Lost history of the Animas River

To the Editor

I look forward to reading Jonathan Thompson’s new book River of Lost Souls, about the Gold King Mine disaster. The popular myth is that the river was named after members of a party of Spanish explorers who drowned while attempting to cross the river near here. Eleven years before Franciscan friars Escalante and Dominguez explored this area, Juan Maria Antonio Rivera crossed the Animas River and likely camped in the vicinity of present day Walmart and Home Depot. In his journal entry of July 4, 1765, Rivera actually named our river the Rio De Las Animas, the River of Souls. The bridge near Home Depot was named Rivera Crossing in 2004, in his honor.

It’s interesting to know that there is actually another Animas City an even another Purgatory, in this case, a river named the Purgatoire. These are located in southeast Colorado, in present day Bent County.

So why the persistent “River of Lost Souls” legend? According to historian David Lavender, “The myth (or fact
if you will) that created the name is older than the Pilgrims landing on Plymouth Rock.” Lavender then states that an exploration party was sent out of Mexico to the area (of present day southeast Colorado,) around 1594 to suppress the Indians. When they judged their mission completed, their interests turned to pursuing the explorer Coronado’s fruitless search for the fabled Quivara. They disobeyed orders to return, quarreled among themselves, and their numbers diminished, were set upon by the Indians. Years later, their rusted arms were discovered by a “roaming party of explorers” near a river. This band of explorers named the river the “Rio de Las Animas Perdidas en Purgatorio,” the River of Lost Souls in Purgatory, which survives today as the Purgatoire.

How did this story become transferred to our local Animas River? Could it have been a miner or trapper, someone who traveled here from the eastern part of the territory? The source of how this came to be may be lost to history. Whatever the reason, the misnomer persists today. River of Lost Souls is colorful and romantic, but in reality the name of the river that runs through our peaceful burg is the Rio de Las Animas, the River of Souls.

– Elwin Johnston, Durango