A Forgotten Bit of Silver Mountain history
It felt like a minor miracle when this slim legal document turned up on eBay. If the handwriting looked familiar, it should have; this was penned by none other than Lewis Chalmers – sometime hero, part-time villain, and all-time star of Alpine County’s early mining dramas.
Here’s the story behind this forgotten slice of Silver Mountain City history, captured in a document!
The transaction was straight-forward enough: On June 27, 1872, Erick Harmon Errickson was selling a single share of the Scandinavian Toll road for the not-exactly-lavish price of $57 dollars. Lewis Chalmers not only wrote up the agreement in his flowery legalese and equally-flower script, but also served as the witness for Errickson’s signature.
The buyers, unsurprisingly, were Chalmers’ business associates back in London. And the seller, Errickson – well, that’s a name you may remember.
Born in Sweden (some say Norway), Errickson had been living at Silver Mountain since at least 1863. A miner with interests in multiple local mines, he’d finally been admitted to citizenship the previous year (June 1871). Errickson was also the proud owner of a saloon on Silver Mountain’s Main Street, next door to Ford’s Hotel. And he wouldn’t be around much longer; Errickson would be shot to death by a jealous husband less than six months after affixing his signature to this deed — a murder that would give Hangman’s Bridge its name.
As for the toll road up Scandinavian Canyon, a piece of which was changing hands in this deed — well, that had been in operation for nearly a decade by the time of this sale. Variously dubbed the “Scandinavian Turnpike Road Co.,” the “I.X.L. Road,” or the “Scandinavian Toll Road,” it began at the end of Third Street in Silver Mountain City, then wound its way up the mountain to reach the cluster of mines atop Scandinavian Canyon.
A brief entry in the Monitor Gazette of December 31, 1864 confirmed the toll road company had formally incorporated with a total of 100 shares at $40 each, and had spent over $3,500 completing about a mile of roadway “in a good, substantial manner.” Several Silver Mountain notables served as officers at the time, including Thomas Ogden, D.K. Swim, and R.K. Love.
In September, 1864, the Alpine’s Board of Supervisors had helpfully granted the company the right to collect tolls for use of the roadway, specifying rates of 25 cents for a horse and buggy, and 12-1/2 cents for pack animals.
But even a toll road company could apparently run short of funds. Much like mining corporations, the toll road company imposed assessments on its shareholders from time to time to cover operating expenses — a burden some investors predictably failed to pay. Lists of delinquent toll road shareholders were published in the Alpine newspapers in both 1865 and 1868.
So why would Lewis Chalmers’ London friends be interested in acquiring a share of this toll road at all? By the time of this mid-1872 transaction, their Scandinavian Canyon-based Exchequer Company was teetering on the edge of insolvency. But Chalmers had also induced his British friends to purchase the I.X.L. mine, as well. And that mine was going swimmingly. As recently as the previous January (1872), Chalmers had raked in a stunning $20,000 from London investors to fund I.X.L.’s operations.
As he sat down to pen this particular document, Lewis Chalmers had just returned from a lengthy personal trip to London, where he’d successfully raised even more funds for his Alpine mines. His signature block confirms he was now living at the “Exchequer Mill” – at a house we now call Chalmers Mansion. Sadly, he’d also just received the tragic news upon his return that his oldest son, Lewie, had died there during his absence.
Perhaps to help dull his grief, Chalmers had begun throwing himself into his mining work — negotiating to acquire additional Scandinavian Canyon mines, purchasing new hoisting machinery, and remodeling the outdated Exchequer mill. Arranging this sale of a toll road interest on behalf of his London friends was part of that same flurry of activity.
Owning the toll road not only minimized costs for using the road by his mining companies, it also helped discourage competition. Chalmers had advocated the strategy as early as May 1871, writing his friends in London: “I think you should buy the I.X.L. Road, of which I will send you an offer [for] $11.00.”
That may have been a typical bit of Chalmers underestimation. Just one year later, Errickson’s sale would cost five times as much. But if costs (as usual) ran a bit on the high side, Chalmers’ overall game plan was apparently successful. By November 1872, he could confirm to his London friends that they held a controlling interest in this important toll road.
Over 150 years have passed. What are the chances some of Chalmers’ documentation would survive. . . and then show up on eBay?! Yet here’s his signature — and a tiny piece of the Scandinavian Toll Road’s history.
