Property values there were high, so several miners settled on a ridge to the north of it and named their settlement Rockpile.

The town had a mile-long Main Street with many businesses, among them a Wells Fargo office, the Rice Building, and the Cosmopolitan Restaurant.

Although adjacent to many settlements with a majority of Mormon residents, the town never had a meeting house for Latter-day Saints, only a Catholic church.

Today, the Wells Fargo office, the Cosmopolitan Restaurant, the Rice Building, and numerous foundations and walls remain in the town site, and a few dozen homes have been constructed in the area.

[5] Over long periods of time silver ore, sediments, and vegetation were carried in water runoff from the Chinle Formation to the White, Buckeye, and East reefs.

[7][8] Iron oxide deposits in the soil rocks cause a red coloration, and dinosaur tracks from the early Jurassic period have been found in the area.

[9] Silver Reef is located in one of the driest and hottest parts of the state of Utah; summer temperatures often rise above 100 °F (38 °C).

The Puebloans were nomads who followed the migration of the animals they hunted, typically deer, mountain sheep, elk, and jackrabbits.

Occasionally they built more permanent dwellings out of rocks, usually along the side of a mountain, often large enough to accommodate several families.

[4] In 1875, news of the silver discovery reached the Walker brothers, well-known bankers from Salt Lake City.

As construction of the St. George LDS Temple ended in mid-1877, labor opportunities for the workers became available in Silver Reef.

Pine Valley Mills and Mount Trumbull in the Arizona Strip supplied most of the lumber used to construct the buildings.

[25] By 1879, Silver Reef's population had reached 2,000, and the town also had a horse race track, a brewery, and a brass band.

[34] Shooting matches among members of the Silver Reef Rifle Club and sometimes residents of nearby towns took place on the horse race track.

[36] A lot of the cotton and other agricultural items produced in the area were transported by wagon to Silver Reef.

[38] After a major dispute with the Stormont Mining Company,[39] the Silver Reef Miners Union was formed to support wages.

Truby was hired by Colonel Enos Wall, foreman and owner of the Kinner, to guard the mine until told otherwise.

An inquest on both men, held in the saloon, found that the bodies each contained bullet wounds from the .41 caliber revolvers that were used, and powder burns caused by the proximity of the shootout.

[44] Another shootout occurred between Henry Clark and Charles Griffin on December 1, 1878, at Cassidy's Silver Reef Saloon.

Carbis, the foreman of the Silver Reef mine, had fired Forrest the day before on account of his violent nature.

[47] The residents of St. George were shocked at the sight of Forrest's hanging, and one man was reputed to have said, "I have observed that tree growing there for the last 25 years.

Hundreds of Silver Reef's residents threw buckets of water from nearby Leeds Creek on the fire and put wet blankets on the adjacent business buildings, but the fire spread to the Harrison House Hotel, one of the town's most prominent buildings.

The Salt Lake Tribune reported that Silver Reef had been "Chicagoed", and that a state of panic was felt even after the fire had been extinguished.

In response, the discharged union members escorted the company's superintendent, Washington Allen, out of Silver Reef.

Led by Matthew O'Loughlin, the president of the Silver Reef Miners Union, they walked through Silver Reef in rows of two, and, upon arriving at the Savage mine, O'Loughlin and nine other men went into the hoisting works and ordered the engineer on duty to shut down the pumps that kept water from the water table out of the mine.

[39] A few days later, the sheriff of St. George, accompanied by a posse of 30 men,[52] arrested 25 members of the Miners Union,[25] including Matthew O'Loughlin.

News of the find spread quickly, and most of the buildings in Silver Reef were demolished in hopes of discovering more gold, but none was found.

[55] In 1928, American Smelting and Refining Company purchased its mines, and in 1929 they sank a three-compartment shaft on the White Reef.

Dinosaur footprints that date back to the early Jurassic period can be found in the area,[9] and the Orson Adams House in nearby Harrisburg allows visitors to study the pioneer history of Washington County.

[68] In 2018, the book Five Nights at Freddy's: The Fourth Closet by Scott Cawthon featured the ghost town of Silver Reef, Utah.