Thursday, July 21, 2011

Long ago, in a western ghost town.

Alright Dale, you shamed me into it...

Back when I had lots of hair, and it was all brown, we had more brawn than brains. We'd located a town-site in a certain western locale, tracked down the owners, (who resided in yet another certain western locale), and received written permission to dig. Armed with a few faded photos of the camp in it's heyday, we located several promising spots from high up on a mine tailing that overlooked the town and marked them with irrigation flags.

The first spot we chose to dig was up on a flat knoll. The ca. 1907 picture clearly showed a number of wood floor & frame - canvas stretcher tent structures surrounding what looked like (what?)... a duck pond. No evidence of any duck pond remained but the probes and metal detectors went nuts. The photo shows us around noon the first day. We dug test holes that ultimately revealed an area about 20 feet across and over six feet deep at the center. If it was considered garbage in 1910, this is where it ended up.

We dug this site for two summers and pulled out literally hundreds and hundreds of bottles; most of which were slick AB beers and the like...

Dig on. The next one of these might, just might, date from the eighties~

2 comments:

  1. wawawewow....looks like a dream. thanks !

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  2. Living the dream...That's a classic photo of ghost town digging!

    ReplyDelete