Durango Diary
Duane A. Smith
Durango Diary was originally published as feature columns in the Durango Herald Friday edition from 1986-1991. The cover Durango's earliest years through the 1920s, with a few maverick 1870s stories to set the scene. Each essay features a single subject, from the booms and busts that have shaped the town to the fun – and foibles – of its citizens. Many are illustrated with historic photographs.
Duane A. Smith
Duane Smith received
his academic degrees from the University of Colorado and completed
his Ph.D. in 1964.
That year he began to teach at Fort Lewis College where he is a Professor
of Southwest Studies.
His areas of research and writing include Colorado history, Civil
War history, mining history, urban history and baseball history.
He is an extremely popular professor at Fort Lewis, and he is the
author of over thirty books on a variety of subjects including Rocky
Mountain Mining Camps: The Urban Frontier; A Colorado History; Horace Tabor: His Life and the Legend; Silver Saga: The
Story of Caribou Colorado; Colorado Mining: A Photographic
History; Fortunes Are for the Few: Letters of a Forty-niner; Rocky Mountain Boom Town: A History of Durango; A Land Alone:
Colorado’s Western Slope; Song of the Hammer and Drill: The
Colorado San Juans, 1860-1914; Mining America: The Industry
and the Environment, 1800-1980; Mesa Verde National Park: Shadows
of the Centuries; The Birth of Colorado: A Civil War Perspective;
and Sacred Trust: The Birth and Development of Fort Lewis College.
