Texasgopher
Sr. Member
I thought I would do a tutorial of sorts on a ghost town I will be hunting this winter. I will post all info that I wish to disclose and nothing more. The land is private property, but is still relatively accessible to trespassers. This will be an ongoing post and I will add stuff as more research and info come available.
The town was built in 1887. It was then bypassed by the railroad in the 1920s. Through the remainder of that decade the town was moved to the the location that the railroad ran through. The population declined until 1948 when it was, reported by census, to have no residents. After much research, TODAY we finally got ahold of the current owners of the private property were the town once was. We were worried about what he would say, but we explained that we weren't just a couple of bum treasure hunters but that we really cared about researching, recovering, preserving and sharing history with others.To our excitement he gave us explicit permission to hunt the property. I was so nervous that when he said "sure that would be fine" that I actually said "well we wanted to bring metal detectors." The owner said "sure that's not a problem." !!!!YES!!!! we are IN! We assured him that we would be careful and would do no harm to the property. Well we lucked out on this one. He said that his brother has an old map of the town, including where the drug store and bank used to be all on DIRT roads. We have done a lot of research and already knew exactly where the town was originally located, but have never found a map like the one he was offering. It gets even better. He told us that he will be near the property during Christmas and, if the timing works out, he would like to meet us there and show us around. He even offered to take us to the site of an old dugout where his great grandparents used to live close to the town.
I know this post is a bit early, but I thought some of you might enjoy the process we are going through on this adventure. The estimated time of the actual hunt will start December 27th 2009. As soon as I get more info I'll post it here. The owner is supposed to get the map for us and I'll try to scan that and post it as well. I really hope this all goes to plan. If it does, it will be one of the most exciting hunts we have ever done. HH and wish us luck!
The town was built in 1887. It was then bypassed by the railroad in the 1920s. Through the remainder of that decade the town was moved to the the location that the railroad ran through. The population declined until 1948 when it was, reported by census, to have no residents. After much research, TODAY we finally got ahold of the current owners of the private property were the town once was. We were worried about what he would say, but we explained that we weren't just a couple of bum treasure hunters but that we really cared about researching, recovering, preserving and sharing history with others.To our excitement he gave us explicit permission to hunt the property. I was so nervous that when he said "sure that would be fine" that I actually said "well we wanted to bring metal detectors." The owner said "sure that's not a problem." !!!!YES!!!! we are IN! We assured him that we would be careful and would do no harm to the property. Well we lucked out on this one. He said that his brother has an old map of the town, including where the drug store and bank used to be all on DIRT roads. We have done a lot of research and already knew exactly where the town was originally located, but have never found a map like the one he was offering. It gets even better. He told us that he will be near the property during Christmas and, if the timing works out, he would like to meet us there and show us around. He even offered to take us to the site of an old dugout where his great grandparents used to live close to the town.
I know this post is a bit early, but I thought some of you might enjoy the process we are going through on this adventure. The estimated time of the actual hunt will start December 27th 2009. As soon as I get more info I'll post it here. The owner is supposed to get the map for us and I'll try to scan that and post it as well. I really hope this all goes to plan. If it does, it will be one of the most exciting hunts we have ever done. HH and wish us luck!
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Good post which I will look forward to following. Good luck!
