Oh my goodness, no! .. Don't get me started. When we went on cross country car trips we only hit the major attractions. Tried to avoid crowds, and traffic. It was mostly just riding in the car for 4 weeks looking out the window. I'm really grateful for those trips, but when I look back, it would have been nice to do a few special things like that. We could have afforded it. It was just the 3 of us. Even experiences that turn out bad are worth it. They give you some laughs to talk about later. What do you remember about Cripple Creek? I'd like to hear about the mine.
I have no historic photos, no vacation pictures of famous places, just memories and can't make a good story out of them. But once in my youth I was looking for a job. A friend suggested we go to West Virginia and go to work in a coal mine. The thought even back then scared me. Pictures on movie newsreals of John L. Lewis flashed in my mind even now as I think of how unsafe coal mining was. These three young'uns who got lost in a mine a few days ago and were found and brought out safe, flashed in my mind, along with John L. Lewis again in his attempt to organize labor mining companies. Told my friend back then they couldn't pay me enough to work underground. Not then; not now. Sorry no picture to post and for the interruption.
Cool!!! ..I'm pretty sure we traveled Shelf Road once back in the Fifties when I was a kid (mentioned in post # 27 above). There are two back roads from Cripple Creek to Canon City, and the other one has a tunnel, which I would have remembered. Neither road is on Google Street View yet. If you think it was harrowing in 1977, you should have been on it in the Fifties! This is someone's recent video I found on YouTube. I don't remember the road being that smooth, more gravely, and not as much vegetation.
The mine goes down a mile. Yes, a mile. You get loaded in a small old metal elevator cage that holds about 6-8 people jammed in tight and drop down rapidly into the mine, watching the various levels go by. Not for the claustrophobic, I can tell you. It takes a few minutes. There was an actual old sign at the top that said "Per Colorado Mine Statute #something - 'NO F@RTING IN THE CAGE'". Then you tour the mine by foot and by tram on the original ore car tracks. And then it's back in the cage for the trip up. Best mine tour I've been on in the US, and I've been on several.
Thanks @Mary Robi . Now I want to go back and see it. The worst (and only) mine exhibit I saw was the coal mine in the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, back in the Seventies. I think most of it was above ground, and they tried to make you think you were below ground, but you kept seeing daylight through cracks. We got some good laughs about that one. Maybe they've improved it now, because it gets good reviews. I do remember stopping along the road in Colorado, running across what looked like an open mine shaft in the ground, throwing a rock in and never hearing it hit bottom.
Pithole, Pennsylvania The Frazier oil strike in January, 1865, prompted a large influx of people to the area that would become Pithole, most of whom were land speculators. By December, Pithole was incorporated with an approximate population of 20,000. At its peak, Pithole had at least 54 hotels, 3 churches, the third largest post office in Pennsylvania, a newspaper, a theater, a railroad, the world's first pipeline and a red-light district 'the likes of Dodge City's.' Pithole oil storage tanks continued to catch fire ... and ... the Frazier well production began to decline. Other wells were beginning to run dry when in 1866 fires spread out of control and burned 30 buildings, 30 oil wells and 20,000 barrels of oil. "From beginning to end, America’s famous oil boom town had lasted about 500 days." Pithole is now a ghostown. Activity at tanks near the Frazier oil well.
In Bodie, California, there was an abandoned silver mine that you could walk into. I don't know how far it went because I got scared and didn't go very far into it. At that time, there were no park rangers or anyone at Bodie, so you were on your own while visiting the ghost town. The next time I went to Bodie, a few years later, they had gated the silver mine so that you could walk only about ten feet into it, and there was a park ranger in the area, never approaching, but watching from a distance.
Central Florida had its own little boomtown/ghosttown founded in the late 1800's. Originally named Orange Center, the name was changed to Vineland. There used to be bumper stickers on cars that said "Where the heck is Vineland?" because there were all these roads that had the word "Vineland" in the name, i.e. Apopka Vineland Road, Taft Vineland Road, Winter Garden Vineland Road, but nobody knew where *Vineland* was. At its peak, Vineland was a thriving little town with hotels, bars, churches, a school and even a newspaper. The railroad terminated there and roads went off in all directions so that the orange and sweet potato growers could get their produce to the railroad. I'm assuming one of the major freezes put the town out of business and for many years the area was just a warren of neglected roads and derelict buildings. Then Disney came to town and Vineland found itself right on the outskirts of the park. Mobile home parks sprang up, along with a synagogue and later a mosque, almost next door to each other. Now, it's just an extension of Lake Buena Vista, with hundreds of condos scattered around.
@Mary Robi , I see what you mean. Thought I might find a historical picture of Vineland, just for fun. Nope. R.I.P. Vineland
Denver, Colorado, was a boom town that survived, when the gold in the area dried up, by becoming a supply hub for new mines in the mountains. Covered wagon train in Denver, circa 1860's (click image to enlarge - Alamy.com)
Time travel... For New Year's Eve, why not consider ringing in the new year with The Peak Family, Swiss bell ringers, performing at the Denver Athenaeum. A bandwagon filled with musicians and instruments prepares to depart for a parade, or possibly stir up business for the currently appearing Peak Family, 1864
Spindletop "If one had asked a Beaumonter on January 1, 1901, what big news of recent months had most interested him, he would have said the great Galveston hurricane of September 8, or the dawning of a new century. If one had asked him on January 10, he would have said the great gusher at Spindletop - a salt dome about three miles south of Beaumont. Dubbed "The Lucas Gusher," the oil discovery on Spindletop Hill changed the economy of Texas and helped to usher in the petroleum age." Lucas Gusher Re-enactment