Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Ghost towns Whiskeytown, Agua Fria, Reward, Rough and Ready, Stovepipe, Kenworthy, Tumco

Loneliest in the U.S.

Ghosttowns website. Decline and ruin are common occurrences treated with a Darwinian detachment.
Ghosttowns website. Decline and ruin are common occurrences treated with a Darwinian detachment.

"Whiskeytown came by its name from the number of kegs of whiskey that were lost when mules lost their footing on the narrow trail and plunged into the ravine, emptying their precious cargo into the stream below. The stream became known as Whiskey Creek and the camp as Whiskeytown. Records show that S25 million was recovered from the streams and gulches of Whiskeytown. If the town were alive today, it could be seen east of Weaverville and west of Redding on Highway 299. But that is not possible, for it lies under 200 feet of icy cold water at the bottom of Whiskeytown Lake.”

Such tragic histories are the norm at Ghost Towns (www.ghosttowns.com), a Web site dedicated to ghost towning. The ambition of this site is to catalog the structures, objects, and histories of the nation’s ghost towns, and then to contextualize these places within the larger story of mining in the United States. “Just what is a ghost town?” the site asks. It’s a “town that is a shadow of its past glory. This includes everything from absolutely remote locations with very little remaining (sometimes called the ‘True Ghost’), to flourishing tourist towns such as Jerome, Arizona, or even Calico, California.” As with so many Web sites dedicated to uncommon pastimes, the pleasures of Ghost Towns lie in learning about its subject — sad, abandoned communities that carry only a trace of their rich histories — and in discovering the peculiar argot and networks of an obsession you never imagined existed.

Sponsored
Sponsored

The descriptions and photographs of the ghost towns at this site are submitted by a small group of tourist-scholars, many of whom use a specialized vocabulary. Besides the wonderful names of many ghost towns — in California, for instance, are Agua Fria, Reward, Rough and Ready, and Stovepipe — the words collected in the site’s glossary ring with a certain mystery and old-timeyness, though they also capture the rugged, mundane existence of the mining life. Words and expressions like “adit” (a horizontal entrance to a mine, otherwise known as a tunnel); “arrastra” (a Spanish word for a circular rock-crushing device powered by a mule); “mother lode” (we all know what that is); “nugget” (a lump of...see “mother lode”); “sluice” (an inclined trough); and “winzer” (a shaft sunk from an adit) speak to mining’s place within both the science and magic of invention. And the photographs here of rusty mine lanterns, 5-stamped gravity-powered ore mills, and Purex bleach bottles suggest the same tension. Mining, as we see it at ghost towns, becomes a mixture of practical, physical exertion and the trial-and-error guesswork of alchemy.

The writing, as well as the vocabulary, of those who submit to the site has a certain glow, they describe places with a rhetoric of matter-of-fact inevitability. To accomplished ghost towners, decline and ruin are common occurrences treated with a Darwinian detachment and just enough drama to keep you intrigued. One author, for instance, describes Kenworthy, a ghost town in Riverside County, as follows: “(The) site of the only real gold mining in the San Jacinto Mountains, Kenworthy was named for a wealthy Englishman who financed the town. Kenworthy began in the early 1890s with a salted mine and died only a few short years later. The town’s namesake was conned into financing a salted mine and lost his fortune because of it. The only gold mined was from the pockets of Mr. Kenworthy.”

One ghost towner, Henry Chenowith, with several submissions to the site, including the description of Whiskeytown, is especially observant of a given town’s particular marks of decline. Of a ghost town in Imperial County, California, he writes: “Twenty-five miles from Yuma, Arizona, north of Highway 80, is the ghost town of Tumco, California. A track walker whose last name was Hedges made a find in the early 1880s that created some excitement (and) that eventually lured as many as 3000 persons to the site. The town was named Hedges.... Water was piped in from the Colorado River. Hedges had all the makings of a boom-town except a hotel. Everyone lived in cabins of wood or stone. When Hedges felt he had made enough money, he sold his holdings to Borden, the condensed-milk baron. The new owner operated under the name of the United Mining Company. He renamed the town, taking the initials of the company...TUMCO. Borden ceased operations in 1909, thus creating a true ghost town. The most sorrowful scene is that of the cemetery. Overpopulated for a small town, each grave is unmarked, which adds to the feeling of complete desolation.”

So, that’s a True Ghost. A town that once had a condensed-milk baron but whose only remaining tailings are brick rubble and unmarked graves. You may visit Ghost Towns from the comfort of home, but that’s a small consolation

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Dia de los Muertos Celebration, Love Thy Neighbor(Hood): Food & Art Exploration

Events November 2-November 6, 2024
Ghosttowns website. Decline and ruin are common occurrences treated with a Darwinian detachment.
Ghosttowns website. Decline and ruin are common occurrences treated with a Darwinian detachment.

"Whiskeytown came by its name from the number of kegs of whiskey that were lost when mules lost their footing on the narrow trail and plunged into the ravine, emptying their precious cargo into the stream below. The stream became known as Whiskey Creek and the camp as Whiskeytown. Records show that S25 million was recovered from the streams and gulches of Whiskeytown. If the town were alive today, it could be seen east of Weaverville and west of Redding on Highway 299. But that is not possible, for it lies under 200 feet of icy cold water at the bottom of Whiskeytown Lake.”

Such tragic histories are the norm at Ghost Towns (www.ghosttowns.com), a Web site dedicated to ghost towning. The ambition of this site is to catalog the structures, objects, and histories of the nation’s ghost towns, and then to contextualize these places within the larger story of mining in the United States. “Just what is a ghost town?” the site asks. It’s a “town that is a shadow of its past glory. This includes everything from absolutely remote locations with very little remaining (sometimes called the ‘True Ghost’), to flourishing tourist towns such as Jerome, Arizona, or even Calico, California.” As with so many Web sites dedicated to uncommon pastimes, the pleasures of Ghost Towns lie in learning about its subject — sad, abandoned communities that carry only a trace of their rich histories — and in discovering the peculiar argot and networks of an obsession you never imagined existed.

Sponsored
Sponsored

The descriptions and photographs of the ghost towns at this site are submitted by a small group of tourist-scholars, many of whom use a specialized vocabulary. Besides the wonderful names of many ghost towns — in California, for instance, are Agua Fria, Reward, Rough and Ready, and Stovepipe — the words collected in the site’s glossary ring with a certain mystery and old-timeyness, though they also capture the rugged, mundane existence of the mining life. Words and expressions like “adit” (a horizontal entrance to a mine, otherwise known as a tunnel); “arrastra” (a Spanish word for a circular rock-crushing device powered by a mule); “mother lode” (we all know what that is); “nugget” (a lump of...see “mother lode”); “sluice” (an inclined trough); and “winzer” (a shaft sunk from an adit) speak to mining’s place within both the science and magic of invention. And the photographs here of rusty mine lanterns, 5-stamped gravity-powered ore mills, and Purex bleach bottles suggest the same tension. Mining, as we see it at ghost towns, becomes a mixture of practical, physical exertion and the trial-and-error guesswork of alchemy.

The writing, as well as the vocabulary, of those who submit to the site has a certain glow, they describe places with a rhetoric of matter-of-fact inevitability. To accomplished ghost towners, decline and ruin are common occurrences treated with a Darwinian detachment and just enough drama to keep you intrigued. One author, for instance, describes Kenworthy, a ghost town in Riverside County, as follows: “(The) site of the only real gold mining in the San Jacinto Mountains, Kenworthy was named for a wealthy Englishman who financed the town. Kenworthy began in the early 1890s with a salted mine and died only a few short years later. The town’s namesake was conned into financing a salted mine and lost his fortune because of it. The only gold mined was from the pockets of Mr. Kenworthy.”

One ghost towner, Henry Chenowith, with several submissions to the site, including the description of Whiskeytown, is especially observant of a given town’s particular marks of decline. Of a ghost town in Imperial County, California, he writes: “Twenty-five miles from Yuma, Arizona, north of Highway 80, is the ghost town of Tumco, California. A track walker whose last name was Hedges made a find in the early 1880s that created some excitement (and) that eventually lured as many as 3000 persons to the site. The town was named Hedges.... Water was piped in from the Colorado River. Hedges had all the makings of a boom-town except a hotel. Everyone lived in cabins of wood or stone. When Hedges felt he had made enough money, he sold his holdings to Borden, the condensed-milk baron. The new owner operated under the name of the United Mining Company. He renamed the town, taking the initials of the company...TUMCO. Borden ceased operations in 1909, thus creating a true ghost town. The most sorrowful scene is that of the cemetery. Overpopulated for a small town, each grave is unmarked, which adds to the feeling of complete desolation.”

So, that’s a True Ghost. A town that once had a condensed-milk baron but whose only remaining tailings are brick rubble and unmarked graves. You may visit Ghost Towns from the comfort of home, but that’s a small consolation

Comments
Sponsored

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Jazz guitarist Alex Ciavarelli pays tribute to pianist Oscar Peterson

“I had to extract the elements that spoke to me and realize them on my instrument”
Next Article

Why did Harrah's VP commit suicide last summer?

Did the fight the Rincon casino had with San Diego County over Covid play a part?
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader