South Pass Stories

  Sherlock Hotel It's Sunday- our Friday- the end of our first week volunteering at South Pass City. I worked in the archives again this morning. I found a few use items regarding Walter Lovejoy, online, that will be helpful in my Lovejoy Diaries project. I also spent a hour or so photographing invoices from the Smith Sherlock Company Store for the year 1910. Most of the invoices photograph well. A couple didn't look usable. I uploaded one of these "poorer" photos into an OCR which read the invoice, extracted text and, surprisingly, successfully read a very faint handwritten annotation. I hope to photograph and extract text from invoices for at least a couple of years to track seasonality in the products ordered as a means of looking at the annual rhythm of life in South Pass City. Curtis the site maintenance supervisor stopped in for a bit. Jesse came along a bit later, They had successfully evicted the cattle from yesterday, although we expect them to return.  I ope...

Cattle visiting South Pass City Saturday. Our second day of volunteering. Connie and I spent the morning in the archives (8-12), at which time I left to open the Smith Sherlock Company Store. Connie stayed on in the archives reading some volunteer-related documents Joe had given her. She joined me in Smith Sherlock Company Store in mid-afternoon. She left the store for a bit and on her return saw several cattle in town. By the time I got outside, only four were to be seen. The site is surrounded by BLM grazing land. Compared to the sagebrush on the outside, the grass truly was greener on the other side of the fence. It was a pretty cool and breezy day, which did not help encourage people to visit. We had 17 visitors to the store today.  Today as yesterday was a bit unusual, in my experience, that we had more visitors from Riverton than Lander. Riverton has a larger population, but is farther away.  Slow days like this occasionally are welcome, as they allow me to photograph an...

 Today, Friday, was my first official day, I spend the morning, 8-12, in the site archives, re familiarizing myself location and organization of digital materials, and researching Dr. Walter Lovejoy for the Lovejoy Diaries project I am working on. At noon, I opened the Smith Sherlock Company Store and greeted visitors, discussed the store and its history, and answered questions. Connie spent part of the day with me to learn the history of the store and how to man it. The store is a lot of fun. There are a number of really interesting artifacts and display items that come with interesting stories, which I enjoy talking about. I closed the store at 4 PM. We had 18 people stop by the store while it was open. Not many, but it is still early in the season and greater numbers of visitors are expected starting next week when tours of the mine/mill and English tunnel begin. The most interesting visitors of the day were a group of four: two from Riverton and the other two from a small town ...

  View of South Pass City from the Miner's Exchange Saloon A busy day, but not too productive. Traveled to Rock Springs to get the truck serviced, grocery shop (32 oz frozen salmon fillets for $9.99), and then onto Southwest Wyoming Regional Airport to pick up Connie. A bit after I left for Wyoming, she flew to visit our daughter and family, and flew to Rock Springs to day. Fired up the pellet grill and baked a couple of frittatas for breakfasts over the next few (work) days. That was pretty much it for the day.

I arrived in South Pass City mid-morning on Thursday May 21 after a 1020 mile, four-day drive. I could have made it in three days, but decided to spend the night in Lander to fuel up, buy a few groceries, and relax. I checked in at the office, no one was there, but ran into Ashley, a site employee and caught up for a few minutes. Wonderful spring weather in South Pass City. As I was backing up the trailer, getting in and out of the truck to check placement in my camping pad, checking level, etc., it began to sleet, then snow. The temperature was in the 30s and the wind was blowing pretty hard. I got some assistance with backing up from Jesse, one of the seasonal employees, and Curtis, a site employee. This save a number of extra in and outs from the truck. I unhitched the trailer, hooked up the water hose, power, and sewer line and hunkered down in the trailer and set up the inside from travel mode. A little later, warmed a bit, I set up the Starlink, and eventually put the landing g...

 I volunteered at South Pass City in May-October 2023.