How Silver Got It's Name - Coke County, TX

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Submitted by Mary Love Berryman - marylove@tyler.net
2 May 2002
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The Observer/Enterprise, March 15, 2002, Robert Lee, TX

Letter to Editor

Editor,

In reference to the letter written by Bill Cox in the February 22nd 
issue of "The Observer/Enterprise" in which he asked questions about 
how Silver received its name, I believe I can give him a satis­factory 
answer.  I recently stumbled upon the answer by sheer accident.

When I was younger, I spent long hours walking up and down the banks 
of Silver Creek when part of it beelonged to my Great Uncle Will Tubb. 
I had noticed during my walks that a peculiar shaped rock I had never 
seen before was always found along the banks of the creek. This rock 
had the color of gray cement and was unusual due to the fact that it 
had a trunk and por­tions of it branched out like a tree.  Every rock 
I found had similar characteristics.

About a year and a half ago, I was thumbing through a mineral and gem 
book and came across this same rock. I discovered that this particular 
rock or mineral was named sil­ver chloride and that it is mostly found 
in desert regions of the Southwest. This particular rock also contains 
small amounts of silver at times.

After reading this, I spoke to a co-worker of mine, who had been in 
the jewelry business over twenty years, about the possibilities of 
extracting silver from silver chloride. He explained to me that the 
process would be far too costly due to the hardness of the mineral 
surrounding it and the fact that silver chloride usually has too small 
of amounts of silver to be worthwhile.

Considering the knowledge of there being silver chloride on the banks 
of Silver Creek, I concluded that an explorer traveling through the 
area who was knowledgeable of geology and different miner­als would 
have named the creek Silver Creek after see­ing the numerous examples 
of silver chloride on its banks.

The earliest mention of the name Silver Creek I have come across was 
from a story written by a man who had walked as a boy from Fort 
Stockton to Silver Creek in the 1870s. So it is a possibil­ty Ihat the 
creek was named before the 1870s.

As far as naming Silver Peak goes, it was originally named Padgett 
Peak after the family that owned it.  Then after it was sold to the 
Tubb family and the town of Silver came into being it was changed to 
Silver Peak.

On the subject of the jack loads of silver being buried around Silver, 
it is an exciting tale but I believe that's all it is.  There have 
been rocks found around the Colorado River by Silver that have cryptic 
mark­ings and writing in Spanish and Latin.

When I was young, I sat down and copied all the markings from a large 
rock that had Justice and Peace in Latin written on one side and the 
date 1832 and the word El Mexican engraved on it.  A dove was also 
engraved on one side. I believe that these rocks were not forgeries, 
but I will not attempt to guess at what they mean. At that point in
history this area was part of Mexico and Lancers would go far out into
Texas prairies in search of buffalo.

The letter mentioned the Indian face carved on a mountain at Silver.
The face was not carved by the hand of man but by God.  As you come
in from Robert Lee at the Silver turnoff look to your right and at 
the end of Step Mountain is a protruding rock.  The Indian's face is
best seen toward sunset.  It takes a little imagination, but you will 
see the face of an Indian with a head band on.  I first noticed this 
in the seventies and wrote about it in a scene in the "Rabbit 
Twisters."

I hope I have answered some questions about Silver.  I have spent most
of my life trying to find out more about its history and all I can 
say is no one will ever know the whole story.

Permission granted by Observer/Enterprise for publication in the
Coke County TXGenWeb Archives