Durango

Sister cities

• Victoria de Durango

History

The town was organized from September 1880 to April 1881 by the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad (D&RG, later known as the Denver and Rio Grande Western railroad) as part of their efforts to reach Silverton, Colorado, and service the San Juan mining district, the goal of their "San Juan Extension" built from Alamosa, Colorado. The D&RG chose a site in the Animas Valley close to the Animas River near what is now the Downtown Durango Historic Business District for its railroad facilities following a brief and most likely perfunctory negotiation with the other establishment in the area known as Animas City, to the north. The city was named by ex-Colorado Governor Alexander C. Hunt, a friend of D&RG President William Jackson Palmer, after Durango, Mexico, based on his favorable impression of that city resulting from a scouting trip undertaken on behalf of Palmer. The Durango, Colorado, post office opened on November 19, 1880, and the Town of Durango was incorporated on April 27, 1881. There are significant archaeological sites surrounding the Durango area featured on the State and National historical registers, including: * Mesa Verde National Park, a World Heritage site * Chimney Rock National Monument, the most northeastern known outpost of the Ancestral Puebloans * Durango Rock Shelters Archeology Site, a Basketmaker and Pueblo culture site * Spring Creek Archeological District, a Basketmaker and Pueblo site * Talus Village, a Basketmaker site

Geography

At the 2020 United States census, the town had a total area of , including of water. |source 2 = XMACIS2 }}

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• Black-billed Magpie

  Pica hudsonia (Sabine, 1823) · Aves
  5,995
• American Robin

  Turdus migratorius Linnaeus, 1766 · Aves
  5,959
• House Finch

  Haemorhous mexicanus (P.L.Statius Müller, 1776) · Aves
  5,761
• Eurasian Collared-Dove

  Streptopelia decaocto (Frivaldszky, 1838) · Aves
  5,299
• Northern Flicker

  Colaptes auratus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  5,222
• Mallard

  Anas platyrhynchos Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  5,143
• Black-capped Chickadee

  Poecile atricapillus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  4,543
• Canada Goose (canadensis Group)

  Branta canadensis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  4,512

Most recent

• M 2.6 — 2026-05-16
  15 km SSW of Sawpit, Colorado
• M 2.5 — 2026-04-20
  12 km SE of Silverton, Colorado
• M 3.6 — 2023-03-10
  16 km S of Ophir, Colorado
• M 3.1 — 2017-12-10
  14 km NNW of Rico, Colorado
• M 2.5 — 2017-12-10
  14 km NNW of Rico, Colorado
• M 2.9 — 2017-12-10
  11 km WNW of Rico, Colorado