Essays

“All were waiting for that wary bird, the capitalist, to come along and convert their airy visions into substantial reality.” – The Calgary Daily Herald, 1906

Essay / History of the North-West / 34 Minute Read

Silver City was once a prominent landmark, a boom town, with a population in the thousands, that popped up overnight and just as quickly vanished. Or was it? A search for contemporary articles turned up something else entirely, a grubby little town full of half-finished cabins and ornery speculators. The real Silver City, it turned out, was nothing like the beloved myth. But where had the story come from? Who told it first? And why?