SILVERTON PART 2 NOTABLE BUILDINGS AND VIEWS

 These pictures were taken on September 19 Canon A 1100 IS point and shoot camera.

Near the depot is this home made from two standard gauge cabooses. They have been so joined for several years.

The Grand Imperial Hotel, built in 1882. Its first floor is devoted to retail stores and a  restaurant.

 

The City Hall was gutted by a fire in 1991 and so  carefully restored it won an award for the restoration..

The San Juan County Historical Society bought the abandoned county jail building and opened it as a museum.

  

Then the Society obtained grants and built this structure to house its extensive archives next to the jail museum.

Next, with more grants, the Society dismantled the New Caledonia Mine boarding house in a remote gulch and reused most of the material to build this wooden addition to the original jail - museum. The part with the raised roof to the right is new and built in the same style. Now another similar addition is under  construction behind it. All are three stories, including a basement  in which the mining displays are located.

The San Juan County Historical Society is nicely displaying the set of four annual railroad passes Otto Mears gave to C. W. Gibbs, the surveyor of the Silverton Railroad.

 

And here is the stately San Juan County Courthouse.

 

The county school built in a century ago was refurbished in the last couple of years

The western part of town seen from the Shrine road. The school is in the center, with the Grand Imperial Hotel on the left. The road in the background  goes up Kendall Mountain and the train tracks are in the canyon to the upper right.

Here is the easterly part of town, with the court house prominent at the right. We are looking up the Animas River canyon. 

 

One continuing project of the Historical Society is to maintain and improve the Hillside Cemetery. Every year new markers are placed on graves previously unmarked.

Here is the Congregational Church with parsonage next door. I happened to be in Silverton a few years ago when the steeple was put back on the building after being reroofed while on the ground.

This building was built as the office for a mine and mill on the northwest side of town. It was moved to this location on the southeast side of town on the San Juan Scenic Highway  to serve as the Visitor Center. A footrace is run every year to the top of the mountain shown here.