Silver Plume Spectre

08/23/2026

Silver Plume, Colorado, the day after the fire on November 4, 1884.
Denver Public Library Digital Collections.

08/23/2026

08/19/2026

08/13/2026

Built to haul silver ore between Georgetown and Silver Plume, the narrow-gauge Loop climbed 640 feet in 2 miles using bridges and a corkscrew turn. It saved mines after wagon roads washed out.

08/13/2026

Workers heave sacks of silver ore onto Colorado Central Railroad boxcars at the Silver Plume depot in 1885. Steam and mountain snow frame the back-breaking labor that fueled Colorado's silver empire.

08/13/2026

08/13/2026

Towns like Silver Plume boomed after 1879. Colorado produced $16 million in silver in 1885 alone. Miners worked 10-hour shifts for $3 a day until the 1893 Sherman Silver Purchase Act repeal crashed prices.

08/13/2026

A Colorado silver town that once housed around 2,000 miners now gets by with fewer than 200 year-round residents, tucked into one of the steepest canyons in the Rockies. ⛰️

Silver Plume boomed in the 1870s after rich silver deposits were discovered in the surrounding mountains, and the narrow canyon town grew quickly enough to support its own school, churches, and a busy main street lined with false-front wooden buildings. At its peak, the town's mines were among the most productive in the state, and the surrounding hillsides were dotted with mining camps feeding into Silver Plume's economy.

The silver crash of 1893 hit the town hard, and population drained out over the following decades as mining slowed and eventually stopped almost entirely. Unlike many of its neighbors, Silver Plume never fully emptied out, and today a small year-round population keeps the historic core intact, living among buildings that once served thousands rather than a couple hundred. 🍁

The contrast between a town built for thousands and the small community that quietly keeps it going today is easy to miss unless you know the numbers. Did anyone know a town this size in the Rockies once supported close to 2,000 residents?

Would you rather have seen Silver Plume during its loud 1880s boom years, or exactly as quiet as it is now?

07/19/2026

Drilling out a vein in an old underground stope, in a mine in Gilpin County, Colorado. Work in the old underground mines was difficult, and most everything was done by dim candle light. No wonder the old miners sometimes missed good ores. Plenty of good quartz veins have been missed and remain undiscovered. These types of quartz veins still remain to be discovered all over the world. Learn to tell the signs indicating that you have found a rock that might have real gold in it: https://youtu.be/L0pdZNn5Qgw