Calico is a ghost town and former mining town in San Bernardino County, California. It is located in the Calico Mountains of the Mojave Desert region of Southern California.
It was founded in 1881 as a silver mining town, and was later converted into a county park named Calico Ghost Town. It lies 3 miles (4.8 km) from Barstow and 3 miles from Yermo. Walter Knott purchased Calico in the 1950s, and architecturally restored all but the five remaining original buildings to look as they did in the 1880s.
In 1881, four prospectors left Barstow, California for a mountain peak to the northeast. They described the peak as "calico-colored", the peak, the mountain range to which it belonged, and the town that followed were all called Calico. The four prospectors discovered silver in the mountain and opened the Silver King Mine. Silver King Mine was California's largest silver producer in the mid-1880s.
A post office at Calico was established in early 1882, and the Calico Print, a weekly newspaper, started publishing. The town soon supported three hotels, five general stores, a meat market, bars, brothels, and three restaurants and boarding houses. The town also had a deputy sheriff and two constables, two lawyers and a justice of the peace, five commissioners, and two doctors.
At its height of silver production during 1883 and 1885, Calico had over 500 mines and a population of 1,200 people. The discovery of the borate mineral colemanite in the Calico mountains a few years after the settlement of the town also helped Calico's fortunes.
In the same year, the Silver Purchase Act was enacted and drove down the price of silver...
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