Photo: Silverton Celebration – 1940

This photo taken in September 1940 shows the Silverton town band and clowns staging for the Labor Day Celebration parade. The town was first and foremost a mining community then. Tourism essentially didn’t exist or at least was not an economic force. Most everyone in Silverton owed their livelihood to the hard-rock mining industry. Besides a parade, the town held extensive mining competitions with hundreds of spectators. There was also a traveling carnival in town for the event. In 1940, the population of Silverton was 1,200, but in its mining heyday of the mid-1880s, it was around 3,000. Today, it’s about 700. <br><br>Ed Horvat for Animas Museum, edhorvat@animasmuseum.org