Many times when I have been talking with different people about different subjects, occasionally the subject comes up about how Charlie Silvers (now deceased), owner of Silverline Ranch, made his fortune. The biggest rumor, that they interpret as fact,  is that he won the lottery. Another rumor is that he was flying over that area and looked  down and saw Joe Hendricks ranch, and Charlie said to himself, “I’d like to buy that ranch”. So Charlie had his pilot land his plane and went up to Joe and bought the ranch.

Well folks, all those rumors are false, so don’t believe it.

How do I know these things? Well, I was Silverline Ranch’s first manager.

First, how did Charlie make his fortune? Charlie graduated from college with a mechanical engineering degree. After graduating, he invented and built a machine that could manufacture “carpet tacking” cheaper and faster than anyone in the world, under the name of Silverline. Carpet tacking is the small wooden strip with small nails in it that goes along the parameter of a room that is to be carpeted to hold the carpet in place.

Charlie was a brilliant businessman and inventor. Charlie told me one time he was the largest user of plywood in the world. He owned his own wood mill in the state of Washington and a nail factory in the Philippines. Later he built a box factory in Mexico, Mo. So folks, that is how he made his fortune. Not the lottery.

So how did Charlie find Joe Hendricks ranch? Charlie had his first factory in around West Covina, California. He and my Father-In-Law, Horace “Joker” Long, were best buddies in California. Joker had a lot of properties in and around El Dorado Springs. He and Charlie built the Medical Mall building in El Dorado together.

In one of Charlie and Joker’s conversations, Charlie mentioned he was looking for a ranch to buy somewhere in the US. Charlie had looked at actor Burt Renolds ranch in Atlanta, Georgia, but it was land locked. However he loved Burt’s mansion.

When Joker came back to Missouri with his wife, Pat, on vacation, he mentioned Charlie’s interest in a ranch to Verl Leonard. Verl got wind of Joe Hendricks wanting to sell his ranch and told Joker.  And Joker told Charlie about it, and the rest is history.

A side note, the mansion you see along 54 Hwy. is an exact replica of Burt Renolds mansion. Charlie bought the plans from Burt’s architect with Burt’s permission.

However, how did I become the first ranch manager? After Charlie bought the property, he needed a manager. He didn’t know or trust anybody in Missouri to have that job.

Joker mentioned to him that my wife, Steph, and I might be interested in managing the ranch, since Steph’s dad knew my wife and I wanted to raise our daughter in Missouri and not in California.

I had a general engineering contracting business  in California when Charlie made the offer. I accepted. I was doing all of IN-N-Out Burger’s site development work at the time, and had finished the last job for them, Richie Snyder’s (President) personal building lot on the side of San Gabriel Mountains above Glendora.

Off the subject, what does El Dorado Springs and the President of In-N-Out Burger have in common? Let you know another time.

Back to Silverline.

I spent almost a month training with Joe Hendricks in January 1982 and stayed at my wife’s Aunt and Uncle

Moody and Juanita Bland’s home. We were living at the ranch in March 1982 when a tornado almost made a direct hit on the house we were living in.

Enough said. “Now you know the rest of the story.”

Loren Wells