"Silver Cliff - My Dad's B ..." a Silver Cliff Travel Page by grandmaR

My dad (in photo getting ready to take 16 mm movies with his Bolex movie camera in 1948) was born and brought up in Silver Cliff. The other person in the picture is my sister.

Silver Cliff was a silver mining town which was at one time was in the running to be named the capitol of Colorado. At that time it was the third largest town in Colorado. However it was a ghost town when my dad lived there. From the early 1900's, his folks ran a general store in Silver Cliff. His mom emigrated from Bavaria with her family when she was about 14, and his dad (an orphan) came from St. Louis at the behest of his brother who lived in Colorado. They married in 1899.

When the railroad came to town, they put the terminus in Westcliffe, a mile west of Silver Cliff. That killed the growth of Silver Cliff.

Dad left town and bicycled down to Colorado Springs to attend Colorado College.

I visited Silver Cliff:

* in 1938 when I was a baby (right after Dad's father died),
* in 1942 as a young child,
* when I was 10 (1948) on a car trip through the west,
* in 1964 when we drove across country from Monterey to Key West, and
* in 1981 when my daughter graduated from the USAFA.

My dad's dad, his mom, and her parents are buried in the cemetery here.