Gold Point Ghost Town, Gold Point Nevada


Gold Point Gleamings Newsletter
GOLD POINT GLEAMINGS #20 NOVEMBER 5TH, 2006

GOLD POINT NEVADA

 

Howdy Ya'll,

Time for another update from the middle of nowhere.

First off, if you're interested in coming out for Turkey dinner, we will give more details towards the end of the newsletter.

Let's start with the weather. The weather here is starting to get colder. In the mornings we have to start a fire in our little caboose stove to take the chill off. Soon it will have to be kept going all day, and with coal, we will keep it warm all night.

Red Dog is going to make my birthday breakfast in a little while. Yep, it's that time of year again. Last night we had a meatloaf dinner. We followed up with my favorite cake--"Angel" food with pudding frosting.

Well, let's start off with letting you know about Cook's Shack. That's the name of one of the cabins we started working on recently. The man who previously owned it was John Cook. So, after a little thought we came up with that name. It's quite the shack now but it has lots of possibilities.

First thing it needed was a roof. So over a couple of weekends Dan and Bob put on a brown asphalt roof. In the future we will cover that up with cedar shingles and make it look original.

We then took most of the junk lying on the ground around the shack and screwed it to all the outside walls for decoration and a place to put it rather than throw it away.

We then finished cleaning out the inside. It's sometimes unbelievable what some people can, and will accumulate, over time. There was a truck load of food that was 20 or so years old. Lots of rusty canned goods and a trunk full of different pastas. Nothing that we would want to attempt to eat. We'd been slowing cleaning out the cabin over a years time or so. You could hardly walk through it at the beginning. Only isles from one room to the next.

The old linoleum on the floor was in very bad shape and unusable so we began to tear it up. Underneath it in the living room was newspapers from 1937. Mostly from the San Francisco Examiner. They were all in good shape. The best finds were a special edition of the Golden Gate Bridge. We have one edition with a picture taken of the bridge without cars taking up the whole front page taken the day before it opened for traffic. Inside had pictures and stories of how the bridge was built. Another edition had a picture of the bridge with the first auto's crossing for the first time. There was even a night time photo. It was quite a find. We will put some of the real good ones in picture frames and hang throughout the cabin when finished. Most of the others will be pasted to the walls like the old timers used to do. We even found a commercial Nevada license plate from 1926 in beautiful condition covering a crack.

Lone Mountain cabin is all ready for carpet and furniture now. Red Dog made a visit to the big city of Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago to pick out the carpet.

We started on another cabin given to us by Harold Harrell, the original owner of the Cottontail Ranch. We decided to call it Harrell's Bunny Hutch. When finally redone it will probably be one of the most expensive gifts ever given to us. There is a couple of big holes in the back where someone in the long ago past cut out to add on other rooms. Those old additions never stood the test of time and had collapsed into rubble. It will be interesting to see how it turns out.

Things will be progressing a little slower again because I'm back in Las Vegas hanging paper again. Little things still get done on the weekends though.

A couple of months ago Tule Canyon, 11 miles to the West, was stuck by lighting and caught fire. Gold Point fire department was first on the scene. Goldfield also joined us. It was a great experience for us. Fortunately it wasn't very big. Maybe about 100 acres. We never did find out exactly. We didn't go hiking in the hills with our shovels. The fire came down to the road and we sprayed our water on it. It would never had passed the road but it was fun to tell people "we stopped it at the road" with a big grin on our faces. We did find out that fighting forest fires was best left to the youngins. Just dragging that hose up and down the road was tiring much less hauling shovels and rakes up a burning hill and diggin fire lines. After a couple of hours a crew from Bishop, California showed up and soon after that a tanker and two more crews from Beatty arrived. Beatty was just finishing up on a 26,000 acres fire.

We must thank Tom from Texas for his donation of an old oak wall telephone built in the late 1800's. It's about 30 inches high and is in great shape. He found it while he was in South Dakota. We're going to hang it up somewhere in the saloon. He also donated an old A & Y Gasoline Company oil and gas can. Plus an old carbide lamp from the Wolf Safety Lamp Company of New York. It's about 100 years old.

Now let's talk Turkey. Gobble, gobble and gobble.

It's time for our annual day after Thanksgiving dinner. I know we didn't have one last year and I couldn't make it to the one before that but this year, barring the unforeseen, I will be here.

Friday after Thanksgiving around 3 p.m. we will be serving up a big delicious dinner. Pat is going to smoke two turkeys, if he can find some big zig zag papers. LOL. One will be a cherry smoke and the other an apple smoked turkey if he can find the right chips. Red Dog Lil is going to stuff the biggest turkey I can find. We will also have honey ham, smashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, corn, stuffing, coleslaw, dinner rolls, cranberry sauce, etc. Dessert is apple, cherry and pecan pies and a pumpkin cake. Horse dervs will be deviled eggs, veggies and dip, and assorted chips and dip.

You can come early in the day if you like and check out the town and some of the things we've been working on. We still have a couple of cabins available if you'd like to stay the night. RV spots are also still available.

First and foremost, PLEASE let us know if you're coming for dinner so we can make sure we have enough food. In the past we've had anywhere from 20 to 80 guests. So far we have 30 coming this year. The weather can be shirtsleeve warm or cold enough for a foot of snow. Inside, though, is usually warm and toasty.

It's getting close to that time of year to start think about Christmas Cards. This year we will again be sending out old cards from the 1940's that had previously been sent to Senator Harry Wiley and his wife Ora Mae. The only way to get one of these is to FIRST send us a card with your address. We will then send you one back. Don't send them now. I will let you know when towards the end of the month along with our address.

That's about all to report now.

Now it's time for another short chapter from "Tales from the not so Old West"

The following is from the Rhyolite Herald May 6, 1908 Vol. 4 #2

"Pannings... Charley Stevens, of the Ice Palace, is shipping a carload of lumber, bar fixtures and wet goods to Hornsilver, where he will establish a saloon. W.H. Seaman will build the structure, which will be 20 by 40 feet..."

"Opened Ore at 200 feet...says Tuesdays Goldfield Tribune.
The rush to Hornsilver, 30 miles to the south, apparently has only fairly started. Yesterday no less than five automobiles left here for the new silver camp, and many wagons went down, loaded with all kinds of material as well as food stuff. Of those who went in autos and returned last night, not one bad word was heard about the district, and on the other hand, if some of the stories of the enthusiasts are true, there are more good things in the camp than have yet been developed in any of the districts that have come to the front in the past few years in the state...
...a rule has been adopted, for the present at least, not to allow any on below. The small hoist has all that it can do to lift the ore and waste rock, and if one was allowed to go down there would be twenty others to claim the same privilege...All the visitors are invited to help themselves to what ore they want to carry away with them, as it is dumped into the bins..."

Well, until next time be good and healthy.

Happy Trails and Sunsets,

Sheriff Stone &/or Red Dog Lill

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