Frisco Mine Town

Frisco existed for one reason: the Horn Silver Mine, called in 1879 the richest silver mine then working anywhere. Prospectors had cracked open its outcrop in 1875, and a town of several thousand boomed up in the desert below the San Francisco Mountains — twenty-odd saloons, killings frequent enough that a wagon collected the bodies each morning, every drop of water freighted in from Milford. Then, in February 1885, the over-timbered pit caved in and took the boom with it. Today the beehive charcoal kilns and a lonely cemetery are about all the desert kept.

What the plaque says

No. 268 ERECTED 1961 FRISCO A TYPICAL MINING TOWN AT THE FOOT OF THE SAN FRANCISCO MOUNTAIN WAS FED BY THE FABULOUSLY RICH HORN SILVER MINE. BY 1885 OVER $60,000,000 IN ZINC, COPPER, LEAD, SILVER, AND GOLD WERE HAULED AWAY BY MULE TRAIN AND THE UTAH CENTRAL RAILROAD. WATER WAS SHIPPED IN AS WELL AS ALL SUPPLIES. THEN THE MINE CAVED AND PEOPLE MOVED AWAY, LEAVING ONLY A FEW FAMILIES OF THE 4,000 POPULATION TO MAINTAIN THEIR HOMES, STORES, SCHOOL AND CHURCH. BY THE 1920'S ONLY MEMORIES AND THE SHIFTING SANDS WERE LEFT. HORN SILVER CAMP SILVER DESERT CAMP BEAVER COUNTY, UTAH

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Milford Stamp Mill — 14 mi
• Lincoln Mine — 24 mi