In Sharp focus: In search of forgotten ghosts

Fulfillment of a life long dream!

Ever since I can remember I have been fascinated by the old west and I grew up watching old westerns. It always struck me, how the towns all seemed to be laid out the same way in every movie. I do not remember the first time I heard of a ghost town, but at the moment I understood what they were, I had to see one. Well, as most of you know, life has a way of getting in the way of our dreams, it just so happens, life worked in my favor. My good friend Joe and I hit the road in search of a forgotten ghosts. I just needed a place to start! I had never been to Great Basin National park and since it is so close to Ely, Nevada, I thought this would make a great base camp.

On the way in to the park, some of the residents (I'm assuming here) or persons unknown to me, decided to place art and other novelties along the road to the entrance. Among them were a map of the solar system with balls and other unidentifiable materials attached to fences. The first one we noticed, was a basket ball marked Jupiter. My favorite however, was this gem!

Evidently, someone had repurposed a horse skeleton and gave it, it's own set of wheels, minus the wheels, of course! Notice the pun? After a few pictures, we headed into the park to find a camping spot. We drove up to Wheeler peak to take a look around, let me tell you; that's quite the road. A five thousand foot climb and you never really leave the Pinion pines behind. Surprisingly, there was quite the smattering of aspen trees thought the mountain, giving some much needed contrast!

Once camp was set, we tried to get a ticket to Lehman cave, however they were all sold out. The rangers in the visitor center were very friendly and more than willing to share what they knew about local ghost towns. I purchased a book published in 1984 and it was full of information about Nevada's ghost towns. It is very outdated and needs to be updated badly. I will not mention the name since I do not have permission and I didn't find in very useful. We did however, pick up a pamphlet put out by three local counties and it was very helpful! They were available at nearly every station in Ely. After a quick view, our first stop was Hamilton, nearly 117 miles from base camp. Once there however, it became evident that there had been many eras in which the town was occupied.

This was a tin roofed structure, that seemed newer than the remaining stone structures or remnants.

Even the liter was full of history!

Steel cans with aluminum tops!

According to the pamphlet we had, the town was called cave city at one point, due to the first residents slept in caves. Not sure if these are any of them. There was one with a large cavern big enough to live in.

Looks like some thing lives and eats here, even a few bird nests, as seen above.

After the caves, we took a look at we believe to be a smelter.

There were three other structures we guessed were smaller smelters or ovens.

A newer addition?

Coal?

At one point a more modern outfit moved in and left quite a bit of stuff!

It'll buff out, right?

Instead of a wash plant, they switched over to a modern method, I'll bet some clean up will be needed!

Remnants of a very large motor.

This building completely stumped us, it appears to have a sealed chamber underneath it, another oven or hot house?

On the way out of town.

Another quick check of the pamphlet lead us to Belmont Mill, a mill of some type about five miles west of Hamilton.

This was one cool place, not sure if it was haunted, however there were many unexplained noises, Just saying! behind the mill we found overturned cars, riddled with bullets! How did they get overturned and by whom? We didn't have any idea who made the cars, there was one hood that has Starfire on it.