From 1879 to 1890, towns rose rapidly in the surrounding hills, often triggered by a decent mineral strike or a promising railroad survey, and banks, saloons, hardware stores, newspapers, and brass bands soon followed. Chaffee City was described on August 14, 1879, as only eight days old yet already lively, with about 300 inhabitants, fifty houses and tents, buildings under construction, and more arrivals coming in daily from places such as Silver Cliff. These instant cities reflected the ingenuity and creative energy of a pioneering nation and the belief that great cities could be built in the wilderness, even though many collapsed within a few years. Alpine showed how quickly such places could appear and disappear: founded in 1879, it gained 2,000 citizens within weeks, then lost nearly all of them when railroad tracks reached neighboring St. Elmo a few years later. Across Colorado and along the Upper Arkansas, places including Arbourville, Calumet, Harvard City, Romley, Silverdale, Winfield, and Turret sprang up and then were destroyed by the Silver Panic of 1893, fire, or competition from rival settlements. St. Elmo survived until the 1950s and still retains much of its physical remains, while many other lost towns are marked only by a cemetery, a dump, or scarcely any trace at all.