SILVERTON, Colo. — North of Silverton, on a slope overlooking the town, lies Hillside Cemetery. About 3,000 graves mark the hillside, some with names, others blank. The cemetery stands as a record of Silverton’s history dating back to the late 19th century.
In the 1950s, Freda Peterson began visiting the cemetery with her three children to let them run off some energy. While they played, she started documenting the graves and researching old newspapers to match headstones with obituaries.
Her passion project lasted 40 years. The result was a 900-page collection detailing the lives of more than 3,000 people buried at Hillside. Peterson also compiled another book about those who died in Silverton but were buried elsewhere.
“Not only do we have a study of the cemetery, but we have a lot of genealogical information too,” said Beverly Rich, chairman of the San Juan County Historical Society.
As a mining town, Silverton has seen many booms and busts. During hard times, families often left to find work elsewhere, leaving loved ones’ graves untended, Rich said.
For the past 45 years, the San Juan County Historical Society has maintained Hillside Cemetery, cleaning headstones and restoring deteriorating grave sites.
What do the graves tell us?
Silverton sits on the traditional ancestral lands of the Ute people. In the 1860s, settlers arrived after the discovery of gold and silver along the Animas River.
The 1873 Brunot Agreement between the Ute tribes and the U.S. government led to more mining and the forced displacement of the Ute people from the San Juan Mountains. Silverton was officially established a year later, in 1874.
