Silverado

The Spanish called it Cañada de la Madera, Timber Canyon, for trees cut for mission beams. Silver showed in blue quartz in 1877, and by the summer of 1878 a townsite at the canyon's end had three hotels, seven saloons and a post office. Lumber cost so much that most of the miners lived in tents, in a canyon named for its wood. Many were local ranch hands taking a few weeks off from the farm. The boom was over by 1881, and the cabins left behind became weekend bungalows in a canyon still lived in.

What the plaque says

Silverado Located in Cañada de la Madera (Timber Canyon), Silverado was a mining boom town founded in 1878 when silver was discovered nearby. During the colorful life of the boom, 1878-1881, miners, flocking to the area, established a thriving community, served daily by stage from Los Angeles and Santa Ana. Historical Landmark No. 202 California State Park Commission

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• California Citrus State Historic Park — 14 mi
  A state park that is still a working orange grove — the last big piece of Riverside's citrus landscape left standing.
• Sherman Institute & the Sherman Indian Museum — 15 mi
  The federal Indian boarding school Riverside lobbied to get — still a school today, its 1902 building now a museum.
• Planes of Fame Air Museum — 16 mi
  On the field where the country smelted its surplus warplanes — and about thirty of the aircraft here still fly.
• Riverside Chinatown Site — 19 mi
  Riverside's second Chinatown — an empty lot on purpose, with eighty percent of it still underground.

More markers nearby

• Flores Peak — 3.2 mi
• Modjeska's Home — 3.6 mi
• Carbondale — 4.2 mi
• Serrano Boulder — 5.5 mi