<\/p>\n
By all historical accounts, there is no \u201cRiver of Lost Souls\u201d running through Durango. So how is it that over the years that\u2019s become the adopted, dramatized name of the Animas River?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just not a black and white issue,\u201d said Robert McDaniel, a former director of the Animas Museum. \u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of different reasons and theories put forth.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first documented instance of the Animas River getting its name was from Spanish explorer Juan Maria Antonio Rivera, who led what is considered the earliest known Western expedition through this region in 1765.<\/p>\n
Crossing the river south of what would become known a century later as Durango, Rivera called the river, according to his journals, the \u201cRio de Las Animas\u201d \u2013 the River of Souls.<\/p>\n
Missing from the name is any mention of \u201cperdidas,\u201d the Spanish word for \u201clost.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than a decade later, Rivera was followed by the Escalante-Dominguez expedition, which also referred to the river as the \u201cRio de las Animas\u201d when it crossed the same section of the river in 1776.<\/p>\n
Nik Kendziorski, archives manager for Fort Lewis College\u2019s Center of Southwest Studies, said none of the old maps from that time period call the Animas a river of lost souls.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t seen any maps with reference to \u2018perdidas,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cBut for some reason that word gets thrown in there.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s possible, but not likely, that earlier expeditions unsanctioned by the Spanish crown passed through the region, and perhaps they gave the waterway the \u201cRiver of Lost Souls\u201d moniker, McDaniel said.<\/p>\n
Another explanation may be explorers confused another river in Southeast Colorado, in present day Las Animas County, known as the Rio de Las Animas Perdidas en Purgatorio \u2013 the River of Lost Souls in Purgatory.<\/p>\n
The more probable explanation is that the Animas River took on the myth of being a haven for \u201clost souls\u201d when English settlers arrived nearly 100 years later, McDaniel said.<\/p>\n
He said the first known reference to the River of Lost Souls was in Ernest Ingersoll\u2019s Crest of the Continent, originally published in 1885.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the loftier heights beyond, the verdure-clad mountains are seen rising into shapely cones and coquetting with the fleecy clouds,\u201d he wrote. \u201cSuch were the elements of the sublime view in the Ca\u00f1on of the Rio de las Animas Perdidas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Author and journalist Jonathan Thompson, a sixth-generation Durangoan, detailed much of the mystery surrounding the naming of the Animas River in his recently released book, River of Lost Souls: The Science, Politics and Greed Behind the Gold King Mine Disaster.<\/p>\n
Thompson said the earliest reference to \u201clost souls\u201d in newspapers was in 1890 in the Colorado Chieftain. A report said when Mexicans settled the region, \u201cthey named the principal stream which flows through the valley in which is Durango, \u2018Animas,\u2019 or \u2018the river of lost souls.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The name seemingly started to catch on, especially as newspapers tied the ominous moniker to deaths and disasters that occurred over the years.<\/p>\n
Thompson pointed to a 1900 article in the Durango Wage Earner, covering a story about a recent death:<\/p>\n
\u201cAgain have the treacherous waters of the Animas River laid their icy hands on one of Durango\u2019s noble young men and stilled his heart in death. Well may this river be called the river of lost souls, for under its cold, cruel waters have numbers of brave souls been lost to families and friends in this life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two years later, the Wage Earner turned the narrative to the pollution contamination in the headwaters of the Animas River farther north, where mining was in its heyday in Silverton.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnly a few short years ago and it was a puzzle to understand why the Spaniards named the Animas River \u2018The River of Lost Souls,\u2019 but looking into its polluted waters now, it is easy to understand that it was an inspiration that moved them. If lost souls could have any worse water to use than those of the Animas, we can hardly conceive how it could be.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lore of the River of Lost Souls was likely perpetuated when the Wage Earner gave a false account of the origin of the river\u2019s name, claiming that Escalante had in fact named the river and included \u201cperdidas.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter that, it was pretty common for newspapers to just call it \u2018River of Lost Souls,\u2019\u201d Thompson said.<\/p>\n
Over the years, it\u2019s a common practice for locals to attribute tragedies on the river to the supposed myth of lost souls.<\/p>\n
\u201cRivers always claim lives \u2026 but I would say the Animas definitely could be considered a treacherous river,\u201d McDaniel said. \u201cAnd yes, there have been lost souls, but as to whether that has any bearing on the name, I don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Local historian and Fort Lewis College history professor emeritus Duane Smith said long ago lores continue to feed into the myth that the Animas is a historically ill-fated place.<\/p>\n
Smith tried for years to confirm a popular legend that an expedition of Spanish soldiers and civilians drowned while trying to cross the Animas River \u2013 to no avail.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just one of those great legends,\u201d Smith said. \u201cAnd some of those legends are hard to prove.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thompson said that when he was growing up, playing with his friends along the banks of the Animas River, his grandmother used to tell them that if they fell in the Animas, they would end up as one of those lost souls.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt worked,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cI was scared \u2026 of one section \u2026 where the bank had eroded away in a place where there were some big cottonwood trees, so the water was all green and murky and probably pretty deep, and it had these backless stumps and branches sticking out that had been worn smooth by the water so they looked like giant bones of some creature. And because of all the snags in the river there, there were a lot of pretty serious eddies, which my parents called \u2018the undertow\u2019 that would allegedly suck you under.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another friend\u2019s mom would tell the neighborhood kids the story of \u201cLa Lloronoa,\u201d the ghost of a woman who lost her child to the river and now roams the banks, looking to grab other kids into its waters.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo that just scared us even more, although it didn\u2019t really keep us away from the river,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cAt least not in the daytime. At night? Different story.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perhaps that\u2019s how a name like the River of Lost Souls sticks.<\/p>\n