The Silver San Juan Division of the National Model Railroad Association will hold its all-day fall public event at 8:45 a.m. Saturday at the Tri-County Head Start meeting room, 1315 Main Ave., in the lower level of the Northpoint Mall.

People who are interested in trains and modeling are invited. The event starts at 8:45 a.m. with a swap meet and conversation. A short members-only meeting will be held at 8:30 a.m.

The event will include presentations by Doug Geiger, model railroader, on “Tools, Tools, Tools!” and “Steam in China.” Pagosa modeler Tom Artzberger will present a clinic on “3D Printing.”

The day will include photography contests, a favorite train contest and “From the Workbench” where modelers display and discuss their current projects. Swap tables will be available before the clinics and during breaks.

Talk examines region during Spanish era

The Center of Southwest Studies at Fort Lewis College will host the 2015 Duane Smith Lecture in Southwest Studies featuring this year’s guest speaker, John L. Kessell.

Kessell will give his presentation, “Whither the Waters: Mapping the Great Basin from Miera (1776) to Fremont (1845),” at 6 p.m. Saturday in the FLC Vallecito Room.

Kessell, professor emeritus of history at the University of New Mexico, specializes in colonial Southwestern history. Kessell’s presentation focuses on Bernardo de Miera y Pacheco, who camped in August 1776 on the site of Durango during a four-month-long, 1,700-mile vision quest around the Four Corners. His map, the first to portray the Colorado Plateau and eastern Great Basin, contained certain hydrographic misconceptions later embraced by the Spanish Royal Corps of Engineers, Baron Alexander von Humboldt, Henry Schenck Tanner, and others. This lecture is free to the public.

For more information, call 247-7456 or visit http://swcenter.fortlewis.edu.

Unitarian group offers piano, clarinet recital

Mark Walters, clarinet, and Lisa Campi Walters, piano, will perform at 7 p.m. Friday at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Durango, 419 San Juan Drive.

The performance is part of the fellowship’s Recital Series. The cost is $20 for adults and $8 for students and children.

Red Cross has free smoke alarms

The American Red Cross will be in these areas from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. testing and installing free smoke alarms and educating community members on fire safety in their homes:

Pagosa Springs on Saturday.

Durango on Oct. 3 and Oct. 17.

Bayfield on Oct. 24.

This is part of the Home Fire Preparedness Campaign, which is a multi-year effort to reduce home-fire fatalities by 25 percent.

For more information, call Lou Goodman at (719) 480-4144, (719) 379-2834 or visit [email protected].

Herald Staff