Long before European settlement, the area was regularly explored by the
Anasazi, and later the
Utes, who hunted and lived in the San Juans during the summer. There is also speculation that Spanish explorers and fur traders ventured into the area in the 1600s and 1700s. After the
Brunot Agreement with the Utes in 1873, which exchanged for the
Southern Ute Indian Reservation and $25,000 per year, several mining camps were constructed. These would later become the communities of
Howardsville,
Eureka, and
Silverton. San Juan County was formed on January 31, 1876, from part of
La Plata County. The region boomed after George Howard and R. J. McNutt discovered the Sunnyside silver vein along Hurricane Peak, outside the mining camp of Eureka. Gold was then discovered in 1882, which helped the county weather the
Panic of 1893 far better than other mining communities, such as Aspen or
Creede. Mining operators in the
San Juan mountain area of Colorado formed the
San Juan District Mining Association (SJDMA) in 1903, as a direct result of a
Western Federation of Miners proposal to the Telluride Mining Association for
the eight-hour day, which
had been approved in a referendum by 72 percent of Colorado voters. The new association consolidated the power of thirty-six mining properties in
San Miguel,
Ouray, and San Juan Counties. The SJDMA refused to consider any reduction in hours or increase in wages, helping to provoke a bitter strike. The Sunnyside mine was shut down after the
1929 stock market crash, but was acquired by Standard Metals Corp. in 1959, and reopened, finding gold in 1973 with the Little Mary vein. The county's economy was dealt a devastating blow in 1992 when the mine and the corresponding Shenandoah-Dives mill, the last operating in the region, permanently closed. The closure meant the end of jobs for over one third of the county's workforce. ==Geography==