The fill consisted of hard-packed dirt excavated from the U.S. Army's construction of Fort Davis, north of the town of Gatun. This first town, built between 1919 and 1921, initially consisted of thirty-nine 12-family houses and ten 32-room bachelor barracks. For some time, this new town and its streets remained unnamed, but was referred to in Canal Zone files as Silver Town, Cristobal Silver Townsite, and "The Folks River End of Manzanillo Island." Eventually, its residents took matters into their own hands and named it Silver City. Silver City, CZ The first reference to Silver City with a capital C appears in July 1921, when it was used on official correspondence. Silver City's streets were initially numbered and lettered, but its residents eventually also named the streets on their own initiative, so it was only a matter of time before names like Alligator Street (now St. Kitts), Wall Street (now Jamaica Street) emerged. A 1955 article in the Panama Canal Review, reported that Wall Street was purportedly where more affluent Silver Citonians lived. Silver City continued to grow and in 1933 it acquired its first suburb—Silver City Heights. Though the difference in elevation is hardly perceptible, the new settlement's name was also of local coinage. Most of the buildings in Silver City Heights were two-story 12-family quarters, designed primarily to accommodate the families still living in Camp Bierd. The remaining barracks were later used during the increased port activity related to the Third Locks Project and the Second World War, but after the war, many of Camp Bierd's buildings were demolished, with sparse housing remaining in old Navy barracks which came to be known by locals as the "Vatican City". On the night of April 15, 1940, flames swept through the heart of Colón, driving hundreds of families from their homes. Many of these families were Canal employees. Within a few days, 100 tents went up in a row just south of Silver City Heights to shelter Colón's refugees. A few months later, 36 cantonment-type quarters were built to provide more permanent shelter. At first, each house had 12 apartments. In the early 1950s, these quarters were remodeled to house only four or six families each and to extend their useful life. The area of Camp Coiner was adjacent to Silver City, just across Randolph Road. It was originally known as Camp Randolph, but acquired its name in 1942 when