Mrs. Percy Airy has a little story to tell of this period. In 1911 her husband was working at the Gold King mill at Gladstone and they were living in a little cabin with almost no furniture and conveniences. One morning while she was washing, Percy came rushing in, saying he was bringing his uncle Jack Slattery, Otto Mears, James Pitcher and Louis Quarnstrom in for dinner. Flustered and dismayed were no words for it! At such a camp no fresh stuff was available but she managed a dinner of ham, scalloped potatoes, a canned vegetable, biscuits with butter and jam, fresh canned mountain raspberries, cake and coffee. She had only two stool chairs and one of them was occupied by the washtub which Mears urged her not to move. She put one man on the other stool chair, two on the bed and two in rockers. Being very young, only nineteen, she was so embarrassed she wouldn’t sit down at the table. Everybody praised her dinner and she felt better. When Mears left he presented her with a very rich piece of gold ore, about the size of a large orange, and told here if she’d always keep that she’d never be poor. Later she engaged a jeweler to make a watch charm from it for her husband. A small cracked charm and two small pieces of ore were all that was returned to her. The fellow claimed he had had to break the big chunk all to pieces to get the charm and had thrown the scraps away. Of course every small grain of that ore was valuable. Business kept dwindling until only an occasional train was run. The following table indicates that the track was still lying in 1923. SILVERTON, GLADSTONE & NORTHERLY Official Roster 1923 0 Silverton 9,300 3.2 Yukon Mills 5.0 Porcupine Gulch 7.0 Fishers Mill 7.5 Gladstone 10,600 No exact date can be found for the tearing up of the rails but it probably was in 1926, the same year the S. R. was dismantled. All equipment went to the S. N. as it already belonged to it anyway. The government, during our war with Japan, established military posts in Alaska. The railroad up there, the White Pass and Yukon, needed more locomotives and in 1942 it purchased all that were left on the S.N.—the 3, 4 and 34. (The S. N. had ceased operation three years previously.) The 34, as should be remembered, had belonged to the S. G. & N. When the Alaskan railroad received the 34 it numbered it “24”. After Diesel power was obtained there the 24 (nee 34), then about forty years old, was retired to the boneyard. One of the original S. G. & N. coaches was bought from the S. N., moved to Durango and set up on Main Avenue as the “Pioneer Diner”. Later, after changes and additions, it became the “Chief Diner”. It is still operating and may be seen in Durango. SILVERTON NORTHERN