It was from that direction that discovery of Saints John was made. A
prospector by the name of J. Coley came over Bear Pass from Breckenridge
in 1863 and found silver ore on the crest of Glacier Mountain about a
thousand feet up from the town. He smelted his find in a crude furnace
with a flue built from a hollow log encased with rocks and clay obtained
from the lode for mortar. The outlines are still there.
According to Verna Sharp, Montezuma historian, Coley took his ingots
into a bar in Georgetown and showed them around. Promptly other miners
came flocking in and made more finds on Glacier Mountain. They called
their little settlement Coleyville until a group of Free Masons arrived
in 1867. This group altered the name to Saints John, for John the
Baptist and John the Evangelist, patron Saints of Masonry.
The camp already had a sober upright character and had welcomed a number
of traveling preachers. Prominent among them was Father John L. Dyer,
the Methodist minister who is remembered in Colorado for his fine book,
_The Snowshoe Itinerant_, as well as for his good works. Father Dyer
came by the way of Swan River in 1865 and staked some claims on Glacier
Mountain. His route was chosen for the mail between Montezuma and
Breckenridge which began tri-weekly service in 1869 and was carried by
horseback via Saints John.
In 1872 some of the claims on Glacier Mountain were combined into one
property by a company backed with Boston financing. To handle the ore,
the Boston company built the best milling and smelting works their
Eastern engineers could devise. Later they acquired all the mines on the
north side of Glacier Mountain. Their next project was to erect a
suitable company town in place of the ramshackle camp. Their plans
called for a two-and-a-half story boardinghouse, a company store, an
assay office, an ornately trimmed guest house, a mess hall, a foreman’s
home, a superintendent’s home, and residences for the miners. (But oddly
there was no school, and the children had to walk to Montezuma.) In 1878
the company town of Saints John was completed.
Unique among mining camps, it boasted that it had no saloon. Instead
there was a library of three hundred volumes, donated by Boston friends.
Eastern and European newspapers were also sent regularly from the home
office. The culture of this pretty, silver town was to be emulated by
the gold town of American City—but not its sobriety.
The superintendent lived in town about seven months of the year. During
his absence his house was cared for by the manager of the boardinghouse.
She permitted a few of the residents to view its wonders. The house was
completely furnished with Sheraton furniture, Lenox china, plush
draperies, oil paintings, and _objets d’art_ on what-nots added the last
touch of elegance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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