Friday, January 18, 2019

Abandoned Houses - Memories and Structures

I'm flying solo (more or less) at the shop for the next few days. Chickie is off today doing the last of her packing and getting ready for the BIG MOVE tomorrow. Then she'll be back at the apartment on and off over the next week or so cleaning, patching, and getting it ready to return to the landlord along with the keys. Places always look so different after furniture and items have been removed. Walls that held memories of discussions, laughter and tears echo aimlessly until new lives come in to imprint upon them. The old adage of "If these walls could speak" sets up residence once more and lives move on. 



This is Ashcroft, Colorado, also known as Chloride and several other
names. It's located ten miles south of Aspen. In my mining book I
was writing for several years, one main characters lives in Chloride
until the 1930's. 



One of the things I adore is the exploration of old houses. There aren't as many of those around these days as there were when I was young, but my youth was spent exploring in places I very specifically was NOT supposed to enter. My summers, if you might recall, were spent in Aspen, Colorado, which at that time was still a sleepy old mining town just finding its feet and a new life with the arts during the summer and skiing in the winter. Throughout the town were old, abandoned miner's houses and shacks, because it's too high in altitude with weather too grim for too many months for camping out alongside the Roaring Fork river. 



Quite a few miles south of Ashcroft and Aspen, closer to the
border of Colorado and New Mexico, was the town of Animas.
This mining shack still stands, paying homage to those who
worked the mines. 



My parents rented, and then purchased, one of these old abandoned houses. It was actually pretty well kept up - inhabited regularly so patched and painted. It dated from the 19-teens, so it was an older house, although not as old as some. The walls were thick - almost a foot thick. That was for the purpose of insulation and structural integrity against the winter cold winds and the heavy snowfalls. There were windows present in each room, but wall dominated each exterior expanse. There was a front porch - a bit rickety so we rarely used it, and a back entry directly into the kitchen which was our normal way in and out. A side yard allowed for our construction of a more modern house a few years later when we split the lot in half. 



OK, this isn't a home, this is the Crystal Mine, near
Marble, Colorado. I remember a few car trips to Marble
in my summers while in Aspen. The Crystal Mine
is nestled deep in the hills. Although people still
live in the area, access is difficult so the residents
are summer residents only. 



I explored throughout the town and on many of the streets, abandoned houses were the norm. They were settled in their weathered wood, surrounded by waving grasses and weeds, and the music of the grasshoppers and squeaks of the mice sometimes sang along with the ever-present breeze. I always had to be careful - some of the flooring wasn't safe to walk on, and the houses were mostly pit foundations - holes dug for cold storage cellars, large boulders in the corners to hold up the housing structure, and quite the fall into darkness if the flooring gave way. Exploring the homes was exciting and I couldn't resist their siren's call. 



The mining town of St Elmo, Colorado was founded in 1880. It's up
high - more than 9000 feet above sea level. When mining was at its
peak, more than 2000 people lived here. The town was abandoned
in the 1920's and is on the National Register of Historic Places. It's
a lovely ghost town, with a lot of similarities to the Aspen I
knew as a child. 



Did you ever do something in your youth that you probably shouldn't have done? I'm sure we were all guilty of something in our past. If you're up to it, share with me. I'm going to put abandoned houses into this post, bundle up, and go out into the cold. We're getting a nice cold snap now and are getting our coldest temps of the season thus far. BRRRRR! Have a great Friday and I'll be back tomorrow. 




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