Aguilar, Colorado

Aguilar sits in the coal country of Las Animas County, named for José Ramón Aguilar, a state legislator who owned the land when the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad platted the town in eighteen ninety-two. Before the railroad, a small adobe settlement called San Antonio Plaza had stood here since the eighteen sixties. The coal boom transformed it almost overnight.

By the turn of the century Aguilar had a bustling population, several hotels, a bank, multiple churches, and plenty of saloons, which says something about the character of the place. The bust followed the boom, as it always did in the coalfields. Today Aguilar is a quiet town of a few hundred, but those hotel foundations and old brick facades still tell the story of its brief, raucous prime.