"ColoradoTown.com KEYWORD Silverthorne Museum"
Silverthorne Museum Although the Town Of Silverthorne is a relatively new town, having been founded in 1967, after the completion of the Dillon Dam, its roots go back to the gold mining era of Summit County and the man after whom the town is named; Judge Marshal Silverthorn.
In about 1959, a local businessman, rancher, trucker and all-around entrepreneur by the name of Clayton Hill laid out a few streets and built a number of small houses in a meadow near where the Silverthorne Pavilion now stands. His plan was that these houses would provide living quarters for the workers who were about to undertake the construction of the new Dillon Dam and the Roberts Tunnel, a huge public works project planned by the Denver Water Board to provide water for the growing city of Denver. As the construction progressed and hundreds of people came to the area to work on the dam and the tunnel, it became apparent that there was a need for municipal water and sewer services to meet the growing demand.
In 1967 Clayton Hill and others decided to form a new town and sold municipal bonds to finance a water and sewer department. Clayton needed a name for his new town and decided to name it after Judge Marshall Silverthorn, a prominent Breckenridge resident and the original owner of a placer mining claim that encompassed much of the area that the town now occupied. Clayton Hill somehow decided that the name 'Silverthorn' did not sound dignified or sophisticated enough, so he arbitrarily added an "e" on the end of Judge Silverthorns' name to form Silverthorne. The Silverthorne Museum is dedicated to preserving and depicting the early way of life in the Silverthorne and lower Blue River Valley area, going back many years before the actual town was incorporated. From a stately Victorian parlor, a depiction of the early school houses, to early ranching, farming, shopping and recreation, the museum gives a window into the lifestyles of the early pioneers in the area. The museum also contains a series of aerial photographs taken in the early 1950's with overlays showing the development that exists today. These dramatically show the tremendous growth this area has experienced in a relatively short period of time. In the front portion of the museum, there is a non-profit organization called "Friends Of The Library" operating a small discount bookstore that donates 100% of their proceeds to the Summit County Library. The Outlets At Silverthorne graciously donates the 3,000 square foot space for the Silverthorne Museum to the Summit Historical Society.
Directions:The museum is located in the Outlets At Silverthorne shopping complex in the 'Green Village', just north of Highway 9, at 309-C Rainbow Drive.
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