llanos del rio

[yournewneighbor]

Hey i'm brand new to mding. i think its fun. And i was looking through california ghost towns. if anybody would like to go with me. If anyway wants to check it out together lets do it. Its close to Palmdale right off pearblossom hwy. I have never been so it would take some scouting out. But come on an abandoned town. i dont really know anything about it. It just seems cool. So if you have any info lets hear it.

http://www.ghosttowns.com/states/ca/llanodelrio.html

[Tom_in_CA]

I've passed by those ruins. But since you're new to this, let me save you some time. For just goofing off, getting out, and taking a stab, no problem. But if you think it's going to be productive (ie.: coins and/or easy pickens), I think you're going to be dissapointed.

For starters, ANY place in those ghost-town type guide-books, are the places to avoid, from the git-go. Anything that is easily researched out like that in readily available "Sunset Home & Gardens" coffee table style "Ghost towns of the West" type books, are sure to be either places turned in to tourist traps, or ...... if they are just crumbling ruins, have been hammered by every Tom Dick & Harry since the dawn of detectors. I mean, go figure, in your neck of So. Ca, there has been no lack of active md'rs combing the ghost towns down there since even the 1960s (bottle diggers) and detecting (all through the '70s and '80s), pulverizing the cr*p out of any easy-to-research spot, that you can just pull over your RV to (visible right on the sides of the road, in this case, so certainly "no secret").

In the mid '90s, a friend and I toured so. CA, AZ, and NM, taking all the back-roads with glossy coffee-table style "ghost towns of the west" type books in hand. We soon learned that those were the last places you'd want to go. Even the ones that were remote, and you had to drive dirt roads to get to, were invariably full of partier's junk (4-wheelers going back to party, shoot off their guns everywhere in target practice, etc....). We did much better on the trip trying to find places that WEREN'T in any easily available historical citations. Ie.: like fort sites, with only a passing mention in obscure books, but not in any of the others. Or quite simply, stumbling on to urban demolitions in old-town districts, or finding our own ruins out in the deserts (chimneys or foundations in the middle of nowhere, not specifically connected to a "ghost town".

Lastly, look closely at the record of the location you linked. Notice that it's this side of the century, for starters, and lasted only a few years. If age is any factor in your choice of places to hunt, you can see that you'd do just as well to simply hunt yards of turn-of-century homes, in older-city districts around you. I mean, sure, it's funner to get a barber dime in a ghost town, than it is to get it in a turfed park or yard, I agree. But just throwing that out there.

[Mackaydon]

You have chosen a very historic ghost town. Google will provide you with much more information including pics of what it looked like during its brief history. You might try to locate online a map of the 'town' and focus your attention on where the trash dump was located. Many of the weekenders and party goers as referenced above have no idea where that small area is--and some goodies may still await discovery. Enjoy the trip, if for no more than the adventure.
Don.....

[yournewneighbor]

That was quite an answer. I didnt know it was in ghost town books, i've never even heard of ghost town books. I just saw it online and posted it. Not that i'm telling you how to write your posts, but a "that place probably doesnt have anything it has been hunted too many times to count" would have sufficed. thanks for the help.

[EagleDown]

Find me a map of the area near Lancaster, which would include a portion of hiway 138 and the San Fernando hiway, (out of L.A. to Lancaster,) and I'll show you a gulch that I prospected briefly and
took out gold nuggets from barely pickers up to 1 pennyweight in
size.

Oh, I should mention, the map would have to be prior to 1964. I
lost the gulch due to the construction of Interstate 5. But, if I had
a map, I'm sure that the gulch had parts that weren't covered when
the Interstate was put in.