Gold tales

February 24 (Saturday)
Regardless of what you do around the Lost Dutchman State Park your gaze always seems to shift to the Superstition Mountains at your back door. The changing light and shadows create ever-changing patterns on the mountain face. Truly an awesome spot to spend a few days.

On the way to the Park Friday we passed a couple of touristy spots we wanted to check out. The first was the Superstition Mountain Museum. We actually stopped in here on Friday to tour the inside museum. The day was cold and windy and we wanted to find something indoor to do. The museum was a reasonable $4/head and had some nice mineral and geological displays explaining the history of the Superstitions and some of the wildlife found in the area.

Not local but very interesting.

Beautiful Azurite 

Ring Tailed Cat

Ram sheep taking on a Cougar.

Road Runner

Gamble's Quail

Books on the Lost Dutchman Mine

Maps to help find the Lost Dutchman Mine

The star of this area is the Lost Dutchman Mine. Legend has it the miner known as the Dutchman found a rich strike of gold. He died and never revealed the location of his mine. There are many theories of course. Some folks are still looking.

There is actually a lot of gold still in these hills and many mines are active. If you want to strike it rich just find a chunk of ground, stake a claim and commence to digging, sluicing, panning, whatever it takes. Good luck!

On Saturday we returned to see the outside exhibits.

There were two burros to feed.

Ready to ride into the hills in search of gold.

Cheryl making a new friend.

Two buildings are part of the old Apacheland film set that burned down in the 1990's. The Church and the Barn were moved here from Gold Canyon where the film set was built and used for countless western movies.

The Elvis Presley film 'Charro' was one of the films.

The model trains were excellent! The detail of the miniatures was incredible. They leave the train landscapes setup all year long. They just put away the trains themselves when not on display.

There was lots of old mining gear to view.

Ore crusher

The cams that lift and then drop the pistons.

The pistons that crush the rock.

Cyanide wheel. Crushed ore and cyanide are mixed together. Helps separate the gold from the stones.

Another style of crusher. Horse or mule drawn. See story below.

Reconstructed head frame. See story below.

Ore car with the Superstition Mountains in the background.

Always in the background was the Superstition Mountains.

An Arizona ghost town would not be complete without the gunfighters. They put on a good show. Still photos don't do it justice. Videos are hard to post given their file size. I'll have to look into YouTube or something.

Next we visited the Goldfield Ghost Town just down the road. Again, we first visited this place on the cold and windy Friday, which turns out was a good thing as the streets were deserted. Our return trip Saturday was a different story.

Some of the old buildings and recreations of Goldfield, AZ.

Gift shop!

Bordelo

Church

Bakeshop

Photo studio

You could take a train ride around the property.

You could pan for gold

Stamp mill for pounding rock into smll pieces.

Lots of these signs,......no sign of the culprits though.

Of course the gunfight in the street.

Apparently someone forgot to pay their bar tab. Oh, oh!

These boys are in a mess of trouble!

The Sheriff is laying down the law!

He didn't listen to the Sheriff.

Neither did these guys.

The Sheriff was wounded but he'll be ok!

Arisen from the dead to collect the tips!!

The sheriff has a prisoner........but he let her go for good behaviour!

The Superstition Mountains bathed in the lightof the setting sun.
........and that was Our View From Here!

From our campsite. Is that a view or what!

I'm lost for words. Sigh......