The Birthplace of My Father - Visiting Silver Cliff

My father was born December 1904 in a ghost silver mining town called Silver Cliff. Silver Cliff is in the Wet Mountain Valley between the Wet Mountains on the east and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains (part of the Rockies) on the west.

Wet Mountain Valley looking toward the Sangre de Cristos

The town was originally built in the 1870s in order to accommodate the mine workers during the silver boom. Silver Cliff was incorporated in 1879 and by 1880 had around 5,000 residents. At that time it was Colorado’s third largest city, behind Denver and Leadville. The railroad was built to the Wet Mountain Valley but it deliberately didn't go to Silver Cliff. The depot was a mile west of Silver Cliff in Westcliffe. Westcliffe was incorporated in 1887. Government purchases of silver were nearly doubled by the 1890 Sherman Silver Purchase Act. The repeal of the act in 1893 resulted in a collapse of silver prices, bringing about an end to the boom and many mining camps like Silver Cliff became ghost towns.

Our father was the middle child. He had an older brother and older sister, a younger brother (Harry) and a much younger sister.

Photo taken about 1911 - In the back my dad's older brother Ernest. The baby on the stool is Harry. In the middle his older sister Margaret and on the right my Dad. His younger sister Mary hadn't been born yet.

He went to a one room schoolhouse and helped in his father's general store,

General store

but otherwise, he was a free-range child who hung out with the friends of his older brother. He would tell us stories about his boyhood.

Figge store display with Harry and Margaret

I don't know if we did the trip back to Silver Cliff before or after the funeral of his mother.

To get to Silver Cliff my parents always talked about going over the Hardscrabble. I never knew what that meant - even though I looked up the word Hardscrabble, I never realized (until now) that the Hardscrabble referred to is a mountain pass through the Wet Mountains.

We drove into town and stopped to take pictures.

My father with his movie camera and my sister

Wet Mountain Valley

My father wanted to take movies panning along the mountains. In order that he get the panning speed right, we were to run along parallel to the mountains.

My sister pointing at the Sangre de Cristo

When we were staying in the valley, we did not camp - we stayed in a tourist cabin. The cabin didn't have indoor plumbing so to use the bathroom, we had to go across the street to the gas station.

My sister, me and my mother in the Main Street and the gas station where we used the bathroom

Town street

We visited the house that had been my grandparent's house.

Grandparents old house

It is a small house - one bedroom, the front parlor and the kitchen.

On the kitchen door frame were notched the heights of the children and the year. My father said that the boys slept over the store.

Flowers on prairie near Figge's

My dad took photos of a couple and their daughter - at one time I knew their names, but I can't remember now who they were.

Old couple and their daughter

We also went to Westcliffe

Westcliffe

and visited the church where my father's family attended.

Lutheran Church in Westcliffe

Lady doing flowers for the church

Westcliffe Lutheran Church window

Westcliffe Lutheran Church window

He was baptised there

My father's baptismal certificate

Close-up

and so was I thirty two years later.

Miss Kettle's house in Westcliffe

Miss Kettle (one of my father's school teachers) had a house in Westcliffe.

We went up Round Mountain, a small mountain in the valley, and looked for garnets. (I don't think we found any).

From Round Mt. 1948 - Silver Cliff closest to us and the upstart Westcliffe farther away

We also went up Geyser Hill to take photos of the surrounding area.

From Geyser Hill - 1948

From Geyser Hill

One day we drove out to Willard Walker's ranch.

En route to Walkers

Willard had milking goats.

Mother and me with the goats at the Walkers

Willard was the son of one of the Evans twins - the other twin was married to my grandfather's brother. Willard had three daughters - the youngest one (Wildra) was my age. I am not sure what our relationship was but we became friends and were pen pals for awhile. Wildra still lives out there. While we were there, we took a trail ride.

Me on the trail ride

Beaver swimming in Willard Walker's pond

Trees damaged by beavers

Another day we drove up to Hermit Lake.

En route to Hermit Lake

Old shack on way to Hermit Lake (our car parked beside it)

On the hike up there, I caught

Me with the garter snake I caught

a garter snake - I found that the snake can discharge a malodorous, musky-scented secretion from a gland near the cloaca.

Hermit Lake

My father took some photos across the valley - there was a hailstorm.

Hail storm over Wet Mountains from Sangre de Cristo

From Hermit Lake trail - family on right

Rainbow

When my grandmother's parents came to this country they bought property and established a ranch. After my grandmother married, and built their house, they moved in with her. We drove out to the ranch

On the way to the old Schwab ranch

Schwab Ranch house - our car with mother and my sister

Ranch House

Then we packed everything in the car and went back to the State Game Farm.

Daddy at the Tourist Cabins packing the car