Prospectors first wintered at the Three Forks of the Animas in 1873 while searching for silver and gold, and in 1875 the settlement was renamed Animas Forks to satisfy postal requirements as San Juan County commissioners funded a road from Silverton to Animas Forks to connect with the trail from Lake City, now known as Cinnamon Pass. By 1885 its summer population had reached 450, though few remained through the severe winters when most mining stopped. The town endured the mining industry's boom and bust cycles until the early 1920's, when falling world metal prices began its slow change into a ghost town. Animas Forks developed businesses and had electricity, telephone, and telegraph service, but fire destroyed much of the town, and in 1943 an avalanche demolished several buildings in the business district. The Silverton Northern Railroad, built as an extension by Otto Mears, connected the town with Eureka and Silverton in 1904, saw only a few years of active service, and after the rails remained until 1938, most of the right-of-way became the present county road. The Bay Window House was built by William W. Duncan in 1879. The Gold Prince Mill, built in 1904 for $500,000, was then the costliest mill ever constructed in Colorado, used structural steel instead of heavy timber, was linked to the Gold Prince Mine by a 12,000-foot cable tramway carrying ore in buckets, had 100 stamps, processed 500 tons of ore a day, and closed in 1910 after only 6 years of operation; its steel was later salvaged in 1917 for use in the Sunnyside Mill in Eureka. At 11,200 feet, the Animas Forks Pioneer was the only newspaper ever published and printed at so high an elevation in the United States.