Mountains of Silver

Mountains of Silver is a history of the Red Mountain Mining District, the mining country between Silverton and Ouray in Colorado's San Juan Mountains. It is built around the communities that sprang up with the mines, the railroads laid to serve them, and the men and women who lived, worked and died there.

The description calls the result colorful and varied, and it names the cast. There are the prospectors who made the first rich strikes. There are the land promoters, speculators, and road and railroad builders who capitalized on the frenzied rush. And there is the motley collection of miners, lawyers, merchants, prostitutes, saloonkeepers and freighters who attempted to profit from the boom.

A retail listing for the book gives its subtitle as Life in Colorado's Red Mountain Mining District, dates a 1994 edition, and lists 236 pages, which matches our catalogue. Our catalogue record dates this edition to 2000, so we can't say which printing you will receive, and we won't guess. The same listing says the district's output ranked second in Colorado only to Leadville, with more than thirty million dollars in metals taken out in about twenty-five years.

Mountains of Silver is for readers who have driven the highway between Silverton and Ouray and wondered what happened on the slopes above it. Local historians, ghost town explorers and anyone with an interest in the Colorado silver boom will get the most from it. It also suits readers who like their mining history told through people and towns rather than ore tonnage. Collectors of Western Reflections books will want it for the shelf beside the other San Juan histories.

P. David Smith wrote this account of the Red Mountain district, one of several books of his about the Ouray and Silverton country. We could not find a verified biography, only his books, and that is what we describe. His author page gathers the whole shelf in one place.

More about P. David Smith →

The Red Mountain district lies along the Million Dollar Highway between Silverton and Ouray. The Fort Lewis College Red Mountain Project dates the rush to 1882, when John Robinson discovered the Yankee Girl Mine, whose rich ore lay in vertical chimneys rather than the usual lode deposits. The Congress, Guston and National Belle mines followed soon after.

Towns grew around the mines. Red Mountain City moved three times and burned in 1892 and again about two years later, while Ironton and Chattanooga served as lower elevation supply points. By 1883, according to Legends of America, nearly 40 mines were shipping ore to smelters and the district's population topped 3,000.

Otto Mears finished a road from Ouray in 1883 and began the Silverton Railroad in 1887. It reached Ironton in November 1888 and was completed to Albany in September 1889. The Silver Panic of 1893 hurt the district, which never fully recovered, and the Idarado Mine ran from the 1930s until it closed in 1978.

Source: Fort Lewis College, Red Mountain Project: Mining History