Antique Cabinet Card Photograph-San Juan Smelter in Durango, CO by Frank Gonner

Description

Original Antique
Imperial Cabinet Card Photograph of San Juan Smelter in Durango, Colorado by Frank Gonner.   This cabinet card photo is in good condition for its age with soiling on the mount, the photo has a spot on the upper left corner, scratches & some tiny specks of paper loss. There's an imperfection on the left side where there was some damage to the negative before it was printed.  The bottom of the mount has 2 poke holes. The photo is marked in the negative: "San Juan Smelter By Gonner".  The image shows the San Juan & New York Smelting Company in Durango, Colorado.  The
photo is 7 5/8" x 9 5/8" on a beige mount that measures
9 5/8" x 11 5/8".  The photo was taken from across the Animas River looking West where Highway 160/550 is now located. The smelter's stacks are spewing out smoke. There's a wooden foot bridge in the foreground that goes across the Animas River with stairs leading up to the smelter. The Durango Smelter was located below Smelter Mountain, across the Animas River from the D&RGW Railroad yard. It operated from 1882-1930 processing Coke, Lead, Copper, Silver & Gold from mines all over La Plata County, San Juan County & elsewhere in the Southwestern Colorado region generally serviced by railroad. It was later reinstated during World War l by the U.S. Vanadium Corp. for production of large amounts of Uranium that would be utilized in the Manhattan Project. It sat dormant from 1963 until the 1980's when the US Department of Energy cleaned up the site.  Today the site is the City of Durango's dog park (and rattlesnake habitat!), probably because the real estate is too toxic for development. The photographer Frank Xavier Gonner (1860-1912) was a Luxemborg-American photographer from Durango, Colorado. During his 23 year long career, capturing images of people & places, he produced a historical record of the Durango community. He also took many photographs of the Ute Indians in Ignacio & attended the St. Louis World's Fair to view his displayed photos.  One such photograph is "Cavalry remnant of Meeker Massacre" taken in 1903 and currently owned by the Library of Congress.  It's a cool historical Frank Gonner photograph of Durango Colorado & a must-have cabinet card for any Southwest image collector.
***From a smoke free environment.***