Silver City

Ghost town in southwestern Idaho, on Jordan Creek in the Owyhee Mountains, 77 km/48 mi southwest of Boise. After a silver strike in 1863, the settlement became a major producer of gold and silver. It was the county capital from 1866 to 1935 and had a population of about 5,000. The deserted town is now a tourist attraction.

British investments and advanced transportation helped Silver City survive the late-19th-century silver crash. Active mining continued until 1912 and was sporadic through the 1930s. Forty original buildings remain.

Silver City

Hamlet in western Nevada, 6 km/4 mi south of Virginia City and just northeast of Carson City, in the Virginia Range; population (1990) 150. It was one of the settlements that boomed briefly in the 1860s during the heyday of the Comstock Lode silver mine.

Silver City

City and administrative headquarters of Grant County, southwestern New Mexico, 138 km/86 mi northwest of Las Cruces and immediately east of the Continental Divide, in the foothills of the Piños Altos Range; population (1990) 10,700. It is headquarters for Gila National Forest; timber and tourism are important. The area has irrigated farms and ranches.

From the 1870s gold and silver were mined here, and the town was a shipping centre. The Santa Rita open-pit copper mine still operates, and nearby Tyrone, a former ghost town, is a coppermining centre. It was the boyhood home of the US outlaw Billy the Kid. Western New Mexico University (1893) is here.