles [70 km] to the north), has also long been used for sightseeing. Other features of interest in the area include Mesa Verde National Park, the Southern Ute Tourist Centre, the San Juan Skyway (a 236-mile [380-km] scenic loop road), and the Purgatory ski area. The city is the southern terminus for the Colorado Trail, which runs northeastward for nearly 500 miles (800 km) through the Colorado Rocky Mountains to just outside Denver. Durango is the seat of Fort Lewis College (founded as a boarding school for American Indians in 1891 and given to Colorado by the federal government in 1911). Inc. 1881. Pop. (2000) 13,922; (2010) 16,887.