Not only is Silver City the ghost town gem of the Gem State, it is one of the very best in the West. The almost seventy buildings of Silver City are occupied and maintained, but they are not overly restored, so the town has a distinctly noncommercial look to it. Many of the structures are wonderful architectural examples of the 1870s. The streets are dirt and uneven. The residents I have met are cordial, perhaps appreciating the fact that anyone arriving there has gone through a certain amount of effort just to see the town. The overall effect: Silver City is one of my favorite ghost towns.
Located in the southwest corner of Idaho, Silver City sits in Owyhee (oh-WYE-hee) County, named, improbable as it may seem, for the Hawaiian fur trappers who explored the area beginning in 1819. The mining history of Owyhee County, however, begins with the mad rush to War Eagle Mountain that created Silver City.
Prospectors had already found placer gold deposits along Idaho City’s Grimes Creek in 1862. A party of twenty-nine miners from that area, led by Michael Jordan, decided to head out in May 1863 in search of the fabled (and perhaps mythical) “lost” Blue Bucket Diggings. What they found instead was placer gold along what came to be called Jordan Creek. Quartz ledges of primary gold deposits were discovered two months later. What the party had come upon was the second biggest mineral find in Idaho’s history; the largest was found in the Coeur d’Alene area twenty years later (see the Wallace entry, pages 216–223). Soon the area was swarming with miners, and freight routes were extended from both year-old Boise City to the north and Oregon’s Jordan Valley to the west. Silver City and several other towns were born, including Ruby City, a now-vanished community that was at one time larger than Silver City. Ruby City served as the first Owyhee County seat until that honor was moved to burgeoning Silver City in 1867.
The Stoddard Mansion in Silver City may not compare in size with other mansions in the American West, but it holds its own when it comes to gingerbread trim.
Silver City’s Idaho Hotel is a ghost town lover’s dream: historic, authentic, and just rustic enough to make a night’s stay unforgettable.
Present-day guests at Silver City’s Idaho Hotel enter the past even as they check in. The Debold Safe behind the counter dates from about 1876. The guest ledger on the counter is an original to the hotel.
The Wells Fargo office inside the Idaho Hotel has, atop the agent’s desk, a telegraph key, a jar battery to power the telegraph, a ledger, and a large scale.
Silver City eventually featured a population of around twenty-five hundred people and seventy-five businesses. The hills surrounding town had more than two hundred mines, but it soon became apparent that the real wealth of Silver City lay within the big hill to the east: War Eagle Mountain. The biggest strike there came in 1865 with the discovery of the Poorman Mine, so named because the discoverers knew they lacked the capital necessary to work it. The Poorman was unusual in that it yielded an amalgam of both gold and silver chloride, the latter appearing with a crimson tint. The color was dubbed Ruby Silver. Some of the Poorman Ruby Silver crystals were displayed at the 1866 Paris Exposition, winning a gold medal.
A telegraph line, Idaho Territory’s first, was extended to Silver City from Winnemucca, Nevada, in 1874 and from Silver City to Boise a year later. Telephone service came in the 1880s, followed by electricity in 1903. At its mining peak, the Silver City Range contained more than sixty mills processing ore, with an estimated production of at least sixty million dollars, principally in silver, retrieved from area mines.
The peak years were over by the turn of the twentieth century, and the town’s population took a dive after World War I, although some mining continued into the 1930s. Silver City declined sufficiently enough that the county seat was moved in 1934 to its present site at Murphy, which had something that eluded Silver City: a railroad connection to the world. Silver City’s landmark Idaho Hotel shut its doors in about 1942, and the post office closed in 1943. In that same decade, the nearly empty community suffered a nearly fatal indignity: The electrical transmission lines were removed.
Ed Jagels purchased the Idaho Hotel in 1972 and reopened it for business, using a twelve-volt generator for power. He was a complete believer in the renaissance of Silver City and spent the rest of his life making it happen. I first met Jagels in 1998, three years before his death, and at that time his spirit and enthusiasm were infectious. Roger and Jerri Nelson bought the hotel from Jagels and have continued to make improvements to it (such as adding modern toilets with a septic system), without compromising the history or charm of the great building.
Today, Silver City is on the National Register of Historic Places, which means that property owners cannot build new buildings and can only make repairs on existing ones. About fifty families live there in the summer, and in the winter a watchman looks after the town. Silver City is alive and very much worth exploring.
WALKING AND DRIVING AROUND SILVER CITY
As you enter town, a sign cautions you to respect that this is an occupied town of private buildings. On the reverse side of that sign is a map that most visitors don’t see until they’re on the way out. It shows principal streets and the location of the cemetery.
You will enter town on Jordan Street after crossing Jordan Creek. On the southwest corner of Jordan and Avalanche streets is the former Owyhee County Office Building, now a gift shop. Directly across the street is the Idaho Hotel, a rambling structure that is, simply, one of the finest ghost town buildings in the American West. The Idaho Hotel is actually an amalgam of seven different buildings, the oldest of which is the 1866 three-story west wing, which was disassembled and loaded onto skids and sleds and dragged through snow to Silver City from short-lived Ruby City. That town stood where the road now turns toward Jordan Valley a half-mile west of Silver City. Inside the hotel, open for both meals and overnight accommodations, are a saloon-dining area, a Wells Fargo office, an elegant parlor, and eighteen rooms for guests, including the luxurious Empire Room, where I enjoyed a night surrounded by the nineteenth century.
Behind the hotel and straddling Jordan Creek is the 1869 Masonic Hall, a two-story structure that was originally built as a planing mill.
If you walk south from the hotel’s porch, you’ll be on Avalanche Street, which features the aforementioned former county office building, the Knapp Drug Store, and, on the corner of Avalanche and Washington streets, the Lippincott Building, which contained a doctor’s office. More of the town’s enchanting buildings extend down Washington, including the former Odd Fellows Hall; the Getchell Drug Store and Post Office, which has a fully-equipped dentist’s office in the rear; and, across the street, the 1866 furniture store and vegetable market, which is a wooden building covered in pressed tin that has also served as a brewery and soda works (there’s a natural spring in the basement); a bowling alley; and the Sommercamp Saloon.
One of the most graceful churches in the Mountain West, Silver City’s Our Lady of Tears Catholic Church has undergone extensive restoration.
The Silver Slipper Saloon and the next-door Getchell Drug Store and Post Office in Silver City are privately owned and closed to the public. Be sure to peer through the drugstore windows to see the memorabilia within.
The rear section of the Getchell Drug Store features a fully equipped dentist’s office.
Beyond the furniture store are the Hoffer and Miller Meat Market (now a private residence), the former Hawes Bazaar (a general store), and a one-time barbershop and bathhouse.
Across the street from these structures is a unique sight: a large beer vat turned into a tiny building with a miniature saloon scene inside it. Will Hawes, a lifelong Silver City resident who died in 1968 at ninety-one years of age, crafted the unusual piece.
On the north side of town off of Morning Star Street are three more of Silver City’s best buildings: the 1892 Idaho Standard School, the 1898 Our Lady of Tears Catholic Church (which served as St. James Episcopal Church until it was sold to the Catholic Diocese of Boise in 1928), and the 1870 Stoddard Mansion, which features an almost stupefying amount of gingerbread trim.
The two Silver City cemeteries, one public and the other for Masons and Odd Fellows, stand west of town on a steep hill. The route is quite rough and definitely requires a high-clearance vehicle, but the distance is only .2 of a mile, so you can easily walk there from town, starting three buildings west from the former county building. A sign points the way.
An elaborate cut stone wall in the Masonic and Odd Fellows cemetery surrounds two graves for the children of W. F. and Mary Sommercamp (the one-time owners of the Sommercamp Saloon on Washington Street). Son Frederick died in 1870 at five months; daughter Annie lived only fourteen months and died in 1874.
WHEN YOU GO
Silver City is 67 miles southwest of Boise. From Idaho City, proceed 36 miles southwest to Boise via Idaho Highway 21. From Boise, take Interstate 84 west 16 miles to Nampa. Follow Idaho Highway 45, which joins Idaho Highway 78, south from Nampa for 27 miles to Murphy. Southeast of Murphy 4.5 miles is Silver City Road, which in 18.8 miles takes you to a junction only .5 of a mile from Silver City. Turn left (a right takes you to Jordan Valley, Oregon) and proceed into town, passing two stone powderhouses on your left.
Note: The last 12 miles are on a twisting, mountainous road. In dry weather, the road is quite good, but I would nevertheless recommend a high-clearance vehicle.