By Jessie Schmidt
June, 1964

They didn't care that the maps one day would call it Section 35, Township 33 North, Range 22 East, Willamette Meridian.

A trapper named Jim Glover had camped on the bench above in the winter of 1886-87. Chickamin Stone and Jack Forrester chose to be on the river itself. Now, the following year, Glover had gone on up the valley. Thus in these first two years, two sites were occupied. This was prophetic of the two sites the town of Silver was to have in the years to follow.

Stone stayed at his campsite in the winter of 1887-88. Bud Walker, Joe Frazier, and Bill Ross joined him, and they spent the winter in a dugout. Three-quarters of a mile north of them, Beaver Creek poured into the Methow River. Across from their camp, a great slab-sided mountain towered over the West Side of the valley. Later people named McClure were to settle at the foot of it and leave their name upon it.

During the winter they often were joined by Joe White, who had squatted on land to the north and built a small cabin on it. And John Faihst, a Beaver Creek squatter joined them sometimes in the spring. White was the first homesteader in the Silver area.

White later sold a relinquishment to Mason Thurlow. But Stone filed for squatter's rights on the area around his camp.

It was a natural site for the town. It was close to where the old Chiliwist Indian trail came into the Methow Valley. Indians had always had a camp where Beaver Creek empties into the Methow River. There was an Indian racetrack and playground on the flat along the river below the camp. It was a center for early prospectors to camp while roaming the hills in search of a rich strike.

In the spring of 1887 Stone found his strike, and this is said to have started the town of Silver. The mine is supposed to have come by its name of the Red Shirt because Stone sold it to Jim Byrnes for a red shirt and a bottle of whiskey.

Chickamin Stone was somewhat mercurial. Noted as a cheerful and happy person, he also had a quick temper. He shot an Indian named Poker Billy once. He had entrusted the Indian with some money to make a purchase for him. The Indian lost the money, where he did not know. He tried to explain, but the hot-headed Stone, knowing the Indian had come by his name of Poker Billy honestly, wouldn't listen to reason from either the Indian or his white friends. Fortunately for both, Poker Billy lived.

Jim Byrnes purchased not only Stone's interest in the Red Shirt but also the squatter's right to his land in 1889 and opened a store. He left the valley after that, and nothing further is known of John (Chickamin) Stone.

Up to this point mail came to the valley by way of Ruby. People who lived in the valley clubbed together and paid P.L. Filer $6.25 for making the round trip to bring the mail once a week. In 1890 Byrnes established a post office, the mail coming to his store and being distributed from there.

As indicated, Joe White, whose niece, Hannah Jones Worthen, still lives near Twisp and teaches third grade there, had the first squatter's right on a farm near Silver. He sold his right and small cabin to Mason Thurlow in 1887.

Mr. and Mrs. Harvey Nickell with their four children, John, Ethel, David, and Effie, were the first complete families to settle permanently near Silver. They came by horseback and arrived July 4, 1888, homesteading the present Albert Acord place near the mouth of Beaver Creek. The land for Beaver Creek cemetery and the Beaver Creek schoolhouse was given to the community by Nickell and were from part of his original homestead. The first white child (who lived) born in the Methow was the Nickell's daughter Mary Ellen. Mrs. Nickell lived just over two years in the Methow and then passed away. The oldest daughter, Ethel, took over and helped her father with the other children, including the baby, until he married Rosa Wilson in 1897.

Mason Thurlow and his 9-year-old son, Bill, came with the Nickell family, but Thurlow couldn't bring his other three children until next year because of the death of his wife in 1886 in Ellensburg. Young Bill walked part of the way and rode behind his father on a horse part of the way while Thurlow led the Nickell's pack string. Bill remembers well the night he arrived at the cabin (made of driftwood) near Silver because he was a tired little boy, more tired than he has ever felt since as he had walked for most of that day. He fell asleep before supper was ready.

On August 8, 1888, H. Nickell, N. Stone, M. Thurlow, and C. Kendell landed the first wagon and mower in the Methow Valley, having brought them over the mountainous Chillowist Trail from Malott.

In 1890 the S.M. Metcalf family settled near Silver. The woman named by most early settlers as being the most useful woman in her community was Mrs. Metcalf. The family lived on the present Walsh place.

The Metcalf house was damaged and almost floated away in the flood of 1894, and it burned in 1902. Mrs. Metcalf had kept a diary since their arrival in the valley. Her first diaries burned with the house, but the very next day she got a notebook and started a new one. She wrote something every day of her life in those diaries until her eyesight failed in her old age. Every birth, death, and event of importance are recorded in her diaries.

Mrs. Metcalf not only taught school and Sunday school, played the organ and sang for church and literary societies, but delivered or helped deliver almost every baby for miles around, often riding through a blizzard on horseback to do so. She stayed with the ill, lay out and sat up with the dead, and played for their funerals, after making their shrouds. She sewed for nearly everyone in the country. Besides making many calls on friends, she had time to attend early Sunday school and church conventions at Riverside and the valley towns and Sunday school and church conventions in Spokane. She cared for her husband and five children and kept her house up. She entertained the visiting minister and his family and the presiding elders that came to Silver. Neighbor children who lived too far away to attend school often stayed at her home, and in her ledger she has recorded many times, "Received $5 paid in full for meals at 12 ½ cents apiece."

The first school, closet to Silver, was held in the Metcalf home in the fall of 1890. Mrs. Metcalf taught about a dozen pupils. Bill Thurlow and Metcalf's older children were some of the pupils. Early Sunday school services also were held in their home.

After the Beaver Creek School was built, it served as a church as well as a school. Metcalf served as Sunday school superintendent for years and although not an ordained minister, he preached and conducted funeral services. Mrs. Metcalf taught Sunday school classes and played the organ. The congregation was made up of many church denominations. When the organ was purchased, the Church of Christ people objected to any instruments in the building. The school directors ruling that the organ was needed in the school settled the argument.

In those days a mail carrier had to furnish bond to the U.S. Post Office department. W.L. Davis of Malott first took the contract on July 1, 1892 and his stepson carried the mail. In November 1892, Davis sublet the contract to U.E. Fries, who carried it for two years, summer or winter taking about three days for the round trip, summer or winter. And receiving $6.60 a trip.

It is because of this sublet that we have an eyewitness account on the record of the flood at Silver in June of 1894. Fries writes:

The Methow Valley suffered, too, the little village of Silver meeting its fate on June 5. Winthrop was not damaged because it was too high above the water.

Silver stood on a large, level flat, which showed signs of having been at one time a part of the riverbed. Then the river had changed its course and flowed west of the townsite, leaving its old bed, a narrow channel east of the post office, and cutting between it and the main road. Silver was hardly a town. At first it consisted simply of "Chickamin" Stone's trading post, the first in the Methow Valley. His homestead changed hands several times, and each owner added more buildings. A good-sized two-story structure took the place of his cabin. There was a hotel, a saloon, a blacksmith shop, and three dwelling houses. Fries says nothing of the store itself, but at the time it belonged to Bob Ehman.

As the June flood began to rise, the increased volume of water caused the river to change direction, the water flowing into the old river course after eating away the riverbank. But nature had been kind and had filled the old channel with quaking aspens dense enough to prevent a swift current. The land south of the post office was flooded. As I came up the Chilliwhist Trail to the main road, I got into water that was knee-deep on the horses. Bolly was able to follow that trail through the water, and he did not step out of it. If he had, he would have mired. I reached dry land a short distance from the post office, but I noticed that the bank above the post office was caving in.

The road going north to Winthrop had washed away, and again I had to cross the narrow channel between the post office and the main road. The water reached the horse's stomach. The next day, on my way back, I found the water swimming deep when I crossed. While the mail was being taking care of, I looked the situation over. The foundation of the hotel was washed away on the West Side and the gable end protruded about three feet over the water. People were leaving their homes because the river, large as it was, was rising fast. Nothing could be done to save the buildings.

"The next time I reached Silver, I found the usual crowd of settlers waiting for the mail, some in wagons, but mostly young fellows and their sweethearts on horseback, and bachelors, old and young, by themselves. The river had been rising ever since I had been there on Thursday, and this was Sunday. Young "Rick" Burke, who volunteered to take the mail over, met me at the crossing of the channel. I gladly accepted the offer, for, if I crossed, my horses would have to swim, and I could not expect Bolly to follow the old trail now that it was so far under water. The swift current was almost a baby river, and it was dangerous to try to swim the horses through the quaking aspen brush.

"The Burkes were cattlemen living on Beaver Creek, and Rick had a trained cow horse which swam very high and swiftly. He took the mailbags over, and, after distributing a lot of letters and papers among the crowd, returned the bags to me."

"The following morning, however, there was no one there to help me, and Bolly and I had to go through the channel. I tied a leather pouch containing only first-class mail behind the saddle and started across. The bank was very steep where we entered the water, and Bolly was swimming almost before his hind feet left solid ground. As he was a good swimmer, we made the round trip all right. I thought at the time that it would be only a matter of hours before the hotel and other buildings would fall into the water. Later, Mr. Harvey Nichols told me that the hotel had given way on the following forenoon, collapsing as it struck the water."

"Meanwhile, some of the Silverites, having heard of the disaster at Conconully, had ridden horseback to see the damage there. It was while they were gone that the buildings at Silver were washed away. When they returned they found only the blacksmith shop standing."

So the original townsite of Silver, first town in the Methow Valley, was wiped clean by the river. The goods in the store had been saved. Mrs. Magee says they were housed in a tent in a safe spot. A few boards had been pulled from the buildings by the efforts of all those present.

Mrs. Byrne's sister, Frances Prebylowitz, was drowned. She had gone to dip a pail of water from the river, and the bank gave beneath her. She was swept away in the flood.

Ehman put a new store building on the bench above the original townsite, thus moving the town to the original camping spot of Jim Glover. The building was a 2-story frame, and the hall over the store was used for dances and entertainment, see photo under "Silver." The second town of Silver on the bench consisted of the store, a saloon, blacksmith shop, three houses and their outbuildings.

In 1897, Jim Glover platted the town of Gloversville on his homestead. But two years later Amanda P. Burger platted one nearby which she called Twisp, and this name has endured.

Since Silver was halfway between Twisp and Carlton, young people met at Silver to have a "hi-yea" time. When enough people got on the floor of the dance hall and really hoed it down to the tune of fiddle, organ and/or mouth harps, the top story of the building actually swayed. At dances there was always a floor dance manager and caller for the quadrilles.

The first movie picture show in the valley was held in this old hall. Two little boys who had never seen a train before jumped up and stampede when the train seemed to be coming right out of the picture after them. They tore out of the building and down the outside stairs to safety, almost toppling an older man over and back down the stairs in their haste.

The flat between Silver and the Metcalf place was the scene of many early-day celebrations, with Indians far out numbering the whites. Many Indian Cayuse ponies were raced against the blooded stock of the whites and often were the winners. The Indians were born gamblers, willing to bet and take a chance on losing everything they owed, including their fast horses.

Picnics were held in the Byrned grove. The Metcalf family organ was carried to the grove and set on boards for Mrs. Metcalf to play and lead in community singing.

At an unspecified date Byrnes sold the Red Shirt Mine to a syndicate with John Stewart as manager, mine superintendent and owner of the controlling interest. In 1896 the Red Shirt Mining Company erected a 20-stamp mill and began reducing ore from the dump. The ore carried iron and copper sulfates and assayed about $20 per ton in gold and silver. But the ore proved too low-grade to operate the mill at a profit, and in 1900 the mill was closed and moved to the American Flag Mine near Mazama.

In 1902 Byrnes sold the land, except that containing the store, to E.N. Garrison. Little is said about industry except that of the unsuccessful Red Shirt Mine. But the mower was brought in, and the Burkes on Beaver Creek were cattlemen. One can assume that here, as in other places in Okanogan County, agriculture proved to be stable when mining was not.

But Twisp and Carlton were growing, and for some reason Silver slowly faded. Burke Brothers were the last owners of the store. They moved their stock to a store in Twisp in 1904. The empty building stood until 1907 when W.J. Fleming, who tore it down and moved it to the younger town of Carlton, purchased it on March 1. It was set up there in the same form and again played a leading role in a community.

During the 16-year life of Silver, there were nine postmasters. Whenever the store changed hands, the owner became the postmaster. Several times the post office passed into the hands of a receiver because of a mortgage foreclosure. In one such instance, a fiery-tempered postmaster's wife moved the post office out to the road in a box while her sick husband hit the receiver over the head with a pickaxe. She was taken to Conconully but not held. Her husband died a few days later.

The E.N. Garrisons kept the post office in their home after the removal of the store in 1904 until 1907. On August 2 that year its records and equipment were turned over to the post office at Twisp. Thus the passing of the first post office established in the valley (and for some time the only one) ended the town. It dwells now only in the memories of a few elderly men and women who were small children when this once prosperous mining town was in its heyday.

The Beaver Creek schoolhouse still stands and serves as a clubhouse for the Beaver Creek Friendly Neighbors Women's Club. The original log building is covered with boards on the outside now and looks like a frame building painted white.

Almost every trace of the former village has passed completely out of existence. An orchard and alfalfa field covers the site of the town on the bench. The Sylvester (Bill) Hill family owns and farms the ranch. Their house and barn are on the lower flat with the large barn almost on the same site as the first Silver store and post office.

It is a far cry from the days of the large dance hall, the saloons, the 40 or more families living in the vicinity, the mine workers and prospectors coming to town on Friday night, the community activities.