Robert Jowsey had grown up hearing the legend of Manion's lost silver. In 1907, armed with a crude map obtained from another lumberman who had worked alongside Manion in the Ryan Timber Limit, Jowsey arrived in Haileybury and partnered with two seasoned prospectors: James Wood and Charlie Keeley. The three men pushed into South Lorrain Township, where other prospectors were already combing the bush. In October, Wood found a small piece of float containing visible silver. An assay revealed extraordinary silver content per ton, plus cobalt, a mineral equally sought after. Months later, Wood stumbled upon Manion's original discovery post, ending a mystery that had persisted for over three decades. By 1908, more than 1,500 men flooded the region. Three mines roared into production: the Keeley, the Bellellen, and the Wettlaufer. The South Lorrain camp would eventually produce the legendary Keeley nugget, a single mass weighing 4,402 pounds and containing 24,222 ounces of pure silver.

Silver Centre never stayed in one place. The Ontario government laid out the first town site on the shores of Lake Timiskaming at Sullivan's Landing, building a wharf and a tote road to the mines. A dozen businesses sprang up: a general store, a school, a hardware store, steamship service from the Temiskaming Navigation Company, and even a branch of the Farmers Bank. But when the Farmers Bank collapsed in 1911 and the mines faltered, residents drifted five kilometers inland to Loon Lake, closer to the one mine still operating. By the 1920s, when a second boom hit, the town migrated again to the mining camp itself. At its peak in 1924, this third incarnation boasted 65 homes, a movie theatre, a confectionery and ice cream shop, a motor garage, a barber shop, a Chinese laundry, and two schools. The Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway extended a branch line in 1924, complete with a two-story station. A fourth settlement, Maidens, sprouted near the old landing around three smaller mines. It was a town that chased the silver.

The second boom arrived when geologist James MacItosh Bell's theory proved correct: the real silver lay deep within the rock. New ore reserves disclosed at the Keeley Mine in 1918 led to full operations by 1922. The Frontier Mine, purchased by the Mining Corporation of Canada for $525,000, became the second major producer, shipping high-grade ore alongside the Keeley. Both mines added stamp and flotation mills to process the rich silver-bearing rock. The Lorrain Trout Lake Mine opened on the fabled Woods Vein in 1925, followed by the Harris Mine and the Curry Mine. Cobalt extracted as a byproduct proved so lucrative it often covered the full cost of mining operations. While Cobalt's great silver fields were winding down, Silver Centre was hitting its stride, briefly rivaling its famous neighbor to the north.

The prosperity ended as quickly as it began. By 1928, ore reserves were thinning. The 1929 stock market crash drove silver prices to $0.38 an ounce, making mining nearly unprofitable. The Keeley shut down permanently in 1931. The Lorrain Trout Lake Mine followed the same year. The Frontier held on until 1932. The Temiskaming and Northern Ontario Railway closed the Lorrain branch line in 1935 and pulled up the tracks entirely. Schools closed in 1937, the post office in 1939. By 1940, no one remained at the camp. Harry Miller, a prospector who had found success reworking old mines elsewhere, rehabilitated the Keeley's number three shaft between 1961 and 1965 and coaxed out a small amount of silver. His death in a car accident ended that last effort. Today, rubble, tailings, and waste rock scatter through rejuvenating forest. Unfenced mine shafts lie hidden among the trees, making the site genuinely dangerous. Silver Centre is private property, still held by mining companies, waiting, perhaps, for one more boom that may never come.