South Pass Stories

      Looking down South Pass Avenue into town. Today was a pretty quite day. We are off, having survived the first week of school tours. Connie did laundry today- mostly to clean our work shirts. I walked down to the office and spent most of the day in the archives working on my Lovejoy presentation. I knew the 22nd was out there, but really wasn't paying attention until Connie got a bit animated about it last night: It's next week.  Most of my recent "struggle" with the presentation has been what kind of narrative line I want to pull through the different stories and facts. I resolved this today, reorganized my slides, and created a couple of signs that allow me to break the presentation down into different time periods and stages of his career.  So, I just need to draft a few more text slides and I'm done. I headed back to the trailer to make dinner.  The weather has turned to fall lately and we haven't seen any hummingbirds for the past several days. Co...

      The Carissa mine (hoist and shaft houses) in the foreground, mill in the mid-ground, and the Oregon Buttes in the distant background. I stopped to take this photograph because of the excellent light and different angle. I like this one! I went down to the office this morning and met up with Gator. Nothing planned, we were just the first two in. We chatted a few minutes and then Connie came in and left. I t took us a few minutes to figure out that she had went on a walk about to open the town. Gator left to attend to his activities and I went into the archives where, I guess, I was supposed to be. So, I worked on.  Connie came in a bit later and discussed the small school tour she was helping with. I remember days like this in the past- working all day in the archives: the tasks are fine, but there I get an odd feeling of disconnect. I don't know whether the town was busy or not, where were the visitors from, etc.  My day in the archives was productive, so ...

  This morning was largely a repeat of yesterday. We had another school group in, 100+ fourth graders and again telling the same story eight times. I then worked in the archives for a bit.  At 2:00, we met up at the Carissa parking lot and met up with a group that is conducting drilling operations to collect rock cores from beneath the old Hidden Hand and Burr mines in the Lewiston Mining District, now a ghost town, about 12-15 miles from South Pass City. The tour was conducted by Rob Bergman, the CEO of Relevant Gold, a company that is modern techniques to try to locate gold deposits in this area.  He showed us the equipment they were using, how they were attempting to locate gold, and discussed in considerable detail the geology of the area. We visited and discussed the Hidden Hand Mine, which Connie and I had visited a few weeks ago with Jan on the way back from the Radium Springs trip. While we were at the Hidden Hand, Rob, pointed out the Burr Mine in the distance, I...

    Smith Sherlock Company Store. Connie and I walked down to the office this morning and chatted a bit with Gator. Connie then went off with Joe to open the town. I worked for a bit in the archives and realized I had left my building key back at the trailer. I went and retrieved it and then went down to the Smith Sherlock Company Store to set up a few things for the tour(s). We will host around 110 fourth-graders. They arrived close to on time, in two buses, and then the fun began. One bus load went up to the Carissa mine and mill for a quick tour. The others were divided into four groups which then were sent to different areas of the town- the Store being one of them. I walked down to the store with the first group and gave a short history presentation/tour of the store. It went well, considering I really hadn't done this in two years.  Afterwards, that group went on to their next station, gold panning, and I got another group. Eight groups in all. It is a bit tiring- k...

      I took this photograph of the rear of the Miner's Exchange Saloon yesterday. I don't think I have seen a photo taken from this angle.  We got up a little slowly this morning. Connie made coffee and then I made shakshuka for breakfast. The morning started off chilly, so the warm dish really hit the spot. I read for a bit while Connie started laundry, I eventually got motivated enough to drive into Lander for a few groceries. I got back about lunch time, so we had lunch while the smoker heated. I then smoked several ears of corn and then hamburgers for lunches over the the next few days.  Our schedules are shifting from Fri-Sat-Sun,  to Tues-Wed-Thurs, after Labor Day weekend, for school tours.  Today was cool. Although the high was in the 60s, it was really windy. A nice day for indoor activities. I did research research most of the day and Connie worked on her computer and read. We had dinner and then she began baking (on the stove) the Engl...

        Looking across the billiards table to the bar.   Gator and I met up this morning at a little before 8:00 for our last Miner's Exchange Saloon soda pop run for the summer. It was a nice morning, but cooler mornings are on the horizon.   After the soda pop run, I went into the Archives and Gator went off looking for an adhesive to help re-situate a belt on the stamp mill. After a couple of hours, Gator came back looking for a hand to get the belt on. I rode out to the stamp mill with him and thought we had a morning work ahead of us. We got that rascal back on in about five minutes. Gator fired up the stamp mill and everything went well.   Well, back to the archives for a bit and then, at noon, I opened the saloon. It was a quiet day, not real slow, or so it seemed, as there were a fair number of people walking the town; however, as always, many just walk on past the bridge that leads to this side of town.   Today, again, I had a few CDT hik...