Calico Ghost Town

17 January 2007

We departed Pahrump today for Calico regional Park and Campground. It was a short run but had to travel over two passes to get to this valley. This park also includes a restored 1880’s gold/silver rush town. It is another of the regions Ghost towns. The big difference between this one and Rhyolite is that this one has been largely restored to its appearance in the 1880’s and turned into a tourist trap with lots of stuff to buy.

The mines where productive for a few years and then the town slowly slipped into disuse. In the 1950’s, local support allowed the town to be restored to what you see in the pictures.

Except for quite a bit of junk on the road, some of which could not be avoided, the trip was uneventful. We were lucky enough to see our second coyote of the trip, but the navigator was not quick enough with the camera to get a picture. The first was in the dark in Lake Mead recreation area caught in our headlights as it ambled across the road. This one was feeding on some road kill and was reluctant to leave as we approached, which allowed us a good view, as it departed the scene.


We will start the day tomorrow with a trip to Peggy Sue’s nifty 50’s diner on the old Route 66, and then see what there is to see.

China date farm

After hunkering down for several days due to the cold temperatures, we needed to get out and about again. Once again, we have managed to be in the wrong place at the right time weather wise. We are enduring a record cold that has not been seen here in 17 years. We have lost power in the park at the depth of the cold night and then had the majority of the water pipes break in the park from the same cause.

Katie decided to visit today and we headed to the China date farm just across the border in California.

This farm was first founded by a Chinese worker previously working at the Borax site in Death Valley a century ago. The current owners started the date farm after previous owners failed to make the site a success. They advertise the farm as a hidden oasis. In this case it is true. It is located in the middle of the desert and surrounded by hot springs and mud hills that have existed in this area for centuries. In the middle of a huge barren area you turn on to a private road that winds down into hidden valley and suddenly this oasis appears full of trees and bushes in an otherwise desert location.

We learned a good deal about the history of dates and how they are grown and harvested. We also learned that they are great in chocolate chip date cookies.

sand, soap and imagined cornfield

We wanted to visit a few of the sights in Death Valley that we were not able to get to on our last visit. So we headed into the park and climbed the sand dunes that have been formed in certain locations by the sand deposited over time by the winds. There are just a relatively few places in the park that have these dune hills. They have been formed by the unique combination of wind, mountains and valley geography. This was an enjoyable hike in January. In the hot temperatures of summer, it likely would be a lot less enjoyable. Very near by is a section of the desert that has been called the devil’s Cornfield. I do not really see it, but you can judge for yourself.

Lastly, we visited the sight of the original Borax mines. This brought back memories of the television commercials when I was a young child showing the “20 mule team Borax” ads for their laundry detergents. Borax was used in many different applications besides household use. This mine used Chinese labor recruited from San Francisco to extract the mineral along with the unwanted contaminates from the Death Valley Salt Pan and bring it to the process plant on sight, were the Borax was extracted and prepared for shipment by 20 mule team wagons to the nearest railhead 165 miles away.

Tonight we are preparing for the big winter storm that the weathermen have been talking about for days. We can only hope it will not be as cold and windy as they predict.

Ghost Town

Part of today’s adventure was to visit a ghost town near Death Valley. Gold was discovered in 1904 and by 1908 the newly build town of Rhyolite had a population of 10,000. However, the mines began to fail at the peak of the building process. By 1910, the population was down to 675. By the time the town jail was completed, there was literally no one left to arrest.

After the mines failed and most of the population left, the following decades saw a large number of squatters occupy parts of the town buildings that were not removed by the miners as they moved on to the next gold rush town. They used and abused the property until it was left in total disrepair. The Bureau of Land management now manages the facility and has hopes of improving the site. There is a couple working as volunteers at the site to start the recovery process. The former caretaker had left a number of “art objects” outside the cottage where he lived. This building was constructed with 25,000 bottles that were left over from the apparently wild parties in the town. The other irony of the town remains is that the building that is most intact appears to be a building that was used by “the ladies of the evening”.

Death Valley pictures

a few more pictures