The Silverton Story

Silverton, with all its scenic splendor, nestles in a valley 9,302 feet in altitude. It is surrounded by four mountain peaks, all of which rise above timberline, and are usually snow covered the year around; Kendall Mountain to the East, Anvil Mountain to the West, Boulder Mountain to the North, and Sultan Mountain to the South. The highest of these peaks is Sultan, which rises to a dizzy height of 13,336 feet. Opposite this is Kendall that juts skyward 4,000 feet above the floor of the valley. Silverton is centered in the rugged, majestic San Juan Mountains, and nowhere in the nation is there another 100,000 square miles of such spectacularly scenic grandeur.

One evening, a group of men were in a saloon discussing the possibilities of the San Juan. One fellow remarked, “We have silver by the ton”, and thus Silverton got its name. It is the only incorporated town in the county, and boasts not an acre of farm land.

Silverton was, at one time, named Baker’s Park after Charles Baker who led a group of prospectors to this country in 1860 or 1861. There is no record of any permanent locations made, or of any quantity of mineral taken out, though there were indications of prospecting being done. As you can imagine, Baker and his party endured many hardships. Relics, broken wagon parts, and some discarded camp equipment lead to the belief the party came by way of Durango, thence to Cascade Creek along the route of our present highway. From there they went to the West of Spud Mountain and kept fairly high, crossing Coal Bank Hill and following around the head of Lime Creek. After passing Lime Creek, they crossed the hills East of there and came down into the park by way of Bear Creek. There is a place on Bear Creek which shows they let their wagons down the hillside by means of a rope, as the stock was evidently 

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unable to hold the wagons under control.

Charles Baker had a narrow escape in 1862 near Eureka. One of the men organized a mutiny, crying out to hang Baker, claiming he had deceived them. Baker heard of it and escaped, otherwise he would have met his fate at the hands of his own men. In 1868, Baker again set out from Denver for Silverton, as he still believed gold was here, and arrived in the San Juan in 1871. He was killed in this vicinity by the Indians shortly thereafter.

Dempsey Reese, Miles T. Johnson, Adam French and Thomas Blair outfitted in Santa Fe and arrived in the San Juans in 1870. They were the first lode prospectors, as Baker and his party had been searching for placer gold.

No one wintered in Silverton during the years 1870-’71-’72. Dempsey Reese and his party, accompanied by William Mulholand and Francis M. Snowden, came back the following spring, and this was the first record of any permanent discovery, namely, the “Little Giant Gold Mine”, located in Arastra Gulch. The lode produced ore of such quantity and value as to warrant its being packed on burros to Pueblo for processing. Samples of the ore showed from 400 to 900 ounces of gold per ton. This rich ledge, which was treated by arastras, was without a doubt the beginning of the future of the San Juans. The first quartz mill for the reduction of ore was built in 1873 for the use of the Little Giant Mine.

There were about forty or fifty prospectors in the county by this time, but the year 1873 was a banner year for mining claims. More than three thousand claims were recorded, and the population grew by several hundred. Many of the large producers were located in that year and in 1872. Notably the Sunnyside, Shenandoah, Silver Lake and portions of the Gold King Group. Some of the Shenandoah claims have produced ore in considerable quantities each year since 1875.

Within months after being married, Mr. Stoiber of Silver Lake Mine fame, became one of the richest men in the state of Colorado. Two of Mrs. Stoiber’s claims to fame were having four husbands, and building the huge Stoiberhof Mansion in Denver and the Silver Lake Mansion in Silverton. At her first home in Silverton, Mrs. Stoiber had an argument with her neighbor, so she eliminated him from her consciousness by building a towering wall around her property which completely cut off her view of him. Apparently this action struck her fancy, for she was to repeat it. When Mr. Stoiber sold his mining interests to the Guggenheim family for a reported two and a half million dollars, he built the biggest, gaudiest, and most lavish house in Denver. “Stoiberhof” was completed in 1906, and was filled with the most fabulous collection of objets d’art Denver had ever seen. Again in Denver Mrs. Stoiber argued with the owner of the adjoining property, and again she built a wall twelve feet high around her grounds. Egbert W. Reed, the owner, armed himself with a court order, and for months the affair dragged through the courts. Mrs. Lena Allen Webster Stoiber Rood Ellis died in Italy in March, 1935. Few remember her, or the fact that her first fortune came from the Silverton area.

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San Juan County, in its entirety, was included in the grant to the Ute Indians in 1868. Three years later, when mining began to boom, the Indians protested against the whites coming into their territory. In 1872, troops were sent out by the government to keep the miners off this grant and in February, 1873, an order was issued by the Department of the Interior warning all miners to vacate by June 1st. The troops had proceeded up the Rio Grande a considerable distance when the order was suspended by the President, and a new treaty was made with the Indians, which was effected by paying Chief Ouray $1,000.00. The Utes surrendered some three million acres of land.

In July, 1873, while the Brunot Treaty was pending between the Ute Indians and the United States Government for the lands of the reservation, when the great excitement over the rich and extensive mining broke out, Mr. Tower made arrangements with Jackson Foundry and the George Trick Hardware Company of Denver for the materials to erect a sawmill. This was shipped by the D. & R. G. Railroad to Colorado Springs. There a contract was made with the freighters to deliver this to Silverton. The charges were sixteen cents per pound. The journey to Del Norte was a pleasant one, but then the trouble began. From the South Fork of the Rio Grande River, sixteen miles above Del Norte to the head waters of the stream, they forded the river fifty-seven times. The outfit consisted of three teams, ten persons and 6,000 pounds of freight. Only the old pioneers of the area can fully understand the trouble, dangers and hardships encountered in working freight over the mountains in those days. Two weeks after leaving Del Norte, they arrived at the present site of Howardsville. Aided by a number of miners they were able, after a week of hard work, to get the wagons to Silverton. A location was made for the mill on Mineral Creek at the foot of Sultan Mountain, and here Mr. Tower erected the first sawmill. Mrs. Tower, a bride of nineteen from Chicago, accompanied the party and returned in the fall to Del Norte. Thus, Mrs. Tower was the first white woman in Silverton.