Among the first prospectors to reach the San Juan Mountains was a party led by Captain Charles Baker in 1860, lured by the captain’s glowing accounts of a previous trip. Actual results were so meager that his disgruntled followers considered lynching him.
The area’s isolation hindered exploration, but continued prospecting efforts in the 1870s brought pressure upon the federal government to “adjust” a treaty with the Ute Indians, essentially forcing them to give up the San Juans in an 1873 agreement known as the Brunot Treaty.
Two years later, a small community named Baker’s Park was established in a lovely valley surrounded by silver-bearing mountains. The town was carefully platted and featured wide main streets to facilitate wagon traffic. The post office was granted to Silverton, likely a shortened version of “Silvertown.” An apocryphal story, however, claims the town got its name when a miner cried out that, although they had no gold, they had “silver by the ton.”
Transportation of even the richest ore created considerable obstacles for miners, because ore had to be packed out by mules, transferred to wagons at the first road, and freighted to the nearest railhead, which originally was Pueblo. The arrival of the Denver & Rio Grande from Durango in 1882 alleviated that difficulty, cutting transportation costs by 80 percent. Silverton’s isolation was over— as long as the rails were clear. Snowslides in 1884, for example, forced snowbound citizens to scrape down to their last bits of food as they endured for seventy-three days before a train could get through. The rail link to Durango was the community’s lifeline.
In addition to food, the railroad could bring in everything that turns a camp into a town. Silverton’s Greene Street became an elegant thoroughfare, highlighted by the three-story brick Grand (later Grand Imperial) Hotel. Other commercial buildings vied for attention with attractive cornices and elaborate façades. Silverton never suffered a major fire, so the fine buildings remain intact today.
One block east stood Blair Street, so notorious for its saloons and brothels that residents at either end called their sections “Empire Street” to avoid being tainted by association.
Most of the buildings on Silverton’s Greene Street date from the 1880s and 1890s. Notice the handsome cornices and inventive trim colors.
The Silver Crash of 1893 dealt a blow to Silverton, but by 1897 half of the town’s ore production was for gold, followed by silver, lead, and copper. Output reached its zenith between 1900 and 1912 and continued until World War II.
The new gold arrived after World War II when the Denver & Rio Grande’s spectacular railroad began to attract tourists. Now called the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, the train brings about two hundred thousand people to Silverton annually.
WALKING AND DRIVING AROUND SILVERTON
Silverton’s stores offer a free visitors’ guide that includes a walking tour.
An appropriate place to begin is the San Juan County Museum, located at the north end of town. The museum is housed in the 1902 county jail, and much original equipment remains. The first floor features the sheriff’s office and family quarters, the kitchen, and the sole women’s cell. Men’s cells are on the second floor, along with a door to the jail at Animas Forks (see following entry, pages 108–109).
On your way downtown, visit the 1906 San Juan County Courthouse next door to the museum. Built in a cruciform configuration, its elaborate halls dramatically lead to a single central spot: a simple drinking fountain.
South of the courthouse on Greene is the 1902 Wyman Hotel, now a bed-and-breakfast. Across the street is the handsome 1908 town hall, gutted by a 1992 fire but beautifully restored by 1995. When you venture inside to see its graceful staircases, you will be amazed that skeptics considered the building beyond saving after the fire.
Silverton’s Hillside Cemetery, north of town, has hundreds of varied tombstones. Sultan Mountain is prominent in the background.
For the next four blocks heading south from the town hall, virtually every building on the west side of Greene dates back to the nineteenth century, as do many on the east side. Even the newer buildings look authentic. Your visitors’ guide will give you information on individual buildings.
Other commercial structures are found one block east of Greene on the once-notorious Blair Street. Notice the 1883 jail at the corner of Thirteenth and Blair. It was constructed by laying boards flat and stacking them log-cabin style on top of each other for strength. A similar jail stands in Animas Forks.
One block west of Greene is Reese Street, where you will find many attractive residences. In that same area are the school, Carnegie Library, and three churches.
To reach Silverton’s Hillside Cemetery, go north from town to a junction of roads. Take the north road and turn right at the first opportunity. The cemetery looks down upon the picturesque town and has a sweeping view of the mountains surrounding the valley.
The oldest graves are to your left, past a small block shed near a fence. There you will find an unusual marker for Alfred Moyle, who died in 1888 at eight years of age. The stone features a child reclining on a blanket, with a clamshell spreading out protectively over him. Nearby is the cemetery’s first burial plot, the 1875 grave of Rachel E. Farrow, along with the earliest headstone, for James Briggs, who died in a snowslide in 1878.
Three other interesting headstones are for William Henry Richards, who died in an 1889 Yankee Girl mining accident; for John Herbert, buried next to Richards, “accidentally hurt at Robinson Mine, Red Mountain,” in 1890; and for Lewis Owen, next to Herbert, who died at the Yankee Girl in 1892.
WHEN YOU GO
Silverton is 49 miles north of Durango and 25 miles south of Ouray on U.S. Highway 550. With a four-wheel-drive, high-clearance vehicle, you can go from Lake City to Silverton over either Cinnamon Pass or Engineer Pass. I have done both on a mountain bike (with plenty of walking) but have not driven either. These roads are for serious backroad vehicles and experienced drivers only. Inquire locally as to road conditions.
The Mayflower Mill and Old Hundred Mine Tours
Not far from Silverton are the best mill and mine tours I have ever taken. To reach the Mayflower Mill and the Old Hundred Mine, drive to the north end of Silverton on Greene Street, turn right at the junction, and proceed northeast 1.9 miles to the Mayflower Mill. The Old Hundred is .5 of a mile east of the tiny ghost town of Howardsville, which is 2 miles beyond the Mayflower Mill. Signs clearly mark the way to both attractions.
Mine tours should be enjoyable for almost everybody, because they can be exciting and seem almost adventurous. Mills are different. I think you must want to know how a mill works, because a good mill tour will provide considerable information. I found the Mayflower Mill Tour fascinating.
Many mills in the West were dismantled and sold for scrap in the 1940s to aid the war effort. The Mayflower, however, operated until 1991, and all the equipment that was functioning on its last day is still in place.
Our guide, a ten-year mill employee, was informative and knowledgeable. As we walked through the mill, she told us, without unnecessarily elaborate explanations, how crude rocks were reduced to finished amalgam.
The Old Hundred Mine Tour is excellent for a number of reasons. First, the train ride in, about one-third of a mile, is short enough not to be monotonous. Second, you explore several areas featuring different mining operations and equipment. Third, some of that equipment is actually operational: Two drills and a mucker are fired up for just long enough to demonstrate that the mine certainly wasn’t the silent place it is now. Finally, our tour guide was marvelous. A former miner, he could have been a siding salesman, so enthusiastic and entertaining was his pitch.
A short, beautiful side trip begins below the Mayflower Mill and crosses the Animas Forks River. In only 1.5 miles, you follow a road toward the Mayflower Mine. You’ll frequently be near the towers that supported a tramway, which operated from 1930 until 1963 and transported ore from that mine to the Mayflower Mill. On occasion, you’ll pass beneath the buckets suspended overhead. At road’s end, you’ll be creekside in magnificent Arrastra Gulch, looking up toward the mine itself.
Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad
People come from all over the world to ride this spectacular train, and so should you. You can choose a round-trip journey from Durango to Silverton or a one-way with a bus return. If you have small children, you might prefer the latter. Otherwise, I recommend the nine-hour round trip, which includes more than an hour’s layover in Silverton. The train offers four classes of travel: Presidential, First, Premium, and Standard. I have never splurged for the Presidential Class, but I have twice taken the First Class Alamosa Parlor Car (no minors allowed, because it has a bar), and I admit I’m spoiled.
A recent addition to the line, which I have not taken, is the First Class Silver Vista (for travelers ages sixteen and over), an open gondola with an elaborate glass canopy.
The Durango & Silverton is not inexpensive, but the day’s memories will be worth the cost. Reservations are strongly recommended. Whether you take the train or not, if you are in Durango, consider visiting the railroad’s museum, where you can climb inside a caboose and a private business coach and even take the engineer’s spot in the cab of a 1902 locomotive. An outdoor viewing area allows you to watch mechanics servicing locomotives in the roundhouse and, if you are lucky, to see a locomotive on the turntable.
The train from Durango, under a full head of steam, passes the depot on its way to Silverton.