During the winter of 1883, mail was being carried from Silverton to Ophir on snow shoes by Swede Nilson. While he was getting ready to leave for Ophir, he kept looking at the grey sky, as it was snowing hard. His friends had tried to persuade him to wait until after the blizzard, but Swede knew how anxious the people in Ophir were to get their mail, as it was December 21—Christmas time. The postal attendant helped strap the thirty pound sack of mail on his back and was apprehensive as he watched him start off in the storm. Days passed with no word from Nilson and it was ascertained that he had never reached Ophir. At first everyone thought he had been caught in a snowslide, but when spring came, folks began to wonder. They searched the trail but he was not found that season. It was believed that there was considerable Christmas money in the mail sack and rumors circulated that the Swede had rifled the sack and skipped the country. Everyone had almost forgotten Nilson when in August 1885 he was found on the north side of the slope with the mail pack still on his back. He had been caught in a snow slide and buried under tons of snow. In the winter of 1884, just two years after the arrival of the D. & R. G. into Silverton, a heavy storm with numerous snow slides closed the road for 77 days, from February 5th to April 22nd. Occasional mail was carried into town by volunteers, but foodstuffs not previously brought into town were done without. The first census was taken in 1885, and showed a population of 1989 persons. At the town’s crest, the population numbered 5000. [Illustration: The Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad Which Ran from Silverton to Red Mountain and Ironton Park.] [Illustration: Mear’s Famous Turntable on Red Mountain for the Silverton Railroad.] [Illustration: Silverton Northern Railroad, Taps Rich Mining District.]