There are certain myths to be discovered by looking at our own society’s past – life always seems better just over the horizon, in the next valley are the riches we search for, and the fame we lack is merely another mountain range away. However, the truth is that money runs out, interest wanes, people move on and leave behind the ways and customs of yesterday. The town is dead, the mine is played out and the people are leaving. Sixty saloons becomes six and then one ... and then none. All that is left is a collection of leaning buildings bleaching in the sun, empty of life, and slowly sinking into the earth. These are the towns of yesteryear, inhabited by the ghosts they produced.
Speckled throughout the western half of the United States are thousands of little towns, mining communities and small remains of past settlements. They mostly consist of a few broken down buildings, a road overgrown with weeds and wildflowers, some relics of a thriving mining town. The motif of the wood is rot, and the patina of the metal is pitted rust.
People have a strange fascination with ghost towns. Perhaps it is the quiet, unsettled feeling they get walking down the boardwalks, or maybe it’s the nostalgia of history lessons long forgotten until a spark brings them back in time. Ghost towns can be organized into three categories: arrested decay, natural destiny and boomtown rebirth.
Arrested Decay
The term applies to historically valuable towns that are not preserved by our government (either state or federal) to their original glory but merely prevented from further destruction. These places are popular tourist spots to get an accurate feel for life at the turn of the century and beyond.
Bodie, CA
Bodie State Historic Park
PO Box 515, Bridgeport, CA 93517
(619) 647-6445
In 1881, the Reverend F.M. Warrington called Bodie “a sea of sin, lashed by the tempests of lust and passion.” However, the town became known more for its wild living than for its big gold resources. Every other building on the mile long main street was a saloon. Seven breweries were working day and night. The whiskey was brought in by horse carriage, 100 barrels at a time.
The boom was over in four short years and by 1882, Bodie was in the grips of decline. The rich mines were playing out and mining companies were going bankrupt. Two fires, one in 1892 and the other in 1932, ravaged the business district. Bodie faded into a ghost town during the 1940s and became a State Historic Park in 1962, managed in a state of arrested decay. Listed as one of the world’s 100 most endangered sites by the World Monuments Watch, today less than 10 percent of the 2,000 original buildings stand. With that in mind, it is still the largest ghost town in the western United States, and what is left looks much the same as it did over 50 years ago when the last residents left.
A self guiding brochure will explain the historic significance of each building, and a local museum is open from Memorial Day weekend until the end of September. Open daily, Bodie has seasonal hours: Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend: 9 am to 7 pm, and for the remainder of the year the park is open from 9 am to 4 pm (due to weather, hours may differ). Entrance is $2 for adults and children are free. There is no camping at the town site, but U.S. Forest Service campgrounds are located near Bridgeport and Lee Vining. For information call: Bridgeport Ranger Station at (619) 932-7070 or Lee Vining Ranger Station at (619) 647-6525.
Natural Destiny
Here, time has the upper hand. The boardwalks, hitching posts, saloon walls and fence posts are on their own. There is either no interest or no money available to preserve these relics and as each season takes its toll on the structures, less and less will survive for the next generation of visitors.
Belmont, NV
PO Box 56
Manhattan, NV 89022
(775) 482-2000 or (775) 761-8711
information@belmontinn.com
Meaning “beautiful mountains,” the town of Belmont is one of Nevada’s most popular ghost towns. Built in 1876, the Belmont Courthouse was once the county seat for Nye County and is now listed in the Nevada Historical Registry.
Remnants of the 20-stamp Monitor-Belmont mill, including a tall chimney, some retaining walls, and bits of old milling machinery are still present just outside of town. In the hills surrounding Belmont are the relics of other mining endeavors; a lime kiln, tall mill chimneys, stone walls, rough cabins and trails strewn with old bits of metal and utensils. Since the Courthouse has been partially restored, it is available for tours during the summer months, and the Belmont cemetery is another interesting glimpse of what life was like in a mining community.
Although no developed facilities are available in the Belmont ghost town itself, camping is welcomed in the Pine Creek Campground in the Monitor Valley (roughly 20 miles to the north). Pine Creek is open May to mid-October, and offers trailer/motorhome sites, fishing and public restrooms. The Austin RV Park is also nearby in Austin, Nev. (775) 964-2601.
Rhyolite, NV
Beatty Information Center
Beatty, NV
U.S. Rte 95, 150 mi. north of Las Vegas
Open All Year
(775) 553-2200Furnace Creek Visitor Center and Museum
Open All Year 8:00 am to 6:00 pm Pacific Time
Located on CA Hwy 190 30 miles from Death Valley Junction
(760) 786-3200
Called the “Queen City of Death Valley,” Rhyolite is located on the east side of Death Valley National Park approximately 35 miles from the Furnace Creek Visitor Center on the way to Beatty, Nevada. Once boasting a population of over 10,000, the town was founded by Shorty Harris and E.L. Cross, who were prospecting in the area in 1904. They found quartz in and around a nearby hill. Soon a rush was on and the town sprang from the dust and dirt. Named Rhyolite because of its silica-rich volcanic rock in the area, the town boasted over 2,000 claims, including the Montgomery Shoshone mine, which was so promising, the citizens decided to simply move the whole town closer. Rhyolite had a three-story bank (costing almost $100,000 to build), a stock exchange, a red light district, schools for 250 children, two electric plants and a hospital.
Four short years later, financial ruin took its toll on the town. Mines closed and the people began to drift away. In 1916, the light and power were finally turned off and the town died.
Today, all that is left of Rhyolite is part of the three-story bank building, part of the old jail, the train depot and a few other complete buildings. One of the more popular structures is the Bottle House, a house constructed using 50,000 beer and liquor bottles.
On the road from Beatty to Rhyolite, don’t forget to stop at the Gold Well Open Air Museum for a taste of contemporary interpretive outdoor sculptures. Admission is free, and open at all times, daily.
Boomtown Rebirth
One of the most popular forms of the ghost town is the boomtown rebirth. Simply put these are towns with a year-round population, successful businesses and a tourist operation. Their popularity usually relies on a certain claim to fame (such as Tombstone) or a special niche community lifestyle that is attractive to visitors (such as Jerome).
Tombstone, AZ
Tombstone Chamber of Commerce
P.O. Box 995
Tombstone, AZ 85638
(888) 457-3929
tombstonechamber@theriver.com
The story of Tombstone has filled countless pages of books as well as several movies about the events that made the “town too tough to die” famous. In 1877, a prospector by the name of Lewis wandered into the dry washes, coming down out of the Tombstone Hills into San Pedro Valley. He discovered veins of silver and followed them to an outcropping of high grade silver ore. On the strength of the specimens that he had brought out with him, A.M. Franklin and Marcus Katz of Tucson agreed to grubstake him for a share of his claim. Upon his return, apparently Lewis had not mapped the location as he was not able to find it again. For long, weary weeks Lewis, combed dry wash after dry wash, but he found no trace of silver. Meanwhile, other prospectors arrived and converted the area to a boomtown and Tombstone was born.
The most notable and famous occurrence happened on October 26, 1881 between Wyatt Earp and the Clanton cowboy gang. The “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral,” is re-enacted daily on the streets of Tombstone and is celebrated annually during Tombstone’s Hellderado Days.
Another famous site worthy of a visit is the Rose Tree Inn Museum, home of world’s largest rose tree (and the Rose Tree Festival held each April and the Bird Cage Theater, one of the most famous saloons in America. In 1882, the New York Times referred to it as the “wildest, wickedest, night spot between Basin Street and the Barbary Coast.” During nine years, the theater never closed its doors, and before it ended its operation, it was home to more than 16 gunfights and suffered 140 bullet holes. After the Tombstone mines were played out, the theater was boarded up for more than 50 years, untouched until 1934.
Interesting to note, the Bird Cage was host to the longest poker game in western history. Played nonstop, it lasted eight years, five months and three days and cost $1,000 to enter. The poker table stands exactly were it was left.
Jerome, AZ
Jerome Historical Society
P.O. Box 156
Jerome, AZ 86331
(928) 634-1066
www.jeromehistoricalsociety.org
In 1890, high up on Cleopatra hill, one mile north of Jerome, the Gold King Mine was known as Haynes, a small suburb of Jerome. Haynes was home to hundreds of miners employed by the Haynes Copper Co., a company that dug a 1,200-foot hole in the search of copper. They were hardly disappointed when they discovered not copper at the bottom of their mine, but gold. They made millions, and Jerome became a boomtown.
Ravaged by fires, labor disputes and landslides, the Haynes Copper Mine is no longer in operation, and the tools of the trade —large steam engines, shovels and ore crushers— have fallen silent, rusting against the backdrop of the Arizona desert. The suburb of Haynes has disappeared and Jerome dwindled from 15,000 people at the peak of production to 450. Still, today Jerome is very much alive with writers, artists, artisans, musicians and historians. They form a peaceful, colorful, thriving community built on a rich foundation of history and lore.
Open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Gold King Mine offers a daily operating, turn-of-the-century sawmill, an authentic 1901 blacksmith shop and the world’s largest gas engine. For more information, write Gold King Mine, P.O. Box 125, Jerome, AZ 86331; or visit them online at www.jeromechamber.com/gold_king_mine.htm
A must on the list to visit is the Jerome Grand Hotel. Built in 1927, this hotel started as a hospital and, at an elevation of 5,240 feet, is considered the highest hotel in the Verde Valley. Designed to withstand tons of exploding dynamite, the hospital was converted to a hotel in 1996 and has the oldest fully operational, self-service Otis elevator (installed in 1927) in the Southwest. The hotel can be reached at (520) 634-8200 or www.jeromegrandhotel.net. There’s the newly renovated Connor Hotel of Jerome in the middle of town, built in 1898 and restored to hold a mix of Victorian furnishings and modern conveniences. The Jerome Grand Hotel, a Spanish Mission style building set in the hillside that used to be the town hospital, and the nearby Surgeon’s House Bed & Breakfast, built for the mining company’s surgeon.
Calico, CA
P.O. Box 638
Yermo, CA. 92398
(760) 254-2122
(800) TO-CALICO
Fax: (760) 254-2047
Calico@mscomm.com
The town was a result ofsilver discoveries in the Calico Mountains in 1881. They produced roughly $20 million in silver ore and borates before the price of silver plummeted in 1896 and the town was deserted.
Today, Calico is a combination theme park and historic land mark. Approximately one-third of the town is original (for example, Hanks Saloon and the mine), but the rest had be recreated to help with the spirit of the town. Walking tours to examine the life of the miners, the famous 20-mule teams and the narrow gauge railroad that circles the town are available.
Open daily (except for Christmas day) from 8 a.m. until dusk, Calico’s admission prices are $6 for adults and $3 for children (6-15). Full service camping is available in the canyons below town. Full hookups are $22 a night, while cabins can be had
for $28. |
|
