(film projector whirring) (train engine chugging) (train whistle blows) (train whistle blows) (orchestral music imitating train) ♪ - The train!

(western orchestral music) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (train hissing) (group cheering) (group clapping) - Welcome to Silverton!

- Rocks for sale!

- Rocks for sale!

- Rocks for sale!

- [Both] Rocks for sale!

- Locally mined ore for sale!

- Every kid in Silverton, it's practically a rite of passage to be down at the train selling rocks to visitors.

- What kind of rock is that?

- This?

- The whole reason for Silverton's existence is mining silver by the ton, thus Silverton.

- Silverton used to be a volcano.

- Yeah.

- And that's where half the ore up here came from.

- Rocks, ore, mining, gold, silver, that sort of thing was just all over town, everywhere.

And so it was natural for us kids growing up to take an interest in that.

- Okay, and what makes this a $5 rock?

- It has all of the crystals inside.

- My dad worked in the mines, as did everybody's dad.

I knew what gold and silver looked like when I was two.

- This is a sample of rhodenite.

- We have some core samples that we found in the mountains.

- See, it's a little bit of crystal.

- Right here's pyrite and this is pyrite.

- This one looks like gum.

(giggles) - This is a rock we found off the ground.

It's worth nothing.

- The tourists just love it.

You know, they'll be asking them questions and the kids will be answering and they'll develop their own stories.

- The fact that you go out and collect your merchandise, display it and sell it, it just taught me the instant gratification of being in business for yourself.

(big band music) - This is my brother Issac.

He is my business companion.

Isaac, can you hand me the money box?

OK. Can you go put this back?

- I mean, there's a real art form to this, you know, and that can mean anything from how you decorate your wagon, how you dress, how you advertise, how you say, hey rocks for sale!

Et cetera, et cetera.

Do you put up signs?

How artistic are your signs?

- My sign says I'm saving up to go to Disneyland I write that because it helps with business.

- You wanna go to Disneyland?

- [Customer] Have fun in Disneyland.

- Have fun at Disneyland.

- I say buy one, get one sometimes.

That's one trick I use.

- So if someone buys a rock, they get a penny.

- [Both] Would you like to buy a rock?

- We are cleaning rocks, so more customers will come.

- If you, like, smell something you usually go towards the good smell.

- Oh, I start screaming "Rocks for sale!"

Like that.

- We say "Locally mined ore for sale", but we shout it like "Locally mined ore for sale!"

- [Kids] Rocks for sale!

- And they do that.

- [Both] Rocks for sale!

Rocks for sale!

- Saying rocks for sale too much, they kind of get annoyed and come buy a rock.

- Rocks for sale!

- Rocks for sale!

- Basically being as annoying as you could imagine being.

- [Both] Rocks for sale!

Rocks for sale!

- How are you gonna resist that from an eight year old kid?

- Rocks for sale!

- We were always coming up and one upping each other.

-I could beat you - Rocks for sale!

- What's gonna be the best way to get them over to our wagon first?

- I'm still beating them.

- Rocks for sale.

- I was a rear brakeman one day and they had three kids with their little red wagons set up but there was a problem between two of them and it escalated to the point that they actually stood back and they were throwing their product at each other.

The great Silverton rock war.

(gun blasts) (drum line beating) (marching band music) (gun blasts) - The kids who take the initiative, you know, get dressed up like a cowboy or cowgirl, they make a lot more than the other kids.

- You look very handsome today.

- It's fun to see the kids who are, you know stepping out and trying to do the extra.

- I know how to rock this dress.

(bicycle wheel squeaking) (gun blast) - This is Joshua's rock stand.

- I guess he saw some cowboy movies and he wanted to twirl guns and do gun tricks.

At the age of six or so, he started trying it and he'd drop it.

He just kept working at it and working at it.

Finally, he got pretty good at it.

So good that the rock selling, kind of, went by the wayside.

- The crowds just ate it up and they would pass him tips out the window.

He wound up on the front page of the Sunday Denver Post.

(film projector whirring) (gentle guitar music) - When the Mayflower Mine shut down in 1952, Denver and Rio Grande Western, who owned the train at the time, wanted to abandon this line but something kind of miraculous happened.

They started shooting movies with the train as the star.

(marching band music) ♪ Pretty soon people were watching on the silver screen, this beautiful scenery and this really cute little town and they wanted to come see us.

- Suddenly the passenger business was becoming big business for the railroad.

(train engine chugging) (film projector whirring) - Silverton turned into quite the western town.

We never were a western town so Silverton capitalized on it.

And let me tell you, we capitalized on it big time.

(gun blast) (gun blast) (multiple shotgun blasts) - Kids selling rocks goes back to the 1950's really.

Kids realized suddenly all these people were getting off the train every day and they had nothing better to do in the summer except maybe sell some shiny rocks to 'em.

And sure enough, people were buying (twangy banjo music) - I think we did start it.

I do, uh huh.

Just because we were so close to it because mining was the lifeblood of this town.

It wasn't tourism, mining was it.

And all the fathers were somehow involved.

- I don't know who thought of it first but I do know that at a very early age, dad would bring us home pretty rocks in his lunch pail.

- If you opened your pie can and showed a guard, and say 'I'm taking out crystals for my kids' they wouldn't really say much to you.

- My father would bring ore home like all the miners did, and we would sell some quality ore. - The rocks and the wagons, you know, 30 years ago were, there were some incredible things in there, cause their dads were working in the mine.

They were right at the source.

- There wasn't a real competition or anything like that.

It was just a bunch of little kids giggling and sort of clamoring for attention.

- It was just a lot of fun.

But I do think we were the originals.

(wagon wheels squeaking) - Selling rocks by the train, for children, does not require a business license.

But we didn't want to create an atmosphere of older kids being in charge, so we put an age limit on it.

- 13 is the age usually, when kids aren't allowed to sell rocks.

- Unless if you have a permit.

- Yeah.

- To children up to the age of 12, who traditionally have been and shall be allowed to vend local ore samples anywhere within the town on private property, as long as they do not block entrances.

(train engine chugging) (train whistle toots) (cheery music) - We're gonna go get some rocks.

- Yeah!

♪ (water rushing) - This is the secret location, you can't tell anybody.

- It's pretty top secret.

No one really knows about it.

(hammer taps) ♪ - Woohoo!

Look at these!

♪ - Oh, that's a big crystal.

♪ (Issac grunts) ♪ - Check this out.

- Oh, that's really cool.

♪ - Ow!

♪ (rocks clattering in pail) - I got pyrite and galena.

I mined it myself.

♪ (rolling thunder) (thunder clap) - Rocks for sale!

Would you like to buy a rock?

(rolling thunder) (raindrops pattering) - Living in Silverton is A, a filter for the weak and B, Mother Nature determines your day.

- Buh bye.

- You definitely learned a lot about working and the commitment towards spending your time to earn your money.

- Petrified wood, different rocks and things.

I have some hail right here.

(customers laughing) - [Customer] I'll take the hail!

- Every time you sold one and you put another $5 bill in your pocket, it was worth it.

(big band music) - Thank you.

- There you go.

- Thank you.

- There you go young man.

- I sell something, I get money for it, I can buy something with that.

So they're already learning those principles at a young age with rocks.

- I want ice cream but we have to have $6 to get ice cream.

(cash register dings) - Rocks for sale.

- That's fool's gold.

Perfect for a fool like me.

So I'm in, that's three.

The kids would always wanna negotiate.

They'd start out at $3 and then they'd go down to $2.

- Would you take $2 for that?

- Sure!

- Okay.

- They were more interested in the quantity of money not how much they got for every rock.

- 52, 53, 54.

- This was a great opportunity for really young kids to actually make a lot of money.

- Hey money, stop it, money.

- One time I got $60 off of a whole amethyst and then I got a $20 tip because it was raining.

- In the first day we made $8, but now we make $20.

- Maybe around the 30.

- Maybe, my best day I ever got was $200.

- Kids could make more money than the people working in the stores sometimes - I save it for the school year.

- Most of my money was spent on school clothes and stuff like that.

- I saved the most was for a Mustang, a '65 Mustang.

- I'm saving up for a flying car and using my money for college.

- I dunno what I'm saving up for (jaunty piano music) - Truthfully, we're taking the money over to the local candy shops, of course.

Swanson's Candy shop in my case.

- If you got a nickel, the first thing you do is go to Swanson's Market and buy a Popsicle.

- If I get $10, I'm gonna buy like $3 worth of candy.

- We spend it on Pepsi and Mentos.

- It like explodes.

- We would go blow all of our loot immediately on arcade games and candy.

- We also spend it on ice cream.

- Yeah, lots of it goes to ice cream.

- You scream, we all scream, we all want ice cream.

- Rocks for sale!

Rocks for sale!

- My dad said, don't go in the candy stores today.

- [Interviewer] Okay.

- But he didn't say anything about going into the ice cream shop.

(interviewer laughing) (gentle band music) - A lot of visitors come to Silverton to rediscover the past.

The mines aren't working anymore, but those little wagons full of rocks tell a story.

They tell a story of what this town was built upon.

- Rocks for sale!

- Rocks for sale!

- [Both] Rocks for sale!

- Rocks for sale!

- Would you like to buy a rock?

- There's a lot of gift shops in town that sell minerals and rocks and that sort of thing but it's just not as authentic if you don't buy it out of an eight year old's wagon.

(rocks clattering in wagon) - It doesn't matter that what they're selling is a rock that they picked up.

It has a little bit of glitter in it and the tourists are just giving them money for it and taking it and thinking that they've got the best gift in the world.

- It just teaches some traits about doing business and about getting along with people being able to talk to strangers.

And so I think it's absolutely a great event for Silverton.

- The child growing up here, it not only develops their imagination but it also inspires them that they truly can do anything that they want to do in life.

- I kind of wanna be a millionaire.

-All Aboard!

(train whistle toots) (bell dinging) (upbeat band music) - Everybody's disappearing.

So I think I'll just call it quits for now.

- It's been a good day.

- Mom, can you pick me up?

- Enough camera.

(cheery band music) ♪ - Bye bye.

♪ (cheery band music continues) ♪ - Bye!

(film projector whirring) (train engine chugging) (train whistle blowing) ♪ - [Children] Rocks for sale!