Once you get into town, though, silver is king. You see, Tonopah, Nevada, was one of the hot spots during the silver rush, being only a couple of hundred miles from the Comstock Lode in Virginia City, NV. The city is chocked full of old silver mining equipment dotting sidewalks and roads throughout town.
We decided to check into the Clown Motel first and foremost, to prepare for our haunting. Because of the collection of clowns and the next-door cemetery, it has been called "America's Scariest Motel." The owner is trying to back away from that reputation, though, and now says there are only happy clowns in the motel. Happy or haunting, there sure are a BUNCH of clowns in the lobby!
The rooms were shabby and in really poor repair with some exposed pipes and such, but we were there for the haunting. Definitely not a place to stay without the reputation.
It wasn't quite closing time for most businesses, so I decided to see if I could tour the Historic Mining Park before settling in for my haunting. Bruce wanted a nap, so I let him get a head start.
It was a really cool park. The guy that runs it took me around on the 4-wheeler and gave me a good historical look at the park. There are a handful of different mines on the property because the guy that initially staked it out, staked out a huge area and funded his initial mining operation by leasing out parcels to other miners. He showed me how you can see some of the seams of silver that are still in the rock but considered not large enough to be worth the cost of extracting it.
He talked to me about the process of extracting the silver - both from the ground and from the rocks - and the ways those processes advanced throughout the year. There were lots of different types and generations of equipment along the grounds.
They have a mining shaft that is preserved and you can see all the way down. In the waning light with long shadows, it was impossible to get a good shot, but I tried.
We went inside one of the shaft extraction buildings and saw the equipment used to core and bring up the rocks.
There was a setup of a tent the miners lived in while in camp.
And there were several seams and a collapsed "Glory Hole" that we saw.
There is also an inside museum with samples of different rocks from various mines around the world. It was definitely a neat place to visit. While I was there, there was a man who was mapping out the park and the various sites in it. He stopped us to talk while we were around, and said there was a potential new silver discovery not far from there, which would be excellent for the area. I asked the guy about buying a rock with silver in it, and he said he couldn't sell those because the mineral rights to the land are being disputed. So, he gave me one that somebody had picked up off the grounds of the park. Apparently, people who walk the park and find interesting rocks are welcome to keep those finds, but he can't sell any of them. If you find yourself in Tonopah, definitely stop in and have a look around.
I got back to the hotel in time to wake Bruce from his nap. He said he hadn't been haunted while I was gone, but the clowns were still looking at us from the walls.
If there was a haunting overnight, I slept through it. When I mentioned that to the manager, he said he was in one of the haunted rooms, and he hadn't experienced it yet, either. He said hauntings don't happen every night. I think we found the protectors. The Hole-In-The-Pipe Gang obviously keeps the ghosts in the cemetery and out of the rooms. Here they are, lined up for morning inspection between the cemetery and the motel!
The cemetery next door is in the process of being restored by the Historical Society. They're trying to map out the graves, not all of which are even still marked.
Some of the graves have been kept up by descendants of the decedent, like this one with a fence around it, and a bell to notify you if their spirits are around.
My favorite is the pipes sticking into the ground so they can breathe!
According to the walking tour brochure you can pick up at the gate, these brothers died in a mining accident at the Belmont Mine. The brochure gives you a bit of insight of the private lives of the people of Tonopah in the early 1900s, and it's quite interesting. And you can visit the cemetery wherever you stay or if you just pass through.
One of the people buried here is the town hero, William "Big Bill" Murphy. He died in the Belmont Mine Fire of 1911, when he re-entered the mine for the third time to try to bring out others who were trapped below. There is also an iron statue erected in front of the post office depicting Big Bill carrying out one of the fallen miners.
Tonopah is a neat place to visit, but if you stay overnight and want breakfast to go, be sure to wake up early. We stopped for gas, and I went in to find something for breakfast. They had a biscuit sandwich area, so I looked for a sausage, egg, and cheese or some other breakfast biscuit. All they had were lunch type sandwiches, though. They said all the breakfast sandwiches had already been sold out, and they were making lunch sandwiches now. It was 8:30 a.m.!! So with our bag of Hostess strawberry powdered donuts we left town.
No comments:
Post a Comment