Silver Creek is a mining ghost town

Ghost town

A ghost town is an abandoned town or city. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economic activity that supported it has failed, or due to natural or human-caused disasters such as floods, government actions, uncontrolled lawlessness, war, or nuclear disasters...

 in Clear Creek County

Clear Creek County, Colorado

Clear Creek County is one of the 64 counties of the state of Colorado of the United States. The county population was 9,322 at U.S. Census 2000. The county seat is Georgetown...

, Colorado

Colorado

Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...

, USA

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. The town never had a post office of its own, but received its mail via the Lawson

Lawson, Colorado

Lawson is a small unincorporated town situated along Clear Creek in Clear Creek County, Colorado, United States. Lawson is a part of the Downieville-Lawson-Dumont census-designated place.-See also:* Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Statistical Area...

 post office. The town is only accessible via unimproved road. Most of the mines were located upstream from the town.

History

Originally known as Daileyville after James Dailey, a local mine manager, the inhabitants soon changed the name to Silver Creek after the local stream that flows into Clear Creek near Lawson

Lawson, Colorado

Lawson is a small unincorporated town situated along Clear Creek in Clear Creek County, Colorado, United States. Lawson is a part of the Downieville-Lawson-Dumont census-designated place.-See also:* Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Statistical Area...

. The town was first settled around 1875 when silver ore deposits were discovered in the area; however, it was not officially incorporated until 1885. The mines that supported the town were mostly closed after the 1893 silver crash

Panic of 1893

The Panic of 1893 was a serious economic depression in the United States that began in 1893. Similar to the Panic of 1873, this panic was marked by the collapse of railroad overbuilding and shaky railroad financing which set off a series of bank failures...

, but reopened with the demand for metals leading up to and during World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. The boom did not last, and by 1922 most of the mines were again closed. Among the biggest producers was the Nabob Mine, where a new shaft was sunk in 1906.

The town struggled on for a while, with the last inhabitants leaving during the Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

. By the 1970s only an old mill

Stamp mill

A stamp mill is a type of mill machine that crushes material by pounding rather than grinding, either for further processing or for extraction of metallic ores. Breaking material down is a type of unit operation....

and a few building foundations made of stone were left.

Further reading

• Brown, Richard Leaman (1973) "Silver Creek" Colorado ghost towns — past and present Caxton Printers, Caldwell, Idaho, pages 246-249, ISBN 0-87004-218-1