Silver Mountain City Tour

    

Take the tour on September 29 at 9:00am at the old Silver Mountain City jail  on Hwy 4. Bring comfortable shoes and a sweater.

Silver Mountain City blazed into existence hard on the heels of the nearby Comstock Lode,as treasure-seekers fanned out in all directions hoping for the next big strike. A few hardyminers staked claims near Silver Mountain about 1860-61, and by 1863 the booming townsiteby Silver Creek was alive with prospectors. Silver Mountain City won the honor as AlpineCounty’s original county seat when the county was formed in 1864.

This initial mining excitement quickly fizzled out, but the town of Silver Mountain limped along
on hope and rumors well into the 1870s. By 1876, however, the new boomtown at Bodie
lured miners elsewhere, and the Alpine county seat was moved to Markleeville.

Today, Silver Mountain City is a “ghost of a ghost town,” with not a stick of lumber standing.
But the remains of the town’s original old stone jail, hand-dug wells, and other traces still
have stories to tell. Join local history buffs Karen and Rick Dustman for a strolling tour of this
wonderful old ghost town site, including a visit to the spot where “Forty Drops Saloon” once
stood, a stop at the site of Ryan’s Exchange, the bar which doubled as the County
courthouse, and the tale of the murder of Erick Errickson, a crime which would give
Hangman’s Bridge its name    by Karen Dustman