Silver City Ghost Town

Silver City was first settled in 1876 by the Gorman Brothers from Canada. They set up two mines, Diana Lode and The Lady of the Hills, located on the Western Railroad. By 1878, over 300 people lived in Silver City. Unlike most neighboring boomtowns, Silver City proved remarkably durable. While the gold rush receded and communities collapsed around it, Silver City held on through successive decades, sustained by modest mining revivals and a stubborn core population. It outlasted many other failed mining towns and had a post office until 1964 and a convenience store up until recently. Today Silver City sits quietly in the western Black Hills, its former streets and structures slowly receding into the pines. It lacks the dramatic intact ruins of Spokane or the romantic submerged mystery of Pactola, but offers something perhaps more interesting: the story of a community that simply refused to quit long after logic said it should have.