In 1881 miners hit it big, revving Lake Valley’s economic engine. The discovery of a vein of silver, nicknamed the Bridal Chamber, began an intense growth of Lake Valley from a mining camp to a town of about 4,000 people.
“The silver apparently was so pure you could just break it off the walls. It was ultra-pure and there was just tons if it,” said Goetz. “Because of that, all of these people came here, and they set up claims all over the place. From that came in the stores and the mining supplies and the clothing stores and everything else that comes in with a town.”
The Bridal Chamber yielded 2.5 million ounces of silver, half of the entire 5 million ounces mined from Lake Valley’s various mines between 1878 and 1893, according to production records from 1895. Profits rolled in with silver at $1.10 per ounce, about $34 today. More people and investment followed, along with demand for housing and places to build.
A 640-pound slab of silver displayed at the Denver Exposition in 1882 drew even more attention and press reports lavishing praise on Lake Valley’s mines, including the legend that candle flames could melt pure silver off the walls.
“When we were brought before a large silver mass, I hit it with my pick; it was soft, and involuntarily my knife came out and I cut it and mashed it, the metallic luster following each test,” a reporter from the Santa Fe New Mexican wrote in June 1882. “The lighted candle being applied, the native silver globules would fall.”
That same year, Lake Valley, which was open around the clock, hired gunfighter Jim Courtright—a.k.a. “Longhair Jim”—as Town Marshal. He brought some order to the town, which in addition to numerous shootings and robberies, grew to have a smelter to process ore, a stamp mill, three churches, a school, two weekly newspapers, saloons, brothels, hotels, general stores and various shops. In 1884, a railroad line extended to Lake Valley, replacing wagons to ship ore.
But beneath the excitement and all the bubbly newspaper accounts, Lake Valley’s demise had been taking form.
Between late 1883 and throughout 1884, expectations of finding another Bridal Chamber overshadowed the work of the Sierra Companies, which ran various mines in Lake Valley. While operators continued to find enough ore, they also struggled to find another pocket like the Bridal Chamber. There were also accusations of stock fraud, which devalued the company. Bad weather, meanwhile, hampered regular ore and supply shipments.
“Shipments have been almost at a standstill during this month on account of the wretched weather and bad roads,” wrote mine manager Fredrick Endlich in February 1884, about efforts to get ore to the nearby town of Nutt, located about 13 miles southeast. The railroad was still under construction at the time. “We are pushing all we can, but the road is strewn with broken wagons and even when we do get the ore away from here, we are not sure when it may reach Nutt.”
Newspapers began reporting less jubilant news. By August 1883, the Mining Journal and other publications described the mines as being “cleaned out” with no new discoveries to rival the Bridal Chamber. Still, operations remained profitable. Until 10 years later, when a change in U.S. monetary policy brought hard times on Lake Valley.
In 1893, the U.S. abandoned silver in favor of gold to back the U.S. dollar. The price of silver fell about 24% over a three-month period that year. Mines began to close all over the territory. With nothing else to drive the local economy, people began to leave.
Then in the pre-dawn hours of June 1, 1895, a combination of wooden buildings and high desert winds set in motion the crowning end of Lake Valley.
