Pink
Layers of cloud and mountain make up this view from my back porch – um, actually, from my outhouse
Layers in the Landscape
One of my favorite ghost towns – Gold Point, Nevada
I’m walking through another of my favorite ghost towns, Gold Point, Nevada.
There’s a truck with a face here. With headlights for eyes and a grinning grill, it’s a dead ringer for Maynard, the old tow truck in the Pixar movie, Cars. That’s right, Maynard lives here. It’s a vehicle with personality, mostly painted a faded green, a hook and crane in the back, the bald tires frayed and flat.
The entire town of Gold Point has personality. It’s one of the best-preserved ghost towns in the country.
A cold breeze blows tumbleweeds across the street and between the buildings. I feel like I’m stepping back in time 100 years, to the lawless days of claim jumpers and cattle rustlers.
There’s a soundtrack that reinforces this impression. As I pass by the saloon the faint echo of an old time western drifts on the wind. I circle the building, but there are no other signs of life. The gravelly voiced actors sound like ghosts from days gone by. After all, those ancient horse operas are based on the real-life adventures of towns just like Gold Point.
It’s not completely abandoned. There are 6 full-time residents and 6 part-time residents. But on the day I visited I saw no one.
Silver, not gold, was the strike that brought people here first. In 1868 a town called Lime Point formed when silver was found nearby. The typical challenges of a mining town in the desert plagued Lime Point, though. Lack of water and the cost of freighting almost killed the settlement, although richer diggings in 1880 kept things going for a bit longer.
Lime Point went bust, but not long after the turn of the century, prospectors located a new silver vein about a half-mile away. There was so much silver all you had to do was shovel it right up off the ground! This type of super-gene enrichment was known as hornsilver, so they named the new town Hornsilver.
By 1905, the camp supported about 1,000 people, with 13 saloons to slake the weary miners’ thirst.
Claim jumping and the ensuing lawsuits closed the mines down in 1909. After re-opening in 1915, miners continued to eke out a living until 1927. Then the town experienced a new boom. Gold was discovered in Hornsilver’s biggest mine, the Great Western.
The residents changed the name of the town to Gold Point in 1932. Times were hard in those Depression years and the residents changed the name in a desperate attempt to attract investors.
Mining continued until World War Two when the government banned all mining except for those minerals needed for the war effort After the war, some folks drifted back, but the town was completely abandoned in the 1960s after a bad dynamite charge caused a disastrous cave-in.
The buildings lay deserted for a decade. A former resident, Ora Mae Wiley, did all she could to keep the town from falling completely apart.
A gentleman named Herb Robbins and a few of his friends began to purchase the buildings, one by one, in the 1970s. When Herb hit a big jackpot in Las Vegas a few years later, he used the money to purchase most of the buildings in town. He and his friends continued to repair roofs and lovingly refurbish interiors.
Some of the cabins are now part of a bed and breakfast. Profits from the B&B help to pay for the restoration and preservation of many of the buildings.
The B&B website says, “When you visit Gold Point you may not see anyone, but rest assured they are watching you.” Sounds kind of creepy, but basically it’s just a neighborhood watch program. The entire town is privately owned, so look but don’t touch. No souvenirs, please. Leave the artifacts where they lay. Neighbors looking out for each other are why Gold Point is so well preserved.
If you’d like to keep the ghosts at bay, visit on a weekend. The museums are usually open then. The town also has a big celebration on Memorial Day, with a chili cook-off, live music and raffle prizes.
As for me, I’ll visit when it’s lonely. I think the town’s apparent abandonment is part of the charm. I can’t wait to go back, and I’ll stay a little longer next time. But if you visit before I do, be sure and tell Maynard I said Hello!
Gold Point is north of Beatty, about 7 miles off Highway 95 on Highway 266.
Lens-Artists Challenge – Landscapes
I usually only answer the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge every other week, but Amy’s theme choice, Landscapes, was irresistible. I LOVE landscape photography!
Water is big in landscapes. Sometimes a landscape includes a bit of the sea…
Recently I’ve been spending my time on the central California Coast.
Reflections are always a big hit in landscape photography.
I need vertical topography to charge my soul…
Alaska is all about big landscapes. My favorite seasons are summer
and fall.
And then there’s the desert. Talk about a diversity of landscapes! Whether it’s dunes…
or flowers….
or interesting rocks.
What a beautiful world we live in!
Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: #26 A Photographic Review of 2018
This week’s photo challenge, brought to us by Ann-Christine, is to do a photographic review of 2018. As I looked over the files from all of my travels this year, I found it really hard to just pick a few favorites. I’ve done a lot of traveling this year! How do I narrow it down?
So many sunsets, like the feature photo of the lighthouse at Pt. Arena on the Mendocino Coast. I had a lot of red rock adventures, revisiting old favorites like Arches and Zion National Parks, and discovering new amazing places, Like Gold Butte and Vermillion Cliffs National Monuments.
Then there’s water. Incredible waterfalls and beautiful seascapes were hallmarks of my travels. The falls in Yosemite were peaking after a week of flooding rains when I passed through in the spring. Autumn found me deep in the rain forests of Olympic National Park. Great waterfalls there, too. Nothing like a waterfall to bring you serenity and inner peace.
As I looked through my photos, though, I was struck by just how many of my favorite images were foliage. Trees were big for me this past year, both literally and figuratively. I got to know the redwoods a little better when I spent the month of February in Mendocino County, California.
Springtime flower hunting introduced me to a new favorite, the Redbud trees of the Sierra foothills. I couldn’t get enough of these beautiful flowering trees and I was amazed that I’d never seen them before. The area where this image was taken burned in the fires over the summer. I’m thankful I got to see them before they were destroyed.
I spent my summer back home in beautiful wonderful Alaska. My summer image is not a tree, but a flower. I found these unusual albino fireweed blossoms in the middle of downtown Valdez, Alaska.
Fall found me back in the big trees, the old-growth forests of Olympic National Park. Although I loved, and was awed by, these giants it wasn’t the size of the trees that captured my camera and my soul this time as much as it was the fertility of the rain forest- the thick moss covering and hanging from every inch of bark, especially on the Bigleaf Maple trees
For me, 2018 was a wonderful year. I’m hoping 2019 will prove to be yet another year full of wonder, with plenty of opportunities to be immersed in the natural beauty of our Mother the Earth. I’ll leave you with one more favorite. Happy New Year!
Splash!
Patti’s Lens-Artists Challenge for us this week is Splash! – the magic of water.
Powerful magic indeed. Water – creator, destroyer. The most powerful force in our universe.
Water and time, joining forces, create the landscape we see before us.
Glacial ice carving mountains.
Rivers cutting canyons…
Waves sculpt rocks, eroding away miles and miles of coastline.
Blessed rain.
Water is beauty. Water is life – the key ingredient that unifies all life on Earth.
Without it, none of this would exist.
Splash!
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