Calico: Rally & Collapse
POLITICS, rather than technology, provided the next impetus for growth. As a sop to the farmers and silver-mine owners of the West, Republicans in Congress cynically pushed through the Sherman Silver Purchase Act in July, 1890. By requiring the U.S. Treasury to buy a limited amount of silver every month, the act gave a psychological boost to the industry. The price of silver rose from 97 cents an ounce to $1.05. The Waterloo and Silver King corporations reopened their low-grade deposits. The King Mine was shipping out 100 tons of ore a day by September, 1891, the Waterloo 50 tons. Three months later, the Silver King company enlarged its mill (the old Garfield) from 20 to 30 stamps.
But political-based prosperity would be short lived. The price of silver soon began to dip, to 88 cents in 1892. Considering it “foolhardy to exhaust the great ore bodies when the profit ... was merely nominal,” the Waterloo company closed its mine and mill in March, 1892; 120 to 150 men were idled.
But not everyone was about to give up. A few chloriders remained at work (1892), the Silver King mill continued to operate night and day, and the school remained full of young scholars. In the long run, though, continuing to mine silver ore would be like spitting into the wind. Europe was already suffering from a depression. Fearing the spread of monetary problems, the Republicans forced the repeal of the Sherman act. Months later, in mid-1893, panic swept the banking industry of the country. Railroad construction halted. The prices of commodities, from wheat to pig iron, slipped. Around Calico, even the chloriders vanished. Meanwhile, after a protracted suit, the Waterloo and King corporations merged in mid-1894.
By all logic, Calico should have died then. But capital and labor kept up their courage. In spite of the heat of July and the low price of silver in 1895--65 cents--the King (Garfield) mill continued to reduce 100 tons of ore a day from its groups of mines; the company's mines were “looking better than they have for several years. . . .” The stage line was still making two round trips a day, and the school had just finished the term with 36 children enrolled. Though Calico “boasts but two saloons,” it still encompassed a barber, stationery store, fruit store, druggist-doctor, shoemaker, lodging house, machine shop, blacksmith shop, and a Chinese restaurant. Postmaster H.R. Gregory had lived in Calico since the pioneer days. Undaunted by the hard times, Thanksgiving was celebrated with a grand ball in the town hall, a “fine turkey supper,” and a dance until dawn. When the King company's mines and mills were shut down in 1896, the town still clung to life. A handful of businesses served an estimated 100 residents. The post office finally closed in November, 1898. Finally, the school dwindled to four pupils and closed. As the Redland's Citrograph noted, Calico “long ago fell into decay, and has now passed entirely out of existence. It is no longer known even as a school district, owing to a lack of school census children. The library and other books and records have been returned to the office of the County Superintendent of Schools.”
Though the town was dead, the district experienced a last-minute revival. Two veterans of the early boom, D.O. Connell and Marcus Pluth, leased the Oriental Mill and Waterloo Mine in April, 1899, and shipped out ore on the narrow-gauge. Their operation lasted a few years. Then the railroad was torn up; Connell moved many of Calico's frame structures to Daggett and the new town of Yermo.
Calico now passed into the realm of legend. Old-timers who had missed the boom could recall peak populations of 2,000, 2,500, even 4,000. The true number never really mattered. Within a few years, visitors would begin visiting the ruins, snap pictures with their boxv Kodaks, and have picnic lunches beside adobe walls. Walking up Main Street in 1908, geologist W.H. Storms recalled the camp's heyday: “... Night and day the sound of music and mirth could be heard. The cheerful call of the hurdy-qurdy manager mingling with the rattle of the Ivory chips of the gambling tables. ...”
Storms could hardly believe the ruin wrought in only a decade of desertion. A dilapidated piano stood in a corner of the old dance hall. “...The sun streamed into the dirty room through great holes in the roof. The lining and gaudy wall paper were hanging in folds like tapestry long neglected. In the storeroom of the leading store, large account books revealed “many old familiar names.” Jake King had bought a plug of tobacco for 50 cents; Charlie Beckwith had bought a silk shirt for $4. Several safes lay outside the express office. The dozen houses lining the silent main street “are in possession of the bats and owls.””
SOURCES
Recollections of the discoveries appear in the Pioneer Cabin News (San Bernardino Society of Pioneers, bulletin), 1968, and in L. Burr Belden's “Mechams Tell of Calico Silver Camp Discovery,” San Bernardino Sun-Telegram, Oct. 26, 1952, p, 22. Though indifferently edited, the San Bernardino Valley Index carried informative, often humorous accounts of the discovery and early boom, 1881-1882. In the few surviving issues of the Calico Print, the writers paid considerable attention to social and cultural life. Mining and milling were covered exhaustively in the Mining & Scientific Press, 1882-1917, especially through late 1887, when the Print suspended. The decline was covered, somewhat sporadically, by the Redlands Citrograph and the Saturday Review (San Bernardino) and by the California State Mining Bureau, Reports 8 (1888), 9 (1890), 11 (1892), 12 (1894), and 13 (1896).The more one gets to know Calico, the more one appreciates the boyhood reminiscences of Herman F. Mellen, apparently written about 1940: Historical Society of Southern California, Quarterly, June, 1952 (v. 34), pp. 107-124; September, pp, 243-260; and December, pp, 347-367. Several visitors and residents wrote vivid accounts: Mrs. D.M. Harwood, “Interesting Letter,” June 9, 1882, and “Calico District,” June 16, 1882, both in the Santa Ana Standard; F.W.S. (Frederick W. Smith), “Calico District,” Mining & Scientific Press, March 14, 1885, pp, 173 and 180; “On the Desert,” June 15, 1887, “A Day in the Mines,” June 24, 1887, and “Through the Waterloo Mill and Mine,” November 21, 1888, all in the Ontario Record; and W.H. Storms, “A Lonesome Town,” American (Los Angeles) Mining Review, November 14, 1908, pp, 10-11.
Though it contains a few errors, the best overall account of mining remains an extensive, abundantly illustrated series by a state geologist: F.H. Weber, Jr., “Silver Mining in Old Calico,” May, 1966 (v. 19), pp, 71-80; January, 1967 (v. 20), pp. 3-8; and a follow-up piece, “Silver Deposits of the Calico District,” February, 1967 (v. 20), pp, 11-15, all in Mineral Information Service (California Division of Mines and Geology). For the series, Weber also compiled a comprehensive, unpublished bibliography for the division: “Bibliography of the Calico silver district and vicinity, San Bernardino County, California” (April, 1966).
Also of interest are several features written by L. Burr Belden: “Calico Booms as County's Biggest Mining Center,” Nov. 2, 1952, p, 24, and “Lucy Lane Has Vivid Memories of Early Calico,” Oct. 8, 1961, p. D-6, both in the San Bernardino Sun-Telegram.
