Guess the City 165: Ghost Town Edition 11

[Super Amputee Cat]

Been a while since we've done one of these

This from the web:

"The ghost town of __ was a company town, and, when the mining company went under in the 1950s, the employees' homes were sold off for a dollar apiece and hauled away. Many of the houses wound up in the communities of ____ and _______ to the south. What was left....,a line of old shop buildings, most of which have all but collapsed.

 

[JNA]

Please give some more hints or clues please.

 

[Cardinal]

I think we can rule out Nevada and Arizona. I am guessing somewhere in Colorado or New Mexico?

 

[ludes98]

It was google-able. I won't guess so others can. Not Colorado, not New Mexico.

 

[mgk920]

It was google-able. I won't guess so others can. Not Colorado, not New Mexico.

I'll say that it's either Calumet, MI or someplace in the Messabi Iron Range (Minnesota).

Mike

 

[JNA]

I found it also, thanks to the lead from ludes98. ;-)
The state has not been guessed yet.
Interesting story.

 

[Super Amputee Cat]

I found it also, thanks to the lead from ludes98. ;-)
The state has not been guessed yet.
Interesting story.

Ludes and JNA seem to be on the right track. But how did you Google it when I took out the key words? Or did you just google the rest of the quote> I guess I should have paraphrased.

 

[ludes98]

Ludes and JNA seem to be on the right track. But how did you Google it when I took out the key words? Or did you just google the rest of the quote> I guess I should have paraphrased.

The phrase "when the mining company went under in the 1950s, the employees' homes were sold off for a dollar apiece and hauled away." was google-able. If I hadn't googled it, I would never have guessed. I read an article from 2002 on the town and the ongoing dispute over the land and access. It was an interesting read.

 

[The One]

Jeffrey City Wyoming?

Has to be a uranium mining town right....?

 

[Lee Nellis]

NOT jeffrey City, which was only founded in the 1950's. I'm trying to think of where a company has hauled away a town. The hills don't appear to be near enough in to be Hiawatha, but I am wondering if it was/is in Utah?

 

[JNA]

I'm trying to think of where a company has hauled away a town. .... but I am wondering if it was/is in Utah?

I am sorry :-$ no

 

[Super Amputee Cat]

NOT jeffrey City, which was only founded in the 1950's. I'm trying to think of where a company has hauled away a town. The hills don't appear to be near enough in to be Hiawatha, but I am wondering if it was/is in Utah?

No, it's in California

 

[nerudite]

I would guess by the landscape it is on the west side of the Sierras, likely in the foothills north of Sacramento. It's flat though, where most of the towns were up in the canyons or in the foothills themselves. I'll guess the town of Cherokee, which was a diamond mine rather than the typical gold mine. I think it was in either Sutter or Yuba county, which is about the area I'm guessing the photos above were taken.

 

[ludes98]

I would guess by the landscape it is on the west side of the Sierras, likely in the foothills north of Sacramento. It's flat though, where most of the towns were up in the canyons or in the foothills themselves. I'll guess the town of Cherokee, which was a diamond mine rather than the typical gold mine. I think it was in either Sutter or Yuba county, which is about the area I'm guessing the photos above were taken.

The (former) Californian is close!! It is in Yuba County. The article I read about the town made no mention about the type of mining. Maybe SAC will post a brief after it is guessed.

 

[nerudite]

The (former) Californian is close!! It is in Yuba County. The article I read about the town made no mention about the type of mining. Maybe SAC will post a brief after it is guessed.

I rule! Well, that's as far as I can get without googling. Someone else will probably have to take it from here...

 

[JNA]

...which was a diamond mine rather than the typical gold mine.

Sorry No on diamond,
Q. What do you consider as the typical gold mine - Hard Rock, Hydraulic or Dredging ?

The article I read about the town made no mention about the type of mining.

The article I read mentioned it was
"As the gold was finally exhausted, the debris itself proved to be valuable. Aggregate, the mix of sand and gravel that makes up the ______landscape today,..."

 

[Cardinal]

Sorry No on diamond,
Q. What do you consider as the typical gold mine - Hard Rock, Hydraulic or Dredging ?[/I]

Placer. (Pronounced "plasser.")

 

[JNA]

Thank you Cardinal for correcting me.

Hard Rock Mine - A hard rock mine is a tunnel that is dug into solid rock for the sole purpose of finding valuable or precious rocks, minerals, or metals. Gold originates deep within the earth in places called Pockets. The pockets are filled with gold, heavy ore, and quartz.

Placer Mines - Placer Mines are in the categories of mining through the use of water. It involves mining gold that has been washed away from it's motherlode (or source) and deposited in small cracks, holes, or sand bars in the mainstream of a river. Some Placer Mining involves working bench gravels. Hydraulic giants take advantage of the bench deposits and recover gold from these ancient river-borne gravels.

Bucket Line Dredge - Unlike the modern, small scale dredges; a bucket line dredge was very large. Instead of sucking up water and gravel through the use of water pressure, the bucket line dredges would scoop it up and run it through a long sluice box. Only 10 cents of gold was needed for each square yard of material to make a profit back when these dredges were common in the 1890s and on into the early 1900s.

Hydraulic "Giant" or Monitor - The firehose-type nozzles that sprayed huge amounts of water on hillsides to recover gold out of them.

Best and simple definitions found from:
http://www.or.blm.gov/roseburg/china_ditch/Pages/glossary.html

 

[nerudite]

Sorry No on diamond,
Q. What do you consider as the typical gold mine - Hard Rock, Hydraulic or Dredging ?

Heh... I didn't mean there is a typical gold mine. I mean diamonds were weird for that area, which is why I remembered that ghost town name. Almost every other ghost town in the area is due to gold mining, not diamonds...

 

[Woonerf]

I'll guess the town of Cherokee, which was a diamond mine rather than the typical gold mine. I think it was in either Sutter or Yuba county, which is about the area I'm guessing the photos above were taken.

First a correction. Cherokee is located in Butte County, near Oroville ("Gold Town" or "Town of Gold").

My guess is Timbuctoo, Yuba County, California.

 

[ludes98]

I just noticed that SAC never revealed the town on this one. The town was Hammonton! The article I read is still available here. I don't know what I was thinking in my earlier post, the article I read did mention gold and gravel mining. What was I thinking?

 

[nerudite]

First a correction. Cherokee is located in Butte County, near Oroville ("Gold Town" or "Town of Gold").

Heh... my mistake.

 

[Super Amputee Cat]

I just noticed that SAC never revealed the town on this one. The town was Hammonton! The article I read is still available here. I don't know what I was thinking in my earlier post, the article I read did mention gold and gravel mining. What was I thinking?

Another victim of the Google :-$

I had forgotten completely about this one.