HAPPY GROUNDHOG DAY TO
EVERYONE!!!
This morning
the groundhog told us 6 more weeks of winter if you believe
him. I was curious about his accuracy so I checked it
out. In his over 100 years of predicting he has an
accuracy rating of only 39%. So I guess we’ll wait and
see.
Up until this
week we’ve had a warmer than normal winter since Christmas.
Temps stayed about 30 at night and low 60’s during the
daylight hours. The last couple of days and for the
foreseeable future we are back to almost normal. Below
20 at night and low 40’s during the day. We’re glad
Gold Point isn’t in the mid-west upper plains states where 20
below is normal and 20 above is a heat wave. Lol.
Before going
forward lettuce back up a little.
We saw a 25%
increase in friendly guests for our annual day after
Thanksgiving dinner. We hit the 50 mark for the first
time in since 2008. Funny? Wasn’t that the
beginning of the “great recession”?? Hmmm? Would
that be ironic or coincidental?? Oh well. We
thank everyone again for joining us.
We had about
75 Christmas cards exchanged with some of you out there.
We hope you enjoy them. Next year we’ll be making
available cards from the 1960’s. Using them the most
and reserving the 40’s and 50’s for special requests while
available. The 1960’s will hold us for a few years
before getting to the last decade we have which is the
1970’s. I figure we’ll be ok for at least another 10
years. That puts us to around 2025. If we are
still around then we’ll start recycling back the ones we got
when we started this program back in 2005. So that will
be at least 20 years of collecting from some of you.
Think of this. Maybe some of your youngins will grow up
and send us a card requesting a card you sent us. How
cool will that be!!
The
following is from our 16th newsletter dated
November 13, 2005 which is when I came up with this bright
idea:
Early in December Red Dog and I will
start sending out Christmas cards. This year they won't be
just any store bought card. I got something better and
special. Last week I was wrapped around the porcelain throne
at work when I had a revelation. No, I wasn't sick I was
installing and trimming wall covering in the bathrooms at
work silly.
Why not send out old used Christmas
Cards. No, not my old cards but the ones that Ora Mae Wiley
received while she was here for almost 50 years. For those
that don't know it, Ora Mae saved every letter and card ever
sent to her and Harry from the 30's to almost 1980. I have
them stored in the museum. I'll only send the ones that have
a complete envelope with a old stamp on it. They are not in
any order of years in the boxes so we don't know what years
will be sent. Inside Red Dog and I will put our greeting
insert with it. It's a piece of history. I'll have more than
enough to last me for another 32 years.
After
looking at our inventory more closely it looks like we may
not make the 32 years but over 20 for sure unless we get a
huge surge in interest. We’ve been averaging about 70
or so every year. So close to 400 in the past 9 years.
As
most of you know Red Dog has been retired for over a month
now and we are planning our first retirement trip for
Presidents Day/Valentines weekend in a couple of weeks to
Lake Havasu for their
25th Annual
Western Winter Blast Pyrotechnic Show.
Wow!!! What a display to see if you like fireworks.
3 nights of great displays of fireworks by different
manufactures from all over and all for free! If you
like fireworks and are looking for something to do that three
day weekend you should go on line and check it out. We
are staying 4 nights at the Blue Water Resort & Casino
in Parker about 30 minutes south. During the daylight
hours we plan on visiting other places.
Yuma Territorial Prison State Historic Park,
Quartzite rock show and
Castle Dome Mines Museum & Ghost Town for starters.
On
the way down we are going to Oatman, Arizona to visit our
friend Fred and pick up our order of Gold Point hats that he
has printed up for us and maybe feed a few of the friendly
burros that roam the streets.
Since
it has been warm here we’ve been able to work on some things.
First thing
was to re-install the old Gold Point Post Office sign.
Our friend John from California took it home with him last
time he was here in November to restore it. We haven’t
painted it for over 20 years and it was getting very faded.
John cut out letters this time matching the old painted
letters and then painted them with, what else, gold paint.
The letters were then screwed on from the back. It has
a heavy coat of exterior gold paint that will and should last
for many years. Way in the future when that paint chips
off the letters will still be very visible since they are now
cut out raised letters of about ½ inch or so. We thank
John for this. If anyone is interested in seeing a
couple of photos of the sign just send us a request.
John also made
a kitchen sink cabinet for the Gold Central cabin next door
which in 1908 was the Gold Central Restaurant.
Eventually it will have a wash sink. There are 2 doors
that open up under where the sink will be and some drawers to
the right of those. Some of the 1 x 12’s that were
taken out during
restoration/remodeling were used on the face to give an old
west look. Dennis and John installed it a few days ago
and it looks great.
John and
Dennis have also been redoing the ceiling in Ora Mae’s
bedroom where we had the leak for so many years that we
fixed a while back and talked about the a previous
newsletter. We removed two sheets on a part of the
ceiling that was a foot lower than the rest of the bedroom.
We matched the stain to the rest of the bedroom the best we
could and it looks really good. I was also able to
finish painting above the wainscot on the north wall.
Now we just have to get in and vacuum and clean up and move
the furniture back.
They’ve
replaced the bad ceiling in the post office also and are
currently finishing up working on the south wall on both
sides of the door that joins the post office to the Wiley
residence.
The other day I went in
the post office with our shop vac and cleaned up everything.
I think I even vacuumed up some of the original dust that was
there when we bought the place back in 1981. What a
difference even without the walls not complete. Our
plan is to get it back to looking like the post office that
Ora Mae worked in for 25 years. We’re going to
make it less cluttered also by removing and storing in the
attic, after going thru them first of course, some more bags
of the old letters and such that Ora Mae saved over the
years. The first bag I grabbed and went through had
stuff dated mostly from 1939 and later into the 40’s.
Some were old invoices for the M. C. Kelly store that Harry
and Ora Mae bought and operated up until maybe 1960.
A major
project was redoing the pump house attached to the Senator’s
home. The hot water heater finally rusted through and had to
be replaced. The underground supply pipe coming from
the 5000 gallon storage tank about 20 feet away also had to
be replaced because of leaks and bad connections. We
now have a new ball valve on the storage tank and three new
ones in the pump house. New stainless steel flex lines
connect the hot water heater now with a shut off for the
Senator’s home and another for the private saloon.
We also
updated the wiring in the pump house and the whole kitchen,
dining room and bathroom has new electrical supply wires with
another breaker so as to handle the usage better without
popping them by overload.
I know you
might think this is a little early but it’s not. We
have just short of 4 months before our annual Memorial
Day/Paranormal Weekend Festivities. Last year our bean
counters came up with 150 visitors. We’ll have a flyer
available in the near future for those interested.
Alkali Flats, the band we had last year, is unable to make it
this year so if anyone knows anything about a band that might
be interested in coming up to entertain everyone please
lettuce know. Ghost Town Operations are planning on
returning again this year with their Dinner with a Ghost and
ghost hunting tours.
We’ve had two
Friends of Gold Point, Rob and Patti, send us some old
photos of our little camp. Rob has sent us 4 photos
from the mid 60’s. The best one is an aerial photo of
the town. He is working on a cd that will have a lot of
photos from that era which should be finished by Memorial
Day. It shows Gold Point back when there were just a
lot of wood buildings before the latest generation of
residents moved in like yours truly.
Patti has sent
us some photos from around 1941 when her dad was in the Gold
Point school as a 1st grader and her grandmother
worked in the mines kitchen as cook and dishwasher.
Patti is curious if anyone knows about Perry Bowers who was
here at that time. There is one photo of her Uncle
Donald in front of the Gold Point school house on his bike.
Another photo is of a group of school children sitting
alongside the school with the teacher and another of some
miners at one the entrance to one of the Gold Point mines.
We thank them
very much. It’s always nice to see old Gold Point.
Anyone interested in seeing the photos just has to write us
back and ask.
The last thing
to tell you about is that another Friend of Gold Point,
Panamint Paul, has sent us a video from Vimeo which shows
Gold Point from a month ago during his visit. So if
you’d like to see pictures of today’s Gold Point just lettuce
know and I’ll forward you the link. The beginning of
the video starts out in Death Valley and then moves to Gold
Point then on to other interesting places. The whole
video is interesting to those interested in history of the
area.
And now my
favorite of the newsletters another episode from “Tales from
the not so old West”
This episode
is from May 24th 1908 Goldfield Daily Tribune Vol.
2 no. 244 Sunday’s copy.
“four horse
load gold ore first shipment of new camp. The first
shipment from the Frances Lime Point Mining company’s ground
passed through town yesterday, and its advent attracted a
great deal of attention. Another mine has been added to
the Hornsilver camp, and judging from the assays it is about
as good ore as has been mined in the camp up to date, with
values that run principally in gold. The company
commenced work ten days ago on what is known as block 4, on
the Sunset lode of the Lime Point Mining and Milling
company’s estate, where there is an incline shaft down 80
feet. In doing this work, the owners of the property
threw out on the dump all the likely looking quartz that was
run through and it was piled up separately. It panned
well, but no shipments were made from it.
A few weeks ago J.
Prescott Dyos went to Hornsilver for the purpose of making a
thorough examination of the new camp. He took his time
about the inspection and finally found what he was looking
for in the lease which he secured. He made a general
sample of the ore on the ore dump, in the nature of a mill
run, and was a little surprised when the assay certificate
showed that it carried gold values at the rate of $115.20,
and silver $1.22. in the bottom of the shaft there
appears to be three feet of this kind of ore, as a sample
taken from t went equally as well as the ore in the dump.
This first four horse wagon load was taken to the Western Ore
Purchasing company where it will be sampled today.
The company is
installing a plant or machinery and other equipments that
cost $3000, and it is the intention to sink a shaft with all
possible sped to the 125 foot point. if the roe is
found to be as good there as at the present depth a three
compartment vertical shaft will be put down with three
shifts. The company has secured very favorable
conditions in regard to the lease. It looks like a mine
already, and that a good bargain was struck when the lease
was secured can be readily understood when it is known to run
for two years. the royalties are 10 per cent on ores
running less than $50, fifteen per cent on ore running less
than $100, and twenty per cent on rock up to $125, and all
above that figure it will be a flat royalty of 25 per cent.
The scene of
the new find is some two miles south and east of the Great
Western, in a formation that looks as though the ore bodies
would be permanent as depth was reached, with gold
values predominating. The ore shoot has been proven up
in shallow shafts and trenches for over 700 feet on the block
of ground and the lead can be traced for a long distance
after the boundaries of the Frances Lime Point company’s
ground is left.
That the camp has not been
named right is the belief of those who have gone in there
recently and who are finding more gold than silver. The
name is misleading, and many wished it had some other name,
as investors are liable to be misled in the belief that the
ore is of the white metal entirely. The company also
owns a group of five claims in the Cuprite district and of a
group of three know as the Frances group in the Hornsilver
district. It is the intention to carry on development
work on them also.”
Well, a deep subject,
that’s all for now folks. Thanks for reading and we
hope you enjoyed.
happy trails and sunsets
Sheriff Stone and/or Red
Dog Lil
