Mineral City: The Oldest Mining Camp in the Cascades
Near Stevens Pass Area, Washington
North of the highway, up the wild valley of Silver Creek, lie the remains of the oldest mining district in the western Cascades. The first mineral claims here were staked by prospectors in eighteen seventy one, and the following year a small gold rush drew men over the divide to try their luck along the creek. A camp called Silver City sprang up in eighteen seventy three at the forks of Silver Creek, but the first boom fizzled, and by eighteen eighty the place was nearly deserted.
New life came at the end of the decade, spurred by the great strikes at nearby Monte Cristo and by federal silver policy that propped up prices. In eighteen ninety two the old townsite was replatted as Mineral City, and at its peak it boasted two hotels, two saloons, and two stores. It did not last.
When federal silver support was repealed in eighteen ninety three, and prospectors rushed off to the Klondike gold fields, and storms tore out the fragile roads, Mineral City faded almost as fast as it had risen. By nineteen hundred it was essentially a ghost town, and today only scattered ruins and old diggings remain in the forest for those who hike in to find them.
