The Museum is open to the public on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 10am until 4pm and on Wednesdays and Fridays from 1pm until 4pm.

Visit our YouTube channel and enjoy many of our past webinars. Like and subscribe to our channel here.

New exhibit, now open in the Ballantine Gallery.

Save the Dates!

September is History Live! month in Durango, presented by the Southwest Colorado Humanities Roundtable.

Here are the events sponsored by the Animas Museum. For a complete list of events, visit their website at swcohumanities.org.

Saturday, October 10, 10:30am. Southwest Colorado Genealogical Society meeting. Program to be announced. At the Animas Museum.

Saturday, October 10, 1pm. Come celebrate 100 years of the US Highway System by listening to a talk from Mick Souder, a “roadgeek” who has been studying the development of the national highway system since he was 7 years old. Mick will review how the US highway system developed in the 1920s, focusing on US 550 and its evolution from Otto Mears’ scary toll road to the scenic (and a little scary) wonder it is today. There is no charge for this event which will be recorded, join us at the Museum or on Zoom. To register for a Zoom link, click here.

Saturday, October 31, 10am - 4pm. Halloween Open House! Come by the museum for spooky treats, crafts, and history. All ages welcome, costumes optional.

Saturday, November 7, 1pm at the Durango Public Library Come learn how to use our oral history equipment available for checkout! This event will include opportunities to explore the equipment as well as discussions on oral history best practices in order to help you best collect the stories of our community. Join in person at the Durango Public Library at 1pm. (Recordings will be available after the event.)

Historian and author John Steinle will do a talk on his new book, Colorado’s World War II Home Front, which is a photographic narrative of Colorado's contribution during WWII. The talk will be virtual over Zoom, though it will be presented in a group setting at the Animas Museum. Copies of the book will be available for sale as well. Register for the Zoom link here.

Videos

Maybe you are old enough to remember the "Bicentennial Minutes" broadcast by CBS from 1974 to 1976? These were a popular series of short videos that highlighted moments in the American Revolution. At the Animas Museum, we were inspired to do something similar based on the "Moments That Made US" theme, one of the initiatives of History Colorado for 2026.

This is the first of our series, each video will tie together an artifact and photos with a story from an oral history, all from our collection. Mary Hansen's story was told to us by her grandsons. Watch the video on our YouTube channel @animasmuseum or here.

We are proud to be part of the Portrait of Colorado at 150 Storytelling project. Learn more about it and find an inventory of existing oral histories in Southwest Colorado here.

It's live, Buffalo Soldiers: Return to Animas City The Video! If you missed the event or want to hear the story of the Buffalo Soldiers again, you can watch it now on our Youtube channel here.

 

We are absolutely thrilled to release this oral history "I Lived in the Rico Depot" presented by life-long Colorado resident, Joanne Branson Smith. Joanne's earliest memories of childhood are of her adventures in and around the Denver Rio Grande Southern (RGS) railroad depot in Rico, CO. Joanne gave this talk at the Museum in November, 2022 and volunteer Larry Bollinger has done an amazing job to preserve her memories. You can watch it on our Youtube channel here.

Learn about the Great Fire of 1889

Download a device friendly copy of the walking tour here or a printable version of the pdf here.