Re: Silverton foto 2

Knott's museum has/had a large quantity of Silverton material in it, primarily from the Silver Lake Mines. They also had the town's horse drawn hearse and a number of other wagons. The rail equipment came from both the D&RGW and RGS, and only selected pieces at that. The D&RGW passenger cars were surplus to the needs of the railroad after the San Juan was discontinued. In retrospect, Knott's saved what most likely would have been scrapped.
The Silverton paperwork and artifacts came with a Silverton resident, Marion Berry (sp?, and I may have the last name completely screwed up) who moved to California and ran the museum for Knotts until his death. Marion was the last caretaker of both Waldheim and the Silver Lake Mill, working for the owner, American Smelting and Refining. Once they decided to abandon the structures, Marion helped himself to remaining files, records, etc and sold all that to Knotts, and thus took care of his retirement years. At the time, people in Silverton were not concerned with the past, and like all the mine and mill machinery scrapped during the war for the war effort, it was just the way things were.