Certificate from the Silver Dale Mining, Milling and Improvement Company, 1882

Denver Stock Exchange archives

The town of Silver Dale is located in Chaffee County on Clear Creek.   From all accounts, the town was short lived and there is little left of it today.  The certificate above represents a rare certificate find of a company that had its hand in the mines as well as owning the land on which the town was platted.   There are only approximately 6 of this certificate known to exist in collectors hands. 

An excerpt from Portals into the Past taken from the Chaffee County Times of Sept. 23, 1881 describing the town and mining prospects of the Silver Dale Mining, Milling and Improvement Company:

EDITOR TIMES: -Business in this particular portion of the county begins to move and things to assume a tangible shape. Many capitalists, hear­ing of the unusually large de­posits of mineral, are flocking in and looking about to confirm reports and the result is every few days a valuable mine chan­ges ownership and development is commenced with energy.

Considerable interest has been awakened in the last day or two by the reappearance on the ground of Frank W. Wray, of Denver, the superintendent of the wealthy New York com­pany who recently purchased what they considered to be the best mining property in Clear creek gulch, the Little Ella and Carrie mines. These two pro­perties have a twelve foot vein of solid galena and quartz that is worth about $100 per ton. Work is being pushed night and day, and at the present writing a tunnel is in ninety feet on the vein with some seventy five tons of ore on the dump. This vein is one of the strongest yet found, as its cropings show for over 1,800 feet in the 3,000, in no place being less than ten feet wide, while in many it is fourteen feet.

The Silver Dale Mining, Milling, and Improvement Company, of 102 Broadway, New York, purchased these two properties together with a most beautiful place of 136 acres for a town site and stocked them. Shares will be listed on the mining ex­changes immediately. A cash offer has already been made for all the stock, which would net the owners the nice sum of $105,000, but ten times that a­mount would not purchase it, as it is without doubt second to none in the state.

Their town, called Silver Dale, is about thirteen miles west of Granite, up Clear creek gulch. The streets are being laid out and lots platted. The company have commenced the erection of offices, boarding houses, assay office, stores, etc. They have contracted with the saw mill for an immense bill of lumber and will, as soon as practicable, commence the erec­tion of a smelter with a daily capacity of seventy-five tons. The immense quantity of ma­terial that must necessarily be used by this corporation have compelled them to purchase supplies in Denver and ship in large lots, a considerable quan­tity of which is now on the way.

Town lots are being sold rapidly at reasonable prices to parties who will erect good frame buildings, but none to speculators. A large number have been disposed of to Denver and Leadville parties who will erect buildings im­mediately.

The large quantity and aver­age high grade ore of this dis­trict will make this without question a city of more than 3,000 population before the first of January. Ordinarily it would make a good place, but the valuable impetus given it by this company who are com­posed of very wealthy men of New York, who will spend their money freely, will make its suc­cess doubly assured. Many prospectors and investors are coming. Properties are being opened and many mines are getting ready for the shipping of ore, which will be an im­mense business soon..

Source: Rowe, Jim and Louise. Portal into the Past. Clear Creek Canyon Historical Society of Chaffee County; B&B Printers, Gunnison, Inc., Gunnison, Colo., 1976.

An excerpt taken from a booklet titled: Buena Vista and Tributary Mining Camps - 1882, reviews the towns and prospects of the La Plata District in Chaffee County and reads:

“…The winter of 1880-81 found all the miners unprepared for doing work on their claims; but an early break was made in the spring, and four embryo cities were located along the gulch, viz: Beaver City, Vicksburg, Rockdale and Winfield, while later in the fall an abortive attempt was made by the Silverdale Mining Company to found the town of Silverdale….The Silverdale Mining company own a group of claims,….which are being worked by a tunnel 230 feet…..The veins are all large, the Fairplay measuring fifty feet across with three large pay streaks. The Croesus No.2, Sovereign, Caribou, Clara, Exchequer and Cleora are all reckoned way up, and give promise of ranking among the best in the gulch.”