The Mystery of Silver Heels

Mount Silver Heels

Located off Highway 9 near Alma, Colorado once stood a thriving mountain mining camp called Buckskin Joe.

Buckskin Joe
Courtesy of Historical Society
of Colorado.

In 1859, Joseph Higgenbottom *, an eccentric prospector established Buckskin Joe. Word spread fast about the discovery of gold in this camp and by 1861 it hosted 2,000 residents with several saloons, gambling halls, and even a traveling minstrel show.

One bright and sunny day the stagecoach brought a beautiful dance hall girl who became the talk of the camp.

Her real name is long lost, but the miners who showered her with admiration and gifts called her “Silver Heels” for the fancy heeled shoes she wore during her nightly dance performances.

After a few performances word got out that Silver Heels planned to move on. A desperate contingent of men approached her and begged her to stay, and to their relief, she agreed.

But little did she know her happy dancing days were about to end. In the Winter of 1861, an outbreak of smallpox hit the camp. The town leaders sent to Denver for nurses, but they never arrived.

The town was overwhelmed with the sick and dying. Silver Heels could be found traveling from cabin to cabin tending to the sick and caring for their families. She even helped bury the dead.

By the spring of 1862, the worst of this disease was over.

Those miners who remained wanted to show their gratitude to the merciful dancehall girl, but she seemed to have vanished. A group of miners searched the surrounding mountains when it was established she had not left Buckskin Joe by either horse or stage.

As the months passed the mystery of her disappearance deepened. The rumors began to fly. Had she contracted smallpox herself and died? Or maybe she had survived but now found herself with a pox-scarred face, so she was too ashamed to be seen.

As it turned out these rumors were not far from the truth for in the summer of 1862, a ghostly female figure began to appear in the camp’s cemetery.

Buckskin Joe Cemetery

She was seen wandering among the tombstones wearing a heavy black veil. The figure always carried flowers, which she would place on several graves. Was she still comforting those whom she had lost?

The old cemetery is the only part of the Buckskin Joe camp that still remains today. Silver Heels’ ghost has been seen for well over a century and a half in this cemetery. When witnesses approach her, they report her figure seems to just blow away on the wind.

Mount Silver Heels

After her disappearance the miners named one of the surrounding mountains-- Silver Heels, to honor her.

* Higgenbottom traded his claim, which later produced most of the 16 million in gold mined in the camp, for a revolver and a few other items and left the area.