Day 3 dawned and after how bloody hot day 2 was I made a serious change of plans. Today was supposed to be my voyage into Nevada to find an old mining site named Atlanta. It is located approximately 90 miles from Milford with 2/3's being dirt road. 3 hours there, 3 back. The temp was 95 at noon Saturday and I honestly didn't wanna drive that long in that hot of weather. So, I guess a return trip is in order. So, I found another town on my list and headed west to find it. Shauntie was built on numerous mine claims in the area around 1870. Supposedly there was a processing mill there, post office, hotels and saloons. The town thrived until it burned down in 1876.
It was quickly rebuilt and lasted another year before the mines began to play out. As fast as it was built, it emptied out even quicker. A few mines were reopened in 1910 and produced low grade ore till around 1920. This time the exodus was permanent. Residents of Milford visited the old town and took everything they could leaving concrete foundations and stuff they couldn't use.
What I found, which was not a lot, were some rock retaining walls, a couple of foundations, some wood piles and 1 mine. The GPS showed no mines and actually placed Shauntie on top of the ridge above the rock piles. Apparently there is not a road into the town. The area I found was very steep and rocky and I tried to find a way up to the top but I failed. I need to get on Google Earth and see what I can see for the return trip. No mines showed up but as I was driving along dirt roads, I came across a fairly good sized one that I visited.
As I said before, this wasn't showing as a mine on my GPS so I have no idea what it was called. It was a good sized mine with the headframe still kind of standing over the entrance. Sorta, because it looks as if someone had pulled it out towards the tailings. The shaft was not strait down but on about a 60° angle. If my body wasn't so screwed up I could have entered this one with out a lot of difficulty.
I really should have brought my laptop with me but I have trust issues with hotel cleaners. My cell service was poor to nothing. I could not send out texts or calls for that matter but every once in a while a stray text would come through. I did have wifi at the hotel but trying to look at Google earth on my phone wasn't very easy. Needless to say, the laptop is coming on my next trip.
Plus having it with me would have let me write these blogs the night they happened instead of a week later. After I left the mine, I followed just about every dirt road I could find looking for all this activity of the Shauntie area. I didn't find a thing. Well, that's a lie, I did encounter the herd of elk in the foto above. Now you would think with all the trips I take to the mountains I would have seen a million elk. Nope. This was the first herd of elk I have ever seen in the wild. I have seen a million deer, antelope, moose, but elk and bear have avoided me. Now its time to find the bear. Jeep on my friends!
Day 2 of my vacation was the big one. It was going to be my return to Old Frisco. It had been 20+ years since I last trespassed there and I was anxious to see what changes had occurred. The first big change was the town gates were now locked, whereas in the past they were open. Glad I drive a Jeep.... anyway, this time I had unlimited space on my camera to shoot as much as i wanted. Last time involved my film camera and that would have been very expensive to shot as much as I wanted. My first stop there was the King David mine with its huge mine frame towering the area. That frame is old and has led an incredibly busy life.
The one ore cart is still in place as if to say lets get back to work. A co-member of a ghost town group sent me a link to his 3 part video on what is actually underground there. It was made in the same time frame of my first visit and is in black and white. Also, only part 2 had sound. It was still cool to watch and see what was left behind when they shut the place down. The shaft supposedly goes down 1200 feet but I could be wrong. All I know is that I would love to take a tour.
The old main dude house is still standing, for the most part. Time is waging a good battle with the house and has done some damage. But, it is still standing as a tribute t quality work of time gone past.
The town itself is free to wander through without fear of being in trouble. This was my first visit to the town itself and not a lot of it is left. This stone edifice is the most complete of the town itself. Since it isn't behind locked gates it will get more visitors than the mine area. And more visitors means more vandals and thieves. They now have the kilns behind a fence. They are quite interesting to see.
Next stop on the tour was the cemetery. Now in everything you read, it says that there were murders nightly. Like 10 a night. After observing the cemetery, I call bullshit. 10 x Frisco lifespan in days = way more than could fit in the cemetery. Its not small by any means, but here is the thing: there are family plots all over. And in these family plots are young children. I would say that 94% of the marked graves in Frisco are children. In the foto below,
we find the grave site of young Hugh Sackett: born on January of 1901 and dying in July of the same year. 5 months and 2 days old. The place is full of markers just like this. I ran across what I think is an unnamed plot. that just had a few bricks laid out in a pattern. I may have missed some markers but again, the place is too small to have 10 murders a night. I believe a trip back to Frisco when it is cooler and you don't fry your body in the desert sun would allow for a more intense search of the cemetery and prove my theory.
Sometimes out on my adventures I run into interesting people. The man above would be one such person. Now, forgive me because I have forgotten his name but my 45 minutes with him was a highlight of the trip. We shall call him Mr X. X is from California and drives longhaul for a living. His loads are carnival rides that go from town to town for county fairs and such. He had heard the story about 10 murders a night and had to come see for himself if it was true. We talked about historical periods and times as we walked among the grave sites. I believe he too is now convinced it is folk tale made up to add excitement to the old ghost town. He definitely falls into the good people of America category and I left there with a new friend. I have added more fotos to the Frisco Mine page plus I created a Frisco town page. More fotos can be found on those 2 pages. Jeep on my friends!
