Resting high in the heart of the San Juan Mountains
at 9,318 feet, the Town of Silverton is surrounded by natural beauty. 
Most of
the buildings date to the silver boom time and the surrounding hillsides are dotted with century old mining buildings and strewn with the mine tailings of past riches. The year round
population of 500 is supported by tourism. Over a quarter of a million
people visit town each year. Sitting just below tree line, the summers are cool and the autum colors begin in September.
A Little History
The Silverton district opened legally to miners
in 1874, following the Brunot Treaty with the Utes. An estimated 2000
men moved into the region that year. They came from across the U.S.,
many parts of Europe and even China, to endure severe winters and
dangerous mining conditions in their pursuit of the minerals they
hoped would make them rich.
Not all who settled were miners. By 1875 the 100
“sturdy souls” who lived in Silverton proper worked in the
post office, sawmills, blacksmith shop, mercantile, newspaper, liquor
stores, smelters or assay office. The town’s population grew
to 500 by 1876. Life was not easy for any of them. Statistics from
Silverton’s cemetery note causes of death in early Silverton
as 117 from snowslides, 143 from miner’s consumption, 161 from
pneumonia, 138 from influenza (most in the 1918 epidemic) and 202
from mine accidents.
People came to the Silverton area on foot and astride
mules. In 1879, the wagon road over Stony Pass (12,590 feet) opened.
Three years later the railroad reached Silverton, coming north
from Durango, relieving Silverton’s isolation. In 1884 Otto Mears
operated his toll road between Silverton and Red Mountain town, and
then, on into Ouray. By 1887 the railroad had reached Ouray from the
north, but it never connected to Silverton from the north due to the
rugged Uncompahgre canyon.
Mining reached its peak between 1900 and 1912, and
the population of San Juan County peaked at 5000.
The area boasted four railroads, three smelters,
and over thirty mills serving myriad gold and silver mines high in
the mountains. Men worked at these remote locations year-round, living
in boarding houses, coming off the mountains via tram bucket over
long cable tram lines designed to carry the ore from the mine to the
mill several thousand feet below. On the rare occasions miners came
to town, many of them spent their money in Blair Street’s saloons
and houses of ill repute.
On a more wholesome note, the town sprouted churches,
fraternal lodges, women’s clubs…even a baseball team and
brass band. Dances were popular and Silverton had her own ice skating
rink.
Prior to the twentieth century, the most permanent
structures in Silverton were the stone building that is now
the Pickle Barrel and the Thomson Block, a four story stone and native
brick building built in 1882 which housed the Grand Hotel. The first
decade of the 1900s saw a flurry of civic construction: the courthouse,
jail, town hall, Miner’s Union Hospital and the jewel-box Carnegie
Library were all built at this time. Water and sewer were put in,
concrete sidewalks were installed and a municipally owned light plant
provided electricity to the burgeoning town.
¨In the years since that glittering decade, San
Juan County saw several of the boom and bust cycles typical of the
mining industry. The boom cycles saw an influx of people from practically
every ethnic group on earth and yielded millions of dollars worth
of precious metals, and the bust cycles saw the settlements of the
county turn into ghostly reminders of themselves. Financial and environmental
setbacks, such as Lake Emma’s flooding of the Sunnyside Mine
in 1978, sounded an eventual death knell to Silverton’s mining
era. The Sunnyside, the last big mine in the region, closed in the
early 1990s.
Today’s Silverton, with a population
or 500, is a tribute to the survival of a gritty, tough community
for whom quitting was never an option. The entire town has been designated
a National Historic Landmark. It is a favorite destination for train
fans, 
history buffs, and outdoor enthusiasts. Silverton remains Silver Queen
of Colorado, beloved by those who live here and those who come to
visit.
