Monday, September 2, 2019

GNU Day #2

 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! 

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