The town flourished under this name and Lauret for most of the 1860’s, having in 1861 a population of five or six hundred including twenty or thirty women. At least half the residents made their living from saloons, hotels, gambling dens and variety halls which caused Buckskin Joe to be described in the _Rocky Mountain News_ as South Park’s “liveliest little burg.” By 1874 its population had dropped to fifty, and several years later it was dead. Its creation of the Silverheels legend makes it unique, and people say her cabin still stands in the trees across the creek.... Leavick is unique because it existed sixteen years as a settlement without a name. From 1880 to 1896 there was a group of miners, sometimes as high as two hundred, living in the shadow of Horseshoe Mountain (see photos) close to the Last Chance and Hilltop mines and their mill. The settlement had two saloons, stores, a house of ill repute, and no name. Finally when the narrow gauge railroad arrived in 1896, the town was named after Felix Leavick, prominent mining man of Leadville and Denver, who owned properties in the Mosquito Range. Leavick had a sporadic life until 1910 with occasional fake bursts after that. Today most of its buildings have been moved to South Park City, a tourist town on the edge of Fairplay. [Illustration: George Wakely, 1864; C.H.S.] DID “SILVERHEELS” DANCE HERE IN THE 1860’S? Buckskin Joe was the mining camp that created one of the most delightful Colorado legends. Silverheels was a beautiful dancehall girl who stayed to nurse the miners during a smallpox epidemic after all the other women fled. Later, when the miners raised a purse to reward her, she could not be found. Smallpox had attacked and ravaged her beauty; so she disappeared. In memory, Mount Silverheels was named for her. [Illustration: D.K.P., 1960] [Illustration: _D.K.P., 1960_] RAILROAD GHOSTS HAUNT SOUTH PARK At Mudsill the wye of the Denver, South Park and Hilltop narrow gauge is all that remains of a small camp created by the activities of the Mudsill mine. Below is the sad, abandoned D.S.P. & P. roundhouse at Como. [Illustration: Michael Davis, 1960] [Illustration: _D.K.P., 1960_] THE PARK’S MINING GHOSTS ARE MANY The Leavick terminus of the Last Chance and Hilltop mines’ tramway was at the above mill. Ore buckets swung in the second story (right), emptied and back along the towers. Below is an arastra in Buckskin Creek. [Illustration: D.K.P., 1960] _From Cripple Creek_ [Illustration]